THAILAND’S ANTI-GOVERNMENT Red Shirts are planning a major rally tomorrow at Bangkok’s criminal court to demand the release of their detained leaders, highlighting how tensions continue to dog political life in the country.
Prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has said there will be elections in the first half of this year if there is no fresh political violence.
The election will be a watershed event for Thailand as it will give the first opportunity for the divided country to decide who it wants as ruler after years of polarising violence and political uncertainty.
The prospect of clashes is growing because the Red Shirts party, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, has vowed to protest every month until their leaders are freed.
“The rally at the court is to highlight the grievances of the seven leaders held in remand,” said Pheu Thai party MP Jatuporn Promphan.
He said protesters had been advised not to carry banners that may be in contempt of court.
Tomorrow’s rally is due to begin at the criminal court in the afternoon before marching to the Democracy Monument, the scene of some of the worst violence during last May’s crackdown on the Red Shirt occupation of the city centre. Organisers will read letters from the seven leaders.
Mass protests in April and May of last year by the Red Shirt movement, which is broadly loyal to fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, left 90 people dead in street clashes between demonstrators and the army.
The rally is expected to go on until midnight. Mr Thaksin and his lawyer Robert Amsterdam have scheduled a phone-in to greet the protesters.
The presence of Mr Thaksin, even if only in a virtual sense, highlights the ongoing rift in Thai society between the Red Shirts, the government and other sectors, including hardline royalists and the Yellow Shirts, who are made up of Bangkok’s elite.
The British-born, Oxfordeducated Mr Abhisit said his government would only organise elections if three conditions were filled – a strong economy and an amendment to the constitution, including electoral law changes, were introduced. The final condition was that the election must be held in peaceful conditions.
“When everything is ready I will call an election as soon as possible.
“It is not necessary to complete my term,” he said.
However, his government is under pressure. The reds, who where campaigning for immediate elections, have held a series of peaceful one-day rallies in the capital in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, rival Yellow Shirts have been demonstrating near Government House in protest at Mr Abhisit’s handling of a deadly border dispute with Cambodia, and have vowed to step up their campaign. The Yellow Shirts were once Mr Abhisit’s core support.
It is possible that fresh polls could further divide the country. The last elections in 2007 took place one year after a military coup that toppled Mr Thaksin. It resulted in a pro-Thaksin government taking over, which withstood pressure from Yellow Shirt activists before a court dissolved it in 2008. Following the dissolution of the government, Mr Abhisit came to power.
