Word: abhisit
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...finds the scenes enthralling, sparking a political awakening unusual in any kid, much less the scion of a privileged Thai-Chinese family. Just three years later, a violent military crackdown would bring this brief experiment in Thai democracy to an end. But by that point, the boy, Abhisit Vejjajiva, was studying overseas in Britain. "I experienced the optimism of the 1973 democratic revolution, but I wasn't there for the disillusionment of the 1976 massacre," recalls Abhisit, who at age 27 was voted in as one of Thailand's youngest-ever parliamentarians. "Maybe that's what made me believe...
...Meet the idealist who may well become Thailand's next Prime Minister. As head of Thailand's oldest political party, the Democrats, Abhisit has emerged as an early front-runner in elections slated for December. Yet history has taken an ironic twist for the now 43-year-old politician. The upcoming polls are the handiwork of the very military whose overthrow spurred Abhisit's political passions more than three decades ago. After deposing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless army coup last September, Thailand's ruling junta promised to restore democracy by the end of this year. Now that...
...With his youthful charm, Oxford University pedigree and policy geek's exuberance for subjects as esoteric as tapioca-derived alternative fuel and campaign-finance reform, Abhisit resembles a certain heavyweight from the U.S. Democratic Party. But there's one big difference: unlike Bill Clinton, Abhisit didn't grow up in trailer-park country. Although the patrician Thai Democrat can count on support from the urban middle class, as well as residents of Thailand's largely Muslim south, Abhisit will have a tougher time convincing the rural masses that he feels their pain. Thailand's agrarian northeast, in particular...
...tried to suppress with last year's coup. "No one who supported Thaksin is going to vote for the general," says Sunai Phasuk, Thailand consultant for New York City-based Human Rights Watch. "So if Sonthi is going to steal votes from any camp, it could be from Abhisit's base." The possible beneficiaries of an army candidacy? Refugees from Thaksin's now dissolved party who have banded together with an unlikely coalition of ultraconservatives and democracy activists to form the People's Power Party...
...Even if Abhisit wins in December, he won't wield as much power as did Thaksin. When the generals seized control of Thailand last year, they ripped up the previous constitution. The replacement rolls back the executive branch's influence and calls for nearly half the senate to be appointed instead of elected as before. The military is also given certain supervisory powers over the democratically elected leader. The upshot: Thailand could soon return to days when weak coalition governments rose and fell with the predictability of the monsoons...