Crackdown

Though the PAD claims widespread middle class support, a recent Bangkok University survey suggests their confrontational tactics are unpopular. Seven in 10 respondents disagreed with the blockage of roads and storming of government buildings, and just 5 percent said they would support a military coup to oust the Samak's government. Those numbers suggest that today's antigovernment demonstrations may be more a last-gasp effort from Thailand's old guard than a groundswell for change, argues John Virgoe, a Thailand watcher for the Brussels-based risk consultancy International Crisis Group. He calls Sondhi and his cohort a "waning force" in Thai politics that must take ever-greater risks to stay relevant.

Through that prism, their attacks on of Thailand's lucrative tourism industry (an area once deemed sacrosanct in domestic politics), seizure of three airports and nationwide railway disruptions, are "signs of not strength but weakness." Though he warns: "I'm also struck that [the People's Alliance] seems nonetheless in a position to do a lot of destruction to the country."

How much hinges on what happens next. The police have issued arrest warrants for Sondhi and eight other People's Alliance leaders; should they be swiftly and peaceably detained, many doubt that their top-down antigovernment movement would survive decapitation for very long. At the other extreme, street violence could intensify until Thai generals succumb to their traditional urges and install a junta into power. When they did that two years ago, their effort was bloodless, but similar interventions in 1976 and 1992 left scores of civilians dead on Bangkok's streets. In a third possible scenario, Samak could dissolve Parliament and schedule a new election. "But the same guys would get in again, so it wouldn't resolve anything," says Virgoe. "[Politics] is manifestation of the serious divisions in Thai society." 

At a news conference held after the emergency rule declaration, the head of Thailand's armed forces, Chief Gen. Anupong Paojinda, pledged to use dialog to end the standoff. "Our main task is to avoid any clash between two groups with different opinions," he said. He also pledged that soldiers would not evict demonstrators forcibly from government offices seized by the People's Alliance last week. Despite such assurances, various foreign governments and business groups have warned that the situation in Thailand could deteriorate. "Thailand is having stability problems," says Nandor von de Luehe, chairman of the Joint Foreign Chamber of Commerce in Thailand. On Tuesday, Thailand's benchmark SET Index fell to its lowest point in 19 months, and its currency plummeted to its lowest level in a year.

Many experts fear that Thailand is heading toward a crisis akin to the one it suffered back 1992, when 200 or so pro-democracy demonstrators, many of them students, were shot dead by soldiers before Thailand's deeply revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyade, intervened to halt the violence. He could do so again, to be sure, but that alone wouldn't heal the rifts dividing his country by class, geography and political philosophy. Thitinan, the political scientist, sees big trouble ahead if the People's Alliance succeeds in toppling Samak's popularly elected government. "We'll be just like the Philippines," he laments. And for a country so recently billed as Asia's next rising tiger, that's a huge step down.

© 2008