ANALYSIS: Thailand's famed resiliency sorely tested

Bangkok - Thailand - a country whose recent history has included 18 coups and several bloody showdowns between troops and protestors - has a reputation for resiliency as a cohesive society that manages to muddle through its political crises with compromises. That famed resiliency is being sorely tested. Analysts are warning that if Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva fails to push through significant political reforms soon that return Thailand to a more democratic path, the country's deep political divide will widen and more violence could be in store. Abhisit, the 44-year-old Oxford-educated leader of the Democrat Party that leads the government, has vowed to launch a national reconciliation process in the wake of this month's clashes between troops and anti-government protestors that left two people dead and 123 injured, according to government accounts of the incident. He has also mooted an amnesty for about 200 veteran politicians whose careers have been cut short by court rulings based on provisions in the military-sponsored 2007 constitution that is deemed by its critics hostile to political parties and supportive of the bureaucracy and appointed officials. There has also been talk of amending the 2007 charter. But all these suggestions have been met with opposition from the Thai establishment - monarchists, the military and the bureaucracy - who are among Abhisit's chief political supporters. 'The signs are bad,' said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University. 'I think Abhisit's window to reform and accommodation is fast closing.' Abhisit's political opponents, the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) that led the protests earlier this month and the opposition Puea Thai party, have little faith is his talk of national reconciliation. Abhisit came to power last December after the Constitution Court disbanded the People Power Party (PPP), that headed Thailand's last government and was openly supportive of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a coup in 2006 and has lived in self-exile since he was sentenced to a two-year jail term on abuse of power charges last year. Although Abhisit's appointment was legitimate by parliamentary procedure, his critics accuse the military, judiciary and last year's pro-monarchy protestors of conspiring to bring him to power. 'Abhisit is just a mouthpiece for the establishment,' said core UDD leader Jakrapob Penkair, who has evaded arrest and claims to be organizing an 'underground' anti-government movement that might resort to violent tactics. 'The point is that when the government ignores the people, they have to find a way to get the country reformed,' Jakrapob said in a phone interview from an undisclosed hiding place. Most of the key UDD leaders were arrested on April 14, and remain under detention. In contrast, core leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which organized six months of protests last year that culminated with the closure of Bangkok's two airports, have yet to be punished. 'The present situation in which rule of law does not prevail, and law enforcement is discriminatory, is forcing some groups to seek other means of protest, including going underground,' said Chaturon Chaisaeng, a former leader of the defunct Thai Rak Thai party that was founded by Thaksin. But Chaturon downplayed threats that the red-shirted UDD movement is going underground. 'The movement doesn't need to go underground at all, because their demands are accepted by the Thai public,' Chaturon said. While the red-shirts openly support Thaksin, their political goals go beyond calls that he be returned to power, an increasingly remote possibility. Thaksin, who was prime minister between 2001-2006, has been discredited by the recent street violence which he encouraged through phone-in messages to his followers, at one point even calling for a 'people's revolution.' The Thai government this month revoked Thaksin's passport, forcing him to travel on a passport granted by Nicaragua. Part of Thaksin's durability as a political force is his money. A former telecommunications tycoon, Thaksin allegedly has millions socked away abroad. He is keen to have the Thai government return to his family 2 billion dollars in frozen bank accounts. But Thaksin's popular appeal is not just money. During his premiership, he courted votes from Thailand's rural and urban poor with populist programmes that tangibly improved their lives and gave them a sense of empowerment. That sense of empowerment has been lost, first with the military coup of 2006 and then the promulgation of the 2007 constitution that has reined in the powers of elected politicians. 'The mechanism has to be put in place to reset the democratic mandate,' Thitinan said. 'Otherwise there will be a build-up of more tension. You have to let it off.'