[Tlc] T-protests

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Thailand: Protests Draw To A Close
Stratfor Today » April 14, 2009 | 2011 GMT 

HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images
A worker cleans the Ananta Samakon square near to the government office in Bangkok on April 14
Summary
As anti-government protesters abandon demonstrations in Bangkok, the government looks to have met its goal of restoring order by April 15. But the opposition has shown it can shake up the government, which still must deal with the deep-rooted divisions in Thai society while managing the economic crisis.

Analysis
Anti-government protests in Thailand are winding down on April 14, the third day of emergency security operations in Bangkok. Leading protest organizers have surrendered to police and remaining protesters have abandoned Government House, the prime minister’s office and the central site of the demonstrations, which began March 26. Meanwhile, Thai courts have issued arrest warrants for exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the force behind the mass protest movement, and 12 of his allies, who face allegations including illegal assembly, inciting violence and disturbing the peace. 
Thus the “Songkran crisis,” named for the Thai New Year holiday that coincided with this week’s disturbances, is drawing to a close, and it is becoming possible to take measure of the results.
First and foremost, the Democrat Party-led government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva appears to have survived, despite pressure from the protesters for Abhisit and members of his Cabinet to resign. The government also has met its objective of stopping the protests without spilling so much blood as to turn public opinion against it; about 123 people were injured during security operations, and the only two fatalities were Bangkok residents killed by protesters. On the public stage, the government needed to convince the country that the fates were in its favor in order to burnish its image and curry popular support, while making the opposition appear out of sync with the times. Internally, Abhisit’s government needed to show that it knew how to lead in order to retain the support of top military and security chiefs, the monarchy and the Bangkok bureaucracy. 




Click image to enlarge

This assertion of authority was especially necessary because, due to the events that brought it to power in December 2008, Abhisit’s 4-month-old government was destined to suffer an early crisis of legitimacy (as STRATFOR predicted at the time). That month, the Thai Constitutional Court ordered the breakup of the ruling People’s Power Party and banned its members from politics for five years. This led to a parliamentary reshuffle in which a critical faction defected from the defunct ruling party and joined the Democrats, creating a new ruling coalition that elected Abhisit to the top office. Supporters of the disbanded party viewed the court’s decisions as politically motivated and blamed the massive protests by the royalist, yellow-clad People’s Alliance for Democracy in the fall of 2008 for destabilizing the country and toppling a democratically elected government in preference for a government established by parliamentary politicking. Now, those supporters of the government toppled in December have waged a violent popular campaign against the Democrat-led government — and have failed to discredit it.
But the Abhisit government’s victory should not be overstated. Restoring law and order to Bangkok and neighboring regions was the bare minimum expected of a government under siege by violent mobs that attacked the prime minister’s private motorcade on two occasions, forced the cancellation of the high-profile summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its six regional partners and waged battles in the streets against police and the military for three days. Failure to contain the protests would have suggested serious flaws in the government’s authority and its relation to the state security apparatus. Had order not been restored in Bangkok, the disruptions would have continued beyond the April 13-15 Songkran holiday — the government’s window of opportunity -– making the security situation more chaotic when thousands of vacationers returned to the capital, and interfering with the resumption of normal business there.
In addition, as STRATFOR has argued, a prolongation of the turmoil after the government had declared a state of emergency would have shown the government to be impotent, increasing the chances of things spiraling out of control. The military might have been forced to employ harsher suppression tactics that would have been widely unpopular, or the government could have collapsed under internal and external pressures. In other words, a stalemate could have resulted in a bloody crackdown on the protesters or a political shake-up in favor of the opposition. It was even possible that an ongoing standoff could have triggered a military coup. The army would not necessarily have wanted to oust the sitting government, but it would not have wanted the security situation to devolve too far — and would not have allowed Thaksin to return to the country to seize power, as he said he was willing to do.
For these reasons, it will be a relief for the government to lift the state of emergency on April 15, the end of the holiday and the day by which the Red Shirts had demanded the prime minister resign. But it will be a limited victory.
The remaining Red Shirts, encircled by military and police at Government House, had little choice but to suspend their protests, though the group remains intact for future agitations. A few Red Shirt leaders have turned themselves over to police to save themselves from being detained by the military, knowing that the movement will fight another day. Prolonging the current protest would have been risky, as the Red Shirts sensed that the intensifying clashes between demonstrators and Bangkok residents – which led to the deaths of two residents — were generating negative publicity and hurting the movement’s image.
In other words, the Red Shirts have succeeded in showing that the opposition movement remains alive and well, and that it can shake the foundation of the government. For instance, they can declare victory at the “Battle of Pattaya,” when protesters overwhelmed the ASEAN+6 summit, and despite the small number of casualties from the military crackdown, they can still claim they are being oppressed. Crucially, the Red Shirts even caused Abhisit to state publicly that general elections will eventually need to be held when things quiet down (which is not necessarily soon). Their movement stands to benefit from elections, as it holds sway over the populous north and northeastern provinces and the still-active party machinery of Thaksin. The Red Shirts also have succeeded in creating an atmosphere of chaos comparable to that of the mass protests staged by their rivals the Yellow Shirts last year, so they are hoping the government will now appease them with amnesty legislation that would release some pro-Thaksin elements from entangling legal charges.
Finally, the opposition’s demonstrations have shaken the government amid an economic crisis that has seen Thailand’s exports drop dramatically and generated considerable stresses and strains, especially in the poorer rural areas, where the opposition is rooted. The Thai finance minister has revised official estimates of the country’s GDP growth in 2009 below current predictions of -2.5 to -3 percent, citing the expected blow to tourism from the protests. (His statement is politically motivated, but likely has a grain of truth). Politically, the government now has the upper hand by proving it can wield power, and has bought itself time to consolidate its authority and seek to pre-empt the opposition. Authorities will prosecute arrested protest leaders vigorously, and the new warrants issued against Thaksin and his proxies will give new life to efforts to track him down abroad or at least dismantle his network within Thailand. Abhisit has publicly refused to bargain with Thaksin, sending a message that the government does not intend to let things return to a status quo where Thaksin continues to pull strings within the country. But the government’s political gains will be offset and its freedom of movement constrained by the ongoing challenges of managing the deteriorating economy.
Thailand’s economic recovery, as well as its attractiveness to foreign investors and tourists, will not be aided by the fact that the divisions extending to the core of Thai society have not been mended and will continue to cause eruptions in future. Beyond the ideologies and political alignments of the current crisis, the rivalry will continue between Bangkok and the provinces –- a rivalry where each side’s respective networks of money and power divide the country’s most important institutions. Finally, Thailand is drawing close to a more fundamental crisis, when the revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the longest-reigning monarch in the world, passes away. Questions about the royal succession will create deep uncertainties about the country’s political foundations, exacerbating the inherent instability of the Thai system.


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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