The govt's year of living dangerously

[CrazyExpat]

It has been a wild ride for Thai politics this year. It seems to be more than just a soap opera and the drama was made for TV but it is not good for the government or for tourism. Here is an interesting article in Bangkok Post.

Partisan divisions and other threatening developments have upset the country over the past 12 months, but it now seems clear 2009 will pass without any drastic change in the political make-up.

The year began less than a month after the Abhisit government took office on Dec 15, 2008. The following are some of the political highlights of 2009:

On April 17, there was an attempt on the life of Sondhi Limthongkul, core leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy and now a leader of the New Politics Party.

Just days before, during the Songkran holiday, street protests against the government by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship turned violent. The red shirt UDD followers, loyal to fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, succeeded in forcing the cancellation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Pattaya, and in Bangkok buses were set alight at major intersections and parts of the city were brought to a standstill before a military crackdown cleared the streets of protesters.

Another Asean meeting at the end of October saw a new twist to an old feud between Cambodia and Thailand, when Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a thinly veiled challenge to the Thai government by declaring his rock-solid support for his "eternal friend" Thaksin.

With Hun Sen's later appointment of Thaksin as his personal adviser and as his government's economic adviser, backed by his refusal to extradite Thaksin to Bangkok when he visited Phnom Penh to advise government officials on economic matters, relations between the two countries plummeted.

The latest wrinkle is the leaking by Puea Thai Party MP and UDD leader Jatuporn Prompan of classified documents allegedly dealing with Thai government measures against Cambodia.

Attempts to dismantle the red shirt network have been unsuccessful. Although no subsequent events have come close to the Songkran drama, the red shirts have held many rallies this year in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and elsewhere to question the legitimacy of the Abhisit government. Community radio stations such as the pro-Thaksin Rak Chiang Mai 51 and those run by groups in Udon Thani, Phayao and elsewhere have continued to operate even after the police raided them and seized transmission equipment.

The prime minister and members of his cabinet are unable to travel to certain provinces which have been declared strongholds of pro-Thaksin groups. Last month, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva cancelled a plan to participate in the Northern Chamber of Commerce forum in Chiang Mai when it became clear his presence would cause a large demonstration. There were death threats made against the PM over a local community radio station.

The PM was met with protests when he visited Suphan Buri, the stronghold of Chart Thai Pattana Party de facto leader Banharn Silpa-archa, even though Chart Thai Pattana is part of the government coalition.

Proposed revisions to the constitution also spurred deep divisions in parliament and on the streets. The discussion broke down over divisions between those who want to retain the charter written in 2007 as it is and those who want to make some amendments and those who want to reject it altogether in favour of a return to the charter written in 1997.

There were moves before the 2006 coup to lay the groundwork for the reform of the 1997 constitution. Nothing came of them.

A few days after the red shirt riots in April, the government initiated a plan to amend the 2007 constitution by setting up a special committee on national reconciliation and charter amendments to work with the political parties on the proposed amendments. But it quickly became clear the idea would not succeed. Reconciliation was impossible through amendments to the charter when the parties and much of the population were so divided in their aspirations. In the end, the opposition Puea Thai Party withdrew from the amendment process and, in so doing, ensured it could not succeed.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/30115/the-govt-year-of-living-dangerously