[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Thai food is dangerous ...

[Patrick Bond]

... to the PM's political health

TV scandal: Thai PM must quit
AFP     Published:Sep 09, 2008

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and his entire cabinet must resign 
over the scandal surrounding his TV cooking show, the Constitutional 
Court said.

The court, which said Samak had violated the constitution by accepting 
payments for hosting the show, ruled his cabinet could remain as a 
caretaker administration for 30 days until parliament elects a new prime 
minister.

However, Samak is not barred from standing again for prime minister, and 
his party has already indicated that they would elect him back to the 
premiership.

***

Thaksin's long shadow
DUNCAN MCCARGO: ANALYSIS - Sep 07 2008 06:00

When the first fatality occurred in the clashes between rival 
"pro-democratic" forces in Bangkok this week people were shocked, but 
not surprised.

Pressure had been building for more than three months, as yellow­shirted 
protesters, styling themselves as the People's Alliance for Democracy 
(PAD), appropriated royalist colours and nationalist language to oppose 
the government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and his People Power 
Party (PPP). Late last year, Samak proclaimed himself a nominee of the 
party's mentor and financier, the former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Although he was ousted in a military coup in 2006, Thaksin's five-year 
premiership has cast a long shadow over Thai politics. As the first 
recent prime minister to threaten the symbolic dominance of the 
monarchy, he remains a controversial figure.

He was supported initially by two main groups: elements of the middle 
class and the business community, many of Sino-Thai descent; and rural 
voters from the populous north and northeast. Both groups, who were 
exasperated by the bureaucratic and military establishment, saw in the 
billionaire telecoms tycoon someone who could restore national pride 
after the 1997 Asian economic crisis. A former policeman fond of swift 
action and populist mobilisation, Thaksin threatened the core elite -- 
monarchists who occupy key formal and informal positions in the country.

Protests against Thaksin and Samak reached new heights after Thaksin 
fled in August to escape a series of corruption­ related court cases. 
Samak has since been publicly distancing himself from Thaksin, and the 
PAD demonstrations have served his purposes well, giving him a pretext 
to drop Thaksin loyalists from his Cabinet. Samak has cultivated army 
commanders in a bid to avert a further coup, something the PAD has been 
trying to trigger. In much of this, Samak has been advised by a leading 
power broker, tough-guy ex-minister Newin Chidchob, who has links to the 
shadowy "pro-Thaksin" Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship, which 
was involved in the fatal clash with the PAD.

What does the PAD really want? It has advocated a "new politics" based 
on a Parliament with a 70:30 formula: 70% appointees, 30% elected 
representatives. PAD supporters are drawn largely from the south, where 
they have blockaded airports, creating chaos for tourists. With Thaksin 
gone, the movement's call for a "general uprising" seems rather 
desperate, and its substantive demands -- beyond Samak's resignation -- 
are confusing.

Whereas previous demos involved clear clashes of ideas, neither the PAD 
nor the DAAD advocates any recognisable form of democracy; Thais are 
deeply divided into pro-PAD and pro-Thaksin camps.

Those on the streets are not the main protagonists in this struggle. The 
real players are working behind the scenes. On some level, the PAD is 
receiving moral support from the monarchical network yet the monarchy 
itself remains sniffy about street protests and sceptical about the real 
motives of the PAD leadership. Newin Chidchob is rumoured to be 
coordinating events from a suite at the luxury Pullman Hotel; many 
senior police officers are personally loyal to him.

Meanwhile Thaksin is holed up in his Surrey mansion and has applied for 
political asylum in the UK. He is another potential beneficiary: the 
newly declared state of emergency in Bangkok may strengthen his claim 
that he should not be sent home just yet. -- © Guardian News & Media 2008