Anti-Thaksin camps are wasting precious time pushing for PM's resignation

Exactly, and meanwhile the vote buying and policy corruption continue. Those are the real stories, with a real impact on the country's gradual transition to some rough pantomime of democracy, but on these there is no reportage. Why? Because Thais are busy 'playing' politics with silly marches downtown to no effect except to give 30 year old office girls something 'sanook' to do on their lunch break (as reported by a recent daily). The mentality of the leaders of the anti-Thaksin protests and their lunchtime followers are a good match-- both are possessed of a childlike idiocy and a false pride in a national fantasy that is always two short monkey steps from barbarism, like the Erawan 'shrine' incident last week.

Anti-Thaksin camps are wasting precious time pushing for PM's resignation

On Friday night the two major forces in Thai politics, which up to that time had not really been together for their own separate reasons, decided to join hands. It is rare for the Democrat Party to decide on such a course.

Back in Black May of 1992 it was nowhere to be seen as the so-called "mobile mob" took to the streets and toppled the government of General Suchinda Kraprayoon. And yet the Democrats were able to capitalise in the aftermath of the chaotic situation and won the plurality of seats in the elections that followed.

That the Democrat Party had wanted earlier to distance itself from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) was understandable. Publicly it must show itself to be playing by the rules. Privately, however, it is an undeniable fact that with the Democrats' control of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the PAD has been receiving logistical support it might not have had otherwise.

Be that as it may, with a few days to go before the election, and with hopes of getting the prime minister to resign evaporating into thin air, the necessity for a true and more potent alliance has begun to manifest itself. Now both the Democrat Party and the PAD have adopted the united front of requesting a "royally-bestowed prime minister". From the looks of the prevailing situation, however, this may be too little and too late.

Caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra knows that he has the upper hand. He is not obliged to listen to the voices calling for his resignation. He does not consider them the voices of "the people". In fact he labelled the protesters gathered in front of Government House a "nightly liar mob" ("One Last Push", The Nation, March 25) and their stage the "liar pavilion". He has shrugged off all suggestions that he resign and request His Majesty the King to appoint a neutral person as interim prime minister to oversee Thailand's political reform. "I am already a royally-bestowed prime minister," he told the sympathetic crowd in Udon Thani on Friday evening.

It would appear at this stage that the strategies of both the Democrat Party and the PAD have not been effective from the beginning. The PAD had banked on the prime minister resigning under intense pressure, then the abolishment of the royal decree ordering the April 2 election, the bestowal of a prime minister by His Majesty the King, and the final "bill checking" on Thaksin and his cohorts, whatever that "bill checking" may be.

The PAD, however, is not going to get what it wants. The prime minister does not have his back to the wall, as many people may have thought. If he has been able to withstand the great pressure being applied on him for more than three weeks, then one week more will not matter that much to him.

Worse still, this so-called "bill checking" obviously has strengthened Thaksin's resolve to go to the wire. He certainly has the resources to do it. After all, he is still the darling of the majority of the people in the countryside. Lest it be forgotten, they are the ones who still constitute the country's backbone today.

On the other hand, the Democrat Party has been wasting too much of the little precious time it has had in telling its supporters why it is not contesting the elections. What it should have done is to tell the people to go to vote, which is the democratic thing to do and even a duty. And it should have told them that they should vote any which way but for Thai Rak Thai. The PAD should have done the same.

Instead of taking to the streets as it did on Saturday, or filing complaints against Thaksin and calling for his arrest as it plans to do today, both of which carry great risk of causing public outrage and confusion or even the kind of confrontation that this country can ill afford, the PAD must now consider educating the public about their political choices while there is still time left. Exposing Thaksin and his regime's misdeeds, even if they are true, has both its merits and limits. Too much of it or more of the same could definitely turn listeners off, signs of which are being to surface.

Thaksin has said that if he does not win 50 per cent of the votes cast in the election or 50 per cent of the eligible voters (which one is still not clear at the moment), he will not assume the premiership. Right there the public has a viable option of unseating him constitutionally. We already know that the new Parliament is unlikely to have a full house after the elections, with Thai Rak Thai and other candidates unlikely to make it in some 30 constituencies. This is not to mention the party-list seats, where one candidate has already opted out.

So where is the need for this "one last push"? Thaksin will not resign; and if he does not, it would be too much of an inappropriate - illegal and perhaps even unconstitutional - request for His Majesty the King to invoke Section 7 of the 1997 Constitution. Our beloved monarch, especially in this most auspicious year, should not have been approached in this way, when there are still other avenues for political differences and incompatibility to be resolved and bridged.