ROAR Magazine. On May 2. Thai army declared a state of martial law, deposing and arresting the democratically elected Prime Minister. General Prayuth Chan- ocha took the stage to announce the coup (which he initially denied was a coup), declaring his leadership and the rule of the new . According to Prayuth, the move was necessary to end escalating protests that were part of a decade- long feud between opposing social movements. Understanding Thailand’s Ongoing Political Crisis 1 The Thai political system has largely been unstable since the country transitioned from absolute monarchy. Thailand's political crisis is often portrayed in the western media as a conflict between conservative forces associated with the traditional elite and a pro. Thailand's army has seized power in a coup after months of political turmoil. BBC News looks at why this has happened. The military says it has taken control of the. Thailand: Background and U.S. Relations Congressional Research Service 2 Political Crisis and Military Coup in 2013-2014 Thai politics, in turmoil for several years.Thailand is one of the great development success stories. Due to smart economic policies it has become an upper middle income economy and is making progress towards. Home > Analysis by Country > Asia-Pacific > Thailand > Printer-friendly PDF The political crisis in. The political crisis in Thailand: pseudo-Democrats reaching. Honolulu, Hawaii Number 13 Feb. 4, 2014 Political crisis in Thailand not unique by Muthiah Alagappa Dato Dr. Muthiah Alagappa ([email protected]). In order to save the country from civil war, Prayuth said, democracy must be suspended indefinitely. Over the past eight years, two social movements in Thailand have organized spectacular mass mobilizations and aggressive direct actions that rival the most iconic events of the world. One side occupied and shut down both international airports in Bangkok in 2. Bangkok for months in 2. Asia. Both sides have occupied Bangkok parks and streets multiple times. Yet the international media have been curiously inattentive to this struggle. The recent coup propelled Thailand into the international limelight, but as with the previous flare- ups, the attention quickly faded. Discussion and analysis of the movements in Thailand have been scarce from the left as well. One reason why Thailand may be largely neglected by the left is the confusion generated by the unique scenario of having two powerful, popular, opposing social movements, neither of which represents the left. However, the confusion in many ways reflects a complex, changing global political environment that is easy to misjudge. The recent coup in Thailand has implications far beyond the country. It has a great deal to teach us about organizing, mobilizing, and identifying allies, and it may even have implications for the evolution of liberal democracy around the world. Political Context. Thailand has been in and out of crisis since 2. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin is a billionaire media mogul who now lives in Dubai to escape post- coup corruption charges. The leaders of two competing social movements, one supporting Thaksin and one opposing him, have taken turns running Thailand. The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), dubbed . The Shinawatra family. They have since abandoned the yellow in favor of the symbolism . Their numerical inferiority combined with their intolerance of the Shinawatra family in office has led the Democrat Party and PDRC to abandon democracy, paradoxically in the name of democracy . The first two times the red shirts used mass protests, occupations and riots to force elections that brought their side back to power. In the latest coup, the NCPO claimed to be neutral to the struggle between red and yellow, and at first made a show of arresting leaders of both sides. However, it is clear which side got their way in the aftermath of the coup. Like Egypt in 2. 01. In this case, though, it was precisely what the protesters were asking for. The military has since appointed a 1. NCPO has made it clear that they retain ultimate legal authority. The new legislature, called the National Legislative Assembly, has selected Pornpetch Wichitcholchai as their new president; Pornpetch is a judge from the former Supreme Court . General Prayuth himself wrote a song called . Red shirt leaders, protesters, journalists and opposition politicians have remained in custody without charge. The military has also warned against incendiary language on social media, harassing and detaining those who post disagreeable content. Most recently, the editor of a popular magazine was arrested for making critical comments on his Facebook page. The Orwellian character of the military government. The red shirt leadership has been driven underground for the time being, but if the escalation of the past decade has been any guide, the calm will not last long. One particularly volatile aspect of the Thai situation is the monarchy. Thailand is (was) a constitutional monarchy, governed democratically under the . This particular king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is widely adored in Thailand. At 8. 