Lets start with King Bhumibol – by all accounts a decent fellow who cares for his people. The worlds longest serving monarch, he has been in ill health recently which troubles the country because his likely successor is not held in the same high esteem as he is. Notionally a man without too much power he commands enough respect to restrain political factions from all out civil war. Many fear unrest once his stabilising influence is no longer available.
The poor and working class Thais are represented by the United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) more commonly known as the Red Shirts. Their hero is Thaksin Shinawatra, an ex Prime Minister of Thailand who was deposed by a Military Coup in 2006. Shinawatra, currently in exile, had enacted a number of reforms to improve the lot of the working class and once made the merest of veiled references to powerful interests working against him, taken to be a reference to the King. Middle class Thais, already feeling their interests squeezed by these minor wealth redistribution enactments found that Shinawatra had at the same time been using his own position to increase his personal wealth. Rather hypocritically, they used his wealth accumulation and his reference to the King as excuses to oust him from power by means of a coup (as it became obvious that in any nationwide vote he or his party would keep winning).
The Middle class, represented by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) choose yellow shirts to demonstrate their allegiance. When despite Shinawatras’ removal and a year long temporary military rule the next election returned a UDD (red shirt) government the PAD (yellow shirts) went on the offensive with many demonstrations that included shutting the main airport for 10 days. Unsurprisingly, the military did nothing to stop them. With the assistance of the courts, using trumped up charges to depose more politicians, they finally got the majority they needed to take over government. Any subsequent election would almost certainly see the red shirts returned to government – so this power struggle is set to run and run.
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