Word: thai
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...While the coup against Thaksin came as a surprise because there hadn't been one in 14 years, military ousters have been commonplace throughout modern Thai history. The military has staged 18 successful coups since 1932, when a group of army officers and intellectuals overthrew the last absolute monarch. Since then, the military has ruled overtly or has influenced politics from behind the scenes. In May 1992, Bangkok's middle class rose up against a general who usurped power following an election in which he was not a candidate. Soldiers responded with deadly force. King Bhumibol intervened...
...known for his inability to tolerate dissent. In 2006, top generals believed Thaksin was planning to remove them for refusing his orders to crack down on protesters, so they moved against him while he was attending a U.N. meeting in New York. In one of the many ironies in Thai politics, the man they installed as Prime Minister, General Surayud Chulanont, had, as army chief, opposed soldiers' meddling in politics...
...Exile A telecom billionaire who has spent much of his self-exile in Dubai, Thaksin is an unlikely savior for a legion of bus commuters. He is everything a Thai farmer or construction worker is not: a pale-complexioned ethnic Chinese with nary a callus on his palms. (Abhisit fits that category too.) But Thaksin knew how to tap into a voter base long underexploited by traditional Thai politicians. His populist policies, which included heavily subsidized health care and microfinancing schemes, delighted the lower classes and helped Thaksin win the largest electoral mandate in Thai history. Economists have critiqued...
...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 factions and just want a government that isn't constantly stuck in crisis mode. Abhisit has offered dialogue with the red shirts' leaders, but no amount of talking over the past four years has resulted in any political conciliation. Equally distressing for Thais, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, often considered an arbiter...
...peasants. But last year, yellow-shirt leader and media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul placed sanitary napkins soaked with menstrual blood around a Bangkok monument as part of a spell designed to vanquish Thaksin. Many locals seem to believe that witchcraft will be just as influential in driving the course of Thai politics as good governance or normal political dissent. In the end, that may be the true curse of Thailand's politics...