More than 20 000 supporters of former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra rallied in the historic heart of Bangkok on Monday, seeking a royal pardon for the fugitive billionaire and illustrating a deep political divide.
Officials from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, known as the ”red shirts”, gave hundreds of boxes containing details of five million signatures to a representative of the king at the gate of Bangkok’s Grand Palace.
”The people are here today [Monday] not because of me, but because they feel fed up with three years of injustice,” Thaksin, ousted in a military coup in 2006 and now in self-imposed exile, told the crowd by telephone from an undisclosed location abroad.
”We now count on His Majesty’s good grace in helping reconcile Thailand,” he added.
Monday’s rally was the fourth big show of support for Thaksin since April, when the Thai military was brought in to end violent anti-government protests, demonstrating that his followers are steadily rebuilding their protest movement.
They have vowed to keep up pressure to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign.
The petition asked 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej to allow Thaksin to return from exile a free man. Legal experts said there was little chance he would receive a pardon. Royalists said it had to be submitted in person or by a family member.
King Bhumibol, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, is officially above politics but has intervened at times of crisis. — Reuters