6, he is the longest- reigning monarch in the world, and Thais credit him with all kinds of incredible career feats. While a full exploration of the role of the monarchy is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that the king is in poor health, has not appeared in public since the coup, and his succession is not entirely clear. Some have even claimed that this coup is really about who will be in power when the next monarch is chosen. One way or another, the king. The PDRC is fairly straightforward in its right- wing character, and they seek traditionally reactionary outcomes: stability, economic growth, and concentration of decision- making among educated, urban professionals. They are fighting for the leadership of the Thai elite, and their rhetoric is filled with condescension for the uneducated rabble they see as composing the red shirt ranks. They also align themselves with the royal family and the moral quality of the king. Despite being against democracy, the PDRC, Democrat Party, and their allies all claim the word . At a glance, PDRC actions look a lot like anarchist ones. They wear bandanas and Guy Fawkes masks on their faces and flaunt slogans like . Nevertheless, underneath the mask is unambiguous proto- fascism. The red shirts are in some ways closer to the left, and have been ascribed leftist potential by some analysts. However, they have sometimes been mistaken as wholly left by more casual onlookers due to their class composition and the color of their shirts. In fact, their singular goal is the leadership of a political party led by the country. Meanwhile, credible rumors claim Thaksin single- handedly finances the red shirts. Finding a category for the red shirts on the increasingly problematic left- right spectrum is difficult. Whether or not those interested in social justice choose to support the red shirts, making the decision with an understanding of the complex political context is crucial. With multiple, conflicting reports of both sides having decentralized decision- making versus obeying orders from their leadership, it is largely unclear how unified or authentic either side is. Putting it crudely, the red shirts represent the . Liberal democracy is imbued with a tension between the primacy of democracy as a method for choosing governments and the desire to see one. That tension reaches a critical point when a democratic actor cannot have both. In Thailand, we see the Democrat Party and a host of allied protest groups, their names littered with the D- word, fighting for a non- democratic government in the name of democracy. This phenomenon is a product of national winner- takes- all elections in which everyone in a certain area can share a political opinion, making them feel as though their opinion is popular and valid, despite representing a minority in the whole country. Perpetual losses at the polls generate a dilemma for those minority- position groups that also claim to believe in democracy where the question becomes: which is more important, your political goals or the practice of democracy? The situation in Thailand represents an acute example of this dilemma. The Democrats believe the Shinawatra family is corrupt and is bleeding the country, but found themselves unable to win elections to fix the problem. They fell back on a common argument . If the Shinawatras and their influence were purged and the poor were better educated, democracy would have a chance, they say. The upheaval in Thailand reveals a crisis in liberal democracy that is not particular to Thailand. Indeed, the crisis of democracy in Thailand may have implications for the future of democracies everywhere. Economic stagnation, political impasse and ecological destruction create a sense of urgency that is driving political opinions away from the center. At the same time, the more divergent political opinions get, the harder it becomes to win national elections. For example, the rise of the . Tea Partiers have political views that are extreme enough to dis- align them with mainstream Republicans, but those same extreme views foreclose on their chances of winning a national election. Perhaps tellingly, a Thai NDRC protestor quoted by The New York Times in January compared the anti- government . While some analysts have argued that this episode is a facet of European elections, where turnout is low, right- wing parties have been increasingly successful in national elections in Europe as well, using populist rhetoric and supporting good jobs and social welfare for nationals. Increased success at the polls will whet right- wingers. However, this might exacerbate the same tension driving the Thai crisis of democracy, where the right feels popular, but must either settle for perpetual marginalization or abandon democracy outright. In and of itself, the potential of the radical right to abandon liberal democracy to achieve its own goals is nothing new. But when they hit the streets in mass mobilizations, brandishing left symbols and shouting about democracy, we can. Electoral democracy seems increasingly unable to handle the widening and hardening political views of citizens. The less voting is a satisfactory outlet for people. As the military state crumbled Egypt in 2. Muslim Brotherhood was able to take advantage of the vacuum, and the pushback to their short- lived regime set the stage for the return of the military to power. In Thailand, the red shirts have had an enormous capacity for mobilizing and direct action, but their success has been limited by their single- minded support for Thaksin. For them, the ability to mobilize to topple the government in an acute moment of crisis has not been sufficient to push their agenda and achieve their goals of a better standard of living for the rural poor. On the left, we sometimes view the far- right as being allied with the state, and of course in many cases they are.
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