Two weeks of street protests have taken a toll on Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. He works and lives in a military base. He barely sees his family. His home and office have been splashed with sacrificial blood. Whether his 15-month-old, military-backed government survives depends on whether he can continue to resist protesters' demands for early elections, which the opposition aligned with ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra would almost certainly win. Public opinion in politically powerful Bangkok still favours him. But the longer protests drag on, the bigger the risk of the tide turning against him for failing to resolve the impasse, and the harder it will become to reject those demands, analysts say. All this is an unprecedented test for Abhisit, 45, a British-born, Oxford-educated economist lauded by investors for steering Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy out of recession with fellow Oxford alumnus Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij. “Abhisit's government has been phenomenal. They are very credible technocrats. Korn is a very savvy ex-investment banker who knows how to sell Thailand to the outside world,” said Joseph Tan, chief Asia economist at Credit Suisse. “But this is not about capability. This is about rural Thailand.” That raises red flags for investors with a medium to longer-term horizon and puts pressure on the government with its royalist and establishment backers to find a quick way to quell the discontent at the heart of the mostly rural protest movement. Analysts say that is especially so if the red-shirted protesters with their calls of class warfare and social injustice win more of the cheers they received unexpectedly in a 65,000-strong watershed procession last Saturday through a usually hostile Bangkok. The “red shirts” plan more rallies, including a “historic” protest on Saturday, and say they may stay for weeks after massing more than 150,000 on the streets on March 14 and making headlines emptying bottles of their blood outside Abhisit's home. The displays of opposition political muscle bode ill for Abhisit's chances in elections that must be called by the end of next year and raise doubts the government can make inroads into the vote-rich north and northeast, a Thaksin stronghold home to just over half of Thailand's 67 million people. Red shirts ‘back stronger' Last April, the opposition was considered politically dead and reviled in Bangkok, home to Thailand's powerbrokers, after “red shirt” protests sparked the country's worst street violence in 17 years, killing two people during April holidays. “The red shirts shouldn't even be a viable movement,” said Supavud Saicheua, managing director of Phatra Securities in Bangkok. “People shouldn't be touching them with a barge pole, you would've thought, after what they did to Bangkok last year. “But a year later they are back stronger, with a better message, more convincing, and being able to get cheers from people in Bangkok welcoming them. That is something,” he added. “The worst the government can do is muddle through and then it looks even worse for them a year for now. “That's the main political risk facing Abhisit.” It is also the main risk facing Thailand's resurgent markets. Foreign investors have poured $1.4 billion into Thailand since Feb. 22, driving stocks to 20-month highs and the local baht currency to a 22-month peak, drawn by low valuations and confident the supporters of Thaksin, overthrown in a 2006 coup and later convicted of graft, cannot force elections. But if Thaksin's allies prevail in polls that must be called by Dec. 22, 2011, more political turbulence awaits. Royalist elites and military leaders would almost certainly seek to overturn that result, possibly with another coup. Looming elections Abhisit has repeatedly said his Democrat Party can win the next election, citing the effects on voters from two years of aggressive government spending in rural communities – from free health care to new roads, schools and low-income housing. His policies echo those pursued by Thaksin, a 60-year-old former telecommunications tycoon beloved in the north and northeast for becoming the first civilian Thai leader to reach out to the poor through populist policies such as cheap loans. Speaking to Reuters last month, Abhisit said his party could win 240 seats in an election, half the total and a substantial increase from his party's 165 seats in the last election in 2007, when a pro-Thaksin party won 233 seats. That is doubtful, say analysts, who estimate the best he could do is 200 seats, leaving the Thaksin-allied Puea Thai Party with a strong chance of forming either a single-party government or comfortably leading a coalition. “It would be illogical for Abhisit to come out and say ‘look we're going to lose the election' because we don't have enough support'. So what he says is understandable, even though it doesn't reflect the reality,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. But Pavin and others say Abhisit has surprised many Thais by perservering in a volatile climate that only two years ago saw three changes of leadership in four months. “Abhisit today is very different from Abhisit last year. This is a totally different guy now. Given the very difficult circumstances, he has become a much stronger leader,” he said. He said Abhisit has proven less beholden to the establishment elite than expected, especially behind the scenes, but this will be tested as he comes under growing public pressure to compromise with the red shirts – something that would rile his backers. “He has at times refused to take an order from whoever backs him,” he said. “He has been in power for over a year so there must be something. Still, winning the next election is a totally different thing.”
