A number of friends have asked me what is all the unrest about in Thailand. Well I can attempt an explanation -it might not be totally correct, but by piecing together the newspaper reports in Singapore and the Internet publications I can make a simple explanation. But please bear in mind this is Thailand and it wouldn't be the same without some kind of political unrest.
Thailand is an emerging Asian economy but not on the scale of China or India. It now has a class of people of those that have and a class of those that haven't, and for that matter never will have - money! The bottom line in any society and the cause of many disputes from family wills to big national banks lending money they don't have!
A few years ago a certain big business man in Thailand called Thaksin made an absolute fortune in the telecoms market and with this money he was able to buy off most of the politicians and make even more money. He had power and with his new found friends decided to go into politics and seduce Thailand's rural populous with policies promising cheap health care and education. This worked and Thaksin was elected as PM.
However over a period of years Thaksin became less popular with the other half of Thailand's population, the neo-middle class. They were slowly becoming motivated with more disposable income and wanted an increased voice in the way things were being run by Thaksin's government. In addition Thaksin was cracking down on drug dealers and other criminal activity and was connected with over 2,500 'disappearances' from the criminal community. Not content with that it emerged that he had been involved in a few shady deals with his family and had 'avoided' paying taxes amounting to millions of baht. However the government was still popular with the rural folk because they are so far removed from drugs, tax evasion and corruption as to totally ignore it if they are getting free consultation from a doctor and a prescription for the 30 baht (say 50 pence in English money).
The urban community had had enough and they, with the Thai army, over ran Thaksin and his cohorts in September 2006. My friend Dave and I happened to be in Thailand at the time and we travelled for nearly two weeks before we found out - it just wasn't big news in Thailand.
Thaksin fled to the UK where, with his diplomatic immunity, sheltered, at my expense (I am still a tax payer in the UK despite working in Singapore). Do I sound bitter? Well I should do because whilst this guy is being harboured by my government, the very same government, but I suspect a different department, was busy refusing a tourist visa for Khamma to visit the UK for a two week holiday. Now is it me or is there some injustice there? Mercifully I got over the disappointment and eventually I began to see why the visa was not issued, but, I still don't understand how Thaksin can hide in his diplomatic brief case AND buy Manchester City at the same time.
Anyway in December 2007 a splinter group from the former Thaksin political party formed a coalition government with a very uneasy majority and started where Thaksin had left off twelve months earlier. Thereby keeping the rural folk happy and disinterested in the Bangkok political back stabbing. The new middle classes viewed the new government as Thaksin's puppet government and unrest started to increase. Through the power of the new government Thaksin was allowed back into Thailand but faced corruption charges previously made on him and his wife. With an unbelievable amount of arrogance he expected to be exonerated. At the same time the demonstrations against the new government started to become more serious and, when Thaksin's wife was found guilty for evading taxes and faced a lengthy prison sentence, the opposition pounced and tried to smoke out the government from parliament. Thaksin made an excuse to go to the Olympics in Beijing but fled to England instead of returning to Bangkok to face the music.
The opposition became louder and more threatening and sadly in a serious clash with the police one of the demonstrators was killed. The louder they demanded the resignation of the PM the more he refused and to make the whole case even more bizarre he was found guilty of bringing the office of PM into disrepute by taking money as a guest on a TV food programme. Eventually the poor man of 74 years came to his senses and resigned.
Now Thailand has a newly appointed PM and he is forming a cabinet. Will things get back to normal? This is normal for Thailand and we can expect another new PM within the next year. Meanwhile Khamma and the millions like her still enjoy virtually free health care and the nation is slowly becoming more healthy as a result. You can understand why the rural folk want to keep this policy and therefore keep out of what goes on in Bangkok. As Khamma said 'Up to them!'
Thaksin sold the football club - for a healthy profit by all accounts but I guess he still enjoys a round of golf at Sunningdale. It wouldn't even surprise me if Thaksin was living in the same apartment Pinochet used in the Thatcher days.
Even as I write this there is news that the new PM's daughter has been accused of evading regulations by not declaring she borrowed 100 million baht (£1.6 million GBP) from a relative. So the saga continues, and always will because this is Thailand.
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