Last November, 350,000 foreigners including myself had to thank Thaksin Shinawatra, the former exiled Thai prime minister, for our enforced long stay in Thailand. People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the mob wearing yellow shirts, had taken over Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi

and Don Mueang airports. Thaksin had made the terrible mistake of becoming too popular, too successful. In 2000, Thaksin won election by pledging to lift the village-masses out of poverty.

Shinawatra’s popularity won him enemies everywhere. The result? The 2006 coup which drove Thaksin to exile and the funding of groups like the PAD wishing to exclude any Thaksin supporter from leading the government. However, even from exile, Shinawatra, currently residing in Dubai, continues to influence Thai politics. Remnants of his Thai Rak Thai party won the election in 2007. Thus, PAD developed a strange recipe for Thailand’s future: ousting the elected PM Somchai Wongsawat by mob action and appointing a government of its choice.

To date, PAD has succeeded. After Thailand’s constitutional court dissolved three political parties in his coalition government and asked him to resign, Somchai Wongsawat has stepped down. The new Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, is not a Thaksin supporter and has PAD backing. However, masses loyal to Thaksin (red shirts) have already started protests against Vejjajiva. Thailand’s present messy politics parallels with that of our own. We could call Thaksin Shinawatra Thailand’s BP Koirala. BP’s crime during his 18 month tenure as the elected PM was to become too popular. BP’s ambitious land reform programme nettled Nepal’s royalty which had much to lose. King Mahendra’s brothers opposed BP’s plans to nationalise the forests because they would forfeit their roles as contractors.

To discredit Koirala’s government, Mahendra went about the country giving negative speeches. He gifted Yogi Narahari Nath, supposedly a Hindu monk to organise protest rallies in Gurkha. The Yogi’s men attacked government offices and the incident gave Mahendra the biggest excuse to stage the December 15, 1960 coup. The aged Thai King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is now sick; so the queen acts as his mouthpiece. She supported PAD’s moves to oust PM Somchai Wongsawat. The military, loyal to the king, refused to heed Wongsawat’s request to clear PAD’s followers from the two Bangkok airports or from his own office in the capital.

Like Nepal’s post-1950 kings, Thailand’s monarchy hasn’t learnt to strictly keep its constitutional role. Neither has the Thai military accepted the elected government as its master. By working against an elected government, the Thai army has lost respect internationally. King Tribhuvan very cleverly got the military in the palace compound to swear loyalty to him. In his diary, BP regrets his decision to move battalions from Singha Darbar to Narayanhiti. King Mahendra used the army to arrest BP and his cabinet. We can only guess what the Thai army may do in the future.