Thailand Opposition Stages Rally

Tens of thousands of protesters, many in headbands declaring “Save the Country,” answered Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s snap election call with a festive nighttime rally Sunday calling on him to quit instead.

Organizers hoped the peaceful gathering near the Royal Palace would spawn a wave of protests strong enough to push Thaksin from power. The opposition has been enraged by what it says is the prime minister’s unethical, if not illegal, sale of his family holding company to Singaporean interests in January for a tax-free $1.8-billion gain.

Protesters wore royal yellow T-shirts to show loyalty to king and country, and chanted “Thaksin Get Out.” Some vowed to camp out on the palace grounds until he resigned.

They may be in for a long wait. The collage of students, teachers, workers and Buddhist monks who form the core of the People’s Alliance for Democracy has been thrown on its heels by the prime minister’s decision to dissolve parliament and seek a fresh mandate in a new election on April 2.

“I will not accept the opinion of the mob,” Thaksin said Friday, in announcing the new elections.

His decision has sharpened the clash between the ballot box and street power in this southeast Asian country of 65 million.

The initial reaction of the three main opposition parties, which acknowledge that they are too weak and disorganized to defeat Thaksin at the polls, was to urge a boycott of the election, though they appeared to back away Sunday from that drastic step.

“He is very accomplished; he’s good at creating an image, and the election is still happening within the boundaries of his power,” complained Samana Bodhirak, head of the Santi Asoke Buddhist sect, as he sat with several hundred supporters at the rally.

Thaksin’s power remains formidable. His Thais Love Thais party controls 376 of the parliament’s 500 seats, and the billionaire’s popularity shows no sign of waning among rural voters in the country’s north, a political base he has showered with government money since coming to office in 2001.

While his opponents were denouncing him at the rally Sunday, Thaksin was in a Bangkok neighborhood, formally signing over government housing to about 1,000 residents, who presented him with roses.

Bancha, a vegetable seller attending the rally, was unimpressed. “He tricks the Thai people, especially in the countryside,” said the 37-year-old who, like many Thais, goes by one name. “It’s easy to fool them.”

Much of the hostility toward Thaksin remains centered in the capital, where it is amplified by that segment of the Bangkok media that the prime minister’s family does not own. The urban elite appeared finally to lose their patience with the prime minister after the January sale of Shin Corp., his family company that has telecommunications, media and airline holdings, to the investment arm of the Singapore government. The sale came just days after the government passed a law easing restriction on foreign investment.

Thaksin points out that the changes to the law had been in the works for two years. And he argues that he ceded control of the family business to his children when he took office, though critics have scoffed at the claim that he doesn’t call the shots.

Conflict of interest allegations have shadowed Thaksin throughout his term, but the forces against him had been losing momentum until the Shin Corp. sale gave them a boost. The transaction also triggered the defection of Chamlong Srimuang from Thaksin’s circle. The former military officer and moral figure in Thai politics was instrumental in encouraging Thaksin to run for office.

Chanlong was among the main speakers denouncing his ex-protege at Sunday’s rally. He spoke from a stage festooned with a huge drawing of Thaksin eating a Thai flag. Around the royal grounds, the prime minister was caricatured variously as a snake, devil and pirate, while a Thai folk singer sang “Blowing in the Wind.”

“The prime minister must be a good role model,” said Bancha, who had traveled to the rally from his home in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya about an hour away. “Thaksin is so much richer than me. I make 200 to 300 baht a day [about $5-$7], and I pay my taxes. Why doesn’t he?”