THE struggle for control of Thailand gets uglier with each round of street violence, but three years after the foes of then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra took up the fight, there is still no sign of a winner. The only thing analysts agree is that the strife, which has meandered from street protests in late 2005 to a military coup to elections and back to street protests, is likely to drag on for months, if not years, and will not end happily. Such a forecast bodes ill for investors and the economy, which is likely to remain rudderless at a time of slowing export growth, with government more focused on survival than staving off the effects of the global financial crisis. Throughout, the conflict's basic structure has not changed. On one side is Thaksin, a super-rich businessman from the north who redrew the political map by courting rural voters to gain an unassailable mandate that he then used to advance the interests of major companies, including many of his own. On the other are the traditional elites threatened by his meteoric rise after the 1997 Asian crisis – mainly the military, monarchy and bureaucracy, but also the unions, academics who saw Thaksin as a corrupt rights abuser, and the urban middle-class who resented their taxes being used as his political war chest. Each of these finds a voice in the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the street movement that has occupied the prime minister's compound since August and which laid siege to parliament and fought running battles with police on Tuesday. Behind its round-the-clock railing against Thaksin and his brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat, the current Prime Minister, the PAD's aim is to rewrite the constitution under the banner of “new politics” to reduce the clout of the rural vote. “They are not opposed to just individuals any more. They are opposed to the entire system of one man, one vote,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University said. “That's the bottom line. It's a sophisticated, protracted power grab.” Who's in charge? Whether they pull it off remains to be seen. Even if Somchai's days are numbered, as most analysts agree they are, and even if his party is dissolved for electoral fraud, as most analysts agree it will be, the fact remains that rural voters will always return another broadly pro-Thaksin government. And as long as the PAD refuses to accept election results it does not like, the ballot box will only defer the crisis, rather than end it, said political analyst Giles Ungphakorn. “I can't see this being solved very quickly because the PAD are certainly never going to compromise,” he said. “But the government can't just give in. They also feel they have the backing of the electorate. “It's a very strange situation whereby the police, military intelligence, all sorts of people, don't know what to do. They don't know who's going to be the master,” he said. The PAD's main tactic appears to be create anarchy in Bangkok to the point that it triggers extra-constitutional intervention either by revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej or the military. Chastened by its wretched performance after the 2006 coup and well aware of the enormity of Thailand's social rift, the army is loathe to march into politics again and has repeatedly stressed its neutrality. King ‘In the middle' Which leaves the king – officially above politics but who by his own admission has been “in the middle, and working in every field” during his 62 years on the throne. It is hard to know exactly how supportive he is of the PAD, but the movement constantly invokes the royal family, in particular Queen Sirikit, who is venerated in a huge shrine at the gates to its Government House protest headquarters. “We, ladies and gentlemen, are the musketeers of the king and queen,” PAD leader Sonthi Limthongkul told supporters on Tuesday, trumpeting a 100,000 baht ($2,900) donation from the queen to injured protesters as evidence of her explicit backing. Yet the PAD could be playing with fire by sucking the royal family into a high-stakes political fight at a critical juncture for the Chakri dynasty – the twilight of the reign of Bhumibol, now 80 years old and in declining health. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn's skills as a behind-the-scenes political arbiter are untested, and he will struggle to earn the respect accorded his father, seen as semi-divine by many. “What happens after the current king leaves the scene could be the most wrenching crisis yet,” Thitinan said in a paper to be published this week in the US-based Journal of Democracy. “All bets are off when the current royal twilight finally fades to full darkness.” – Reuters __
