Thai Government Facing Serious Threat from the Streets: Political Scientist

Thailand is shaken with street protests.

And Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is facing the biggest demonstrations to hit the country since the violence in 2010.

The demonstrators, who are led by a former opposition party lawmaker, say Yingluck's government is controlled by her brother - the ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

Leading Thai political scientist, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, says the current demonstrations are an echo of major anti-government demonstrations five years ago.

Sen Lam from Radio Australia talks more with him.

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“The tensions are obviously very anxious, palpable, conspicuous because it's in the news everywhere and everyone is talking about it, so this is very serious. We've seen it before from about five years ago. There was if you recall an airport shutdown, a takeover of the airport by protestors trying to overthrow the government. This is a bit of a deja vu for us.”

“This time no one is going to close down the airport but the protestors want to overthrow the government by forcing its hand by making the country ungovernable, by taking over ministries and public agencies. And the government will have to respond. They have responded by expanding the Internal Security Act to cover most of Bangkok metropolitan. And now we will see more brinkmanship, the protestors will be up the ante and the government will have to respond. But I think it's untenable now, something will have to give within the next few days.”
 
Q. Indeed, as you say it's now boiled down to a game of brinkmanship and the Prime Minister Yingluck is so far standing firm saying that she won't resign. What options are there for her government to act without inflaming the situation?
 
“The government's options are bleak because the anti-government demonstrators have not left too many exit doors. Resigning is not enough, dissolving the lower house is not enough.”
 
“So I think the government is figuring that there's no use resigning because they will be in a weaker position, and dissolving the house for new elections would not work because the opposition may boycott the election like they did in 2006.”
 
“So the government is standing firm and coming out with a tightened response, they will enact and enforce the security laws, so we will see more confrontation. But this is something we saw five years ago and in the end the government lost. And I think we're seeing the makings of five years ago again because the protestors have the establishment forces on their side, so the government will be very hard pressed to last until next week.”
 
Q. You speak of the establishment forces, does that include the military?
 
“The military, the senior bureaucracy, the palace, the nobility, all nobility people in Bangkok, these are the people who lost elections in the last decade but they have a loud voice. They're a minority but a minority that's powerful, a minority that feels that they have been neglected and abused by Thaksin's influence.”
 
“So somehow, we are in the same cycle of confrontation and turmoil that we've seen over the last decades going back to Thaksin's time.”
 
“I don't think that this is the way forward for Thailand. The protestors are now hoping for some extra-constitutional, extra-parliamentary intervention to topple the government. And if that happens, we will see protests from the other side, the pro-government supporters, red shirts, that we saw in 2009-2010.”
 
Q. And Dr Thitinan, the protestors still refer to PM Yingluck's government as the Thaksin regime. It's a reference obviously to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who's in self-imposed exile. How large a shadow does he cast over his sister's office do you think?
 
“He casts a very long shadow of course. He is an exiled prime minister ruling through a proxy prime minister who's his sister. So they are both sides of the same coin governing Thailand - Yingluck on one side, Thaksin on the other side abroad.”
 
“But I think that in the last few years we're seeing Thailand emerging beyond Thaksin if we allow it to happen, if we want to see it that way.”
 
“I think a lot of people here are still stuck on Thaksin because Thailand has changed and many people here still cannot expect those changes because we still find appealing the old order from the 21st century at the end of the reign, and the twlight of the reign of His Majesty the King.”
 
“So that order has been challenged and thrown into the mix. Thaksin has done that, and so people are very angry with him because of corruption and abuse of power, but most of all because he has changed the way that Thailand used to be.”