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Thailand: A Provocative Assassination Attempt
Stratfor Today » April 17, 2009 | 2045 GMT 

PORNCHAI KITTIWONGSAKUL/AFP/Getty Images
Thai soldiers patrol Government House in Bangkok on April 17
Summary
Gunmen in Bangkok wounded prominent political figure Sondhi Limthongkul on April 17. The attempt on the life of Sondhi, the leader of the royalist, pro-government Yellow Shirts, is clearly a provocative political act — and will further sharpen the divisions in Thai society.

Analysis
Two gunmen armed with assault rifles wounded prominent and controversial political figure Sondhi Limthongkul in Bangkok on April 17, according to Thai media. Sondhi is the leader of the royalist and pro-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), also known as the Yellow Shirts. His car reportedly came under attack at a gasoline station at 5 a.m. local time, also wounding his driver and bodyguard.
The attack most likely was an assassination attempt on Sondhi, a key player in the political infighting that has divided Thailand in recent years. Sondhi is a wealthy telecommunications entrepreneur who was allied with former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra during Thaksin’s first term in office. In 2005, Sondhi broke from Thaksin and created the PAD, a group with a professed devotion to Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The Yellow Shirts were instrumental in leading the popular resistance against Thaksin, which culminated in a military coup that ousted him in 2006. When a new pro-Thaksin civilian government took office in 2007, and throughout 2008, the Yellow Shirts waged massive rallies, eventually even taking over Bangkok’s international airport. 
The Yellow Shirts ceased protesting after the Thai constitutional court dissolved the government at the time by decree in December 2008. The Democrat Party-led coalition of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva — which the Yellow Shirts for the most part support — replaced that government. This saga continued with widespread protests beginning March 26 by the opposite group, the pro-Thaksin Red Shirts — aka the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UFDD) — which lasted until April 14. The Red Shirt protests threatened to spiral out of the government’s control, but security forces quelled them after a weeklong crackdown ordered by Abhisit following an incident when the protesters attacked his motorcade and forced the cancellation of an Association for Southeast Asian Nations summit. 
In other words, an assassination attempt on Sondhi is a highly inflammatory political act. The Yellow Shirts and their sympathizers instantly have pointed to the Red Shirts’ organizers, and possibly even Thaksin himself, as responsible for the attempt. The situation could provoke new protests from the Yellow Shirts, although this group is roughly in line with the current government and may refrain from acting to preserve its advantage in that regard. Either way, with the Yellow Shirts having come so close to being decapitated (and losing a crucial source of financing), the tensions between the two groups are likely to grow even more hostile.
Beyond the two protest groups, the attempt on Sondhi’s life probably will aggravate divisions in Thai society at large, as well as between the differing elements within Thailand’s most powerful institutions, the military, police, bureaucracy, government and monarchy. Increased instability will complicate Abhisit’s attempts to seize the advantage against his rivals after crushing the popular protests meant to take him down, though the attack might lead some otherwise supportive members of the public to turn away from the Red Shirt cause.
Meanwhile, Bangkok has announced that it would not yet revoke the state of emergency 
that has been in effect in the capital and surrounding areas since April 12, though it sent mixed messages as to whether the assassination attempt had anything to do with its decision. Rumors are circulating throughout the capital that the UFDD plans to resume mass demonstrations when the state of emergency (which authorizes military deployment to assist police) is lifted. Ultimately, none of the fundamental causes of the recent unrest and instability 
 have been resolved. And with the global economic crisis worsening and adding to domestic problems, the domestic situation in Thailand retains the potential for volatility and violence.

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______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu