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    Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

    This is starting to get out of hand.

    It's quite startling how the urban elites refuse to accept that the electorate is going to keep voting in Thaksin's party for the simple reason that - you know - their policies actually benefit them.

    Whatever you think of Thaksin himself, he's been more or less impeccably on side with the rural poor since the start. And these clowns keep trying to find ways to remove the upstarts by any means other than the ballot box.

    There'll be a coup any day now, you just watch.

    Are there any other parts of the world where there are regular street protests to try to force out a democreatically elected government, or is Thailand pretty much it?

    #2
    Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

    Thanks for that brief interpretation of events, based on face value and media reports, I had assumed that the anti-govt crowd were like anti govt because it was corrupt

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      #3
      Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

      Antonio Gramsci wrote:
      Are there any other parts of the world where there are regular street protests to try to force out a democreatically elected government, or is Thailand pretty much it?
      Venezuela?

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        #4
        Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

        Venezuela just had a well-fought set of local elections, GO. Chavez's people won most races but not the big cities. It mostly went off pretty quietly, I think.

        Corruption's a stick you can beat almost any govt. with, loose cannon. I don't think this lot's particularly corrupt by local standards. In fact, I don't think they've been able to make anything stick against the gang there now (they happen to be supporters of Thaksin, who was convicted of corruption - but I don't think there are any cases pending against the gang in charge now). The lot protesting certainly had their share of scandals back in the 90s when they were in power.

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          #5
          Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

          I think the Venezuela comparison is a fairly good one, to be honest. Urban elites pissed off at democratic elections which persist on returning leaders who support the rural poor. Rural poor carry on electing said leaders, and elites keep on moaning (read demonstrating on the streets) about it.

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            #6
            Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

            Some similarities to be sure.

            But I always thought Chavez was more of an urban-poor guy, not a rural-poor guy.

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              #7
              Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

              Shinawatra does have a major blot on his copybook:-

              http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17678

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                #8
                Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                A very big blot. But one that nobody inside Thailand seems to care much about, unfortunately. Certainly, the opposition has never tried to make much of an issue of this - my sense is that the get tough on drugs policy was actually very popular in much of the country, brutal though it was.

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                  #9
                  Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                  This is going to end with the army stepping in again.

                  I think the PAD have really overplayed their hand at the airport. They have never had majority support, and this will only alienate an increased proportion of Thais who aren't partisans of either side.

                  BTW, I agree with Gramsci on Chavez being more focused on the urban poor, but I think that is largely down to Venezuela being more urbanised than Thailand.

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                    #10
                    Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                    Half the people I was supposed to be working with here are now not able to come because they were transiting through Bangkok.

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                      #11
                      Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                      I guess the situation isn't that far from Venezuela six years ago, but I don't think it works that way any more. Opponents of Chavez have in effect accepted the 2003(4?) constitution, and are fighting it out with Chavez peacefully at the ballot box. And Chavez, althought he says some titanically stupid things (calling opponents "criminals, "rats", vowing never to leave except by force), actually does honour the results at ballot box when they go against him. Last weekend's elections went off with only a fraction of the tension-raising antics (on both sides) of last year's referendum, which suggests that it is becoming a more normal democracy, where pepole limit their attempts to change regimes to the electoral forum.

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                        #12
                        Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                        My best mate lives in Bangkok. I suppose he's part of the 'urban elite', or at least that's who he mixes with (to the extent that he mixes with actual Thais at all, because there's a pretty large self-contained community of white Westerners). I'm looking forward to hearing what he makes of all this. Although if he gets himself killed in the crossfire before my wedding, I'll be most annoyed.

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                          #13
                          Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                          So the constitutional court has outlawed the government party. Again.

                          The PAD have suggested reducing the number of elected MPs and a plan to do away with the principle of "one person one vote".

                          So the root cause of the problem is the conservative elite's contempt for the poor and their contempt for democracy. They are prepared to break the law when it suits them.

                          Business leaders and the Royalist elites are demanding an un-elected National Government. The Democrat Party leader has "volunteered" to be the Prime Minister

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                            #14
                            Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                            That's about right. Basically, the PAD think the masses are too uneducated to have a democracy.

                            I'm intrigued to see that the Socialist Worker thinks Thaksin and his party are broadly a force good, given that the usual comparison he evokes is Berlusconi. But where did they stand on his ownership of Man City?

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                              #15
                              Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                              I'm not sure they ever had a vote on it.

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                                #16
                                Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                As far as I can see, the only positive thing we (yes, note the "we") say about the Thai Rak Thai is that "it was the first party in decades to have policies which were beneficial to the poor."

                                That's pretty much unarguable, isn't it?

                                I doubt we mentioned Man City, though we should take a position on such things, and if we did it would be an easy one to guess.

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                                  #17
                                  Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                  This all seems to be kicking off again.

                                  To recap, the Yellows and the army found some legal chicanery to kick out Thaksin's reds late in 2008 and have been in place ever since.

                                  Now, the Reds are fighting back. And it seems like people are expecting it to get very nasty.

                                  (nb - arguably the present demonstrations are "pro-democracy" protests...but given that it's the same two lots fighting each other, I thought I would keep the same thread).

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                                    #18
                                    Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                    Fifteen dead in Bangkok.

                                    This could be civil war. There have been urban protests and deaths in Bangkok before, but eh fact that the red shirts seem to be forcibly taking over government offices in places like Chiang Mai and Udon Thani is, I think, unprecedented.

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                                      #19
                                      Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                      Looks as if some of this piece from exile Giles Ji Ungpakorn may have been overtaken by events.

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                                        #20
                                        Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                        That's a good piece.

                                        What I think is most interesting about the last week or so is how little we've heard from Thaksin. Either he's becoming a lot more subtle as a puppet master, or things are sliding beyond his control. You sort of get the sense that the red shirts are developing their own leadership and uniting behind a set of political ideals instead of simply backing a "big man". Which is all to the good.

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                                          #21
                                          Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                          The King has died.

                                          The constitutional monarch has been absent from public life for years and his death throws an already politically turbulent Thailand into a haze of uncertainty that is unprecedented in its modern history.

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                                            #22
                                            Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                            The BBC is hailing him as a "revered" King - because revered people have to have (enforced) laws preventing any criticism of them...

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                                              #23
                                              Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                              The (few) Thais that I know did genuinely revere him, but the country's attachment to the monarchy has been blatantly manipulated by the military and their supporters for decades

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                                                #24
                                                Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                                Unlike other countries with monarchies...

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                                                  #25
                                                  Anti-democracy Protests in Thailand

                                                  Touch your forelock when you refer to your Queen...

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