Word: governmentally
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The scene: A dinner party in a Bangkok penthouse, silverware clinking on fine China, various foams and reductions tickling cultured palates. An out-of-town guest turns to a Thai man and asks about the red-shirted protesters calling for the government's downfall. "Who supports the red shirts?" asks...
The red shirts originally coalesced as supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and later convicted in absentia of abuse of power. Their key demand is a new election, whereby a party linked to Thaksin could conceivably return to power. But in recent...
Instead, the red shirts are incensed that Abhisit is in office at all. In December 2007, in the first postcoup election, Thai voters cast the most ballots for a Thaksin proxy party. As fears grew that Thaksin might be pardoned by his allies and stage a political comeback, the yellow...
It's unlikely that Abhisit will heed the protesters' demand for a snap election, not least because every election since the 2001 ballot that swept in Thaksin has favored the reds. At any rate, the Prime Minister has until 2011 to hold polls and doing so right now - in the...
Still, as much class resentment as the reds have harnessed, it's not clear how Thailand will move forward from a seemingly never-ending cycle of red and yellow protest. "It's a deadlocked situation," says Sompop Manarungsan, another Chulalongkorn economist. Plenty of Thais are fed up with both political...