Tanks on the streets, television stations going off air and generals claiming to have seized power were events that had been consigned to history in Thailand. Or so most of the country thought, until Wednesday.
For, despite the political crisis that has engulfed the country over the past nine months, no one predicted the impasse created by opposition to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s alleged corruption and abuse of power would have anything other than a democratic outcome.
A general election was expected in November to clear the air polluted by a flawed poll in April. That election had followed nine months of demonstrations, counter-demonstrations, lawsuits and counter-law suits.
Leaders on both sides of Thailand’s political divide had been preaching peace and vowing not to resort to violence or extra-constitutional tactics. Military commanders insisted they and their troops would stay out of politics.
It is still too early to explain exactly what precipitated the dramatic turn of events in Bangkok this week, reviving memories of the last coup, in 1991. But over the past few weeks there have been signs of growing military frustration with Thaksin.
For years Thaksin, a former police colonel, has been trying to flood the top brass of the armed forces and police with relatives and friends. His cousin, General Chaiyasith Shinawatra, for example, was army commander until August last year.
He was replaced by General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, who quickly showed he was anything but a Thaksin acolyte. A few weeks ago Sondhi publicly lambasted Thaksin’s uncompromising approach to solving the insurgency in the three predominantly Muslim southern provinces that has left more than 1 700 people dead since January 2004.
Four bombs last weekend in the tourist city of Hat Yai, north of the violenceÂÂÂ-ravaged provinces, indicated the trouble was spreading, while a significant escalation in attacks since June in the three provinces had drawn no change of government policy.
On August 24, a car was discovered outside Thaksin’s home packed with 80kg of explosives. He immediately branded it an assassination attempt and blamed people in the military. The evidence is contradictory but senior officers were rounded up without investigators producing much evidence.
The spat between Sondhi and Thaksin has been over the latest military reshuffle. As in the past, Thaksin wanted to promote his buddies into key positions. As of Wednesday, the list had yet to be approved.
But there are deeper issues and forces at work. The yellow ribbons the soldiers in the streets tied to their guns and tanks are a clear demonstration of where their loyalty lies, namely to the deeply revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and not to any politician.
One of the undercurrents of the months of turmoil has been the king’s unspoken but obvious dissatisfaction with Thaksin, analysts say. It is this that partly triggered the troops’ move. ”The forces loyal to Sondhi have acted in defence of the king and taken Thaksin to task for his perceived illegitimacy,” said Titinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University.
Since he took office in 2001, Thaksin has steadily eroded the independence of institutions that were meant to act as checks and balances on executive authority. The most notable example is the way he flooded the senate with his loyalists and thus got his supporters on to bodies such as the elections commission and the constitutional court.
Corruption allegations came to the fore in January when Thaksin’s close relatives sold their shares in the family controlled Shin Corp for more than £1-billion without paying any tax.
It boosted massively the popularity of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement, which had been holding small but vociferous protests against the prime minister. The PAD cranked up its demonstrations into almost daily events and the three main opposition parties boycotted an April election Thaksin called to let the people decide his fate.
Thaksin’s support base of the mainly rural poor held up fairly well, but under Thailand’s complex electoral rules the boycott meant not all seats could be filled and so Parliament could not sit. The limbo continued until the king intervened and ordered the courts to resolve the matter, which they did by annulling the election.
Thaksin’s perceived perfidy re-emerged when he said he would step down as leader but, within days, was clearly back in charge. Fears have mounted that he was considering desperate measures as his position appeared increasingly bleak.
Rumours were spreading that Thaksin would launch a crackdown on a new series of PAD rallies, which, in turn, triggered speculation that the opposition might resort to violence.
Sondhi’s forces appeared to be in control on Tuesday night but their grip on power is uncertain until the Thaksin loyalists in the military show their hand. — Â