Obama Symbol of Hope

If fear was the currency of Bush's presidency, then hope will be that of Obama's.

On a clear, cold day in Washington, looking at times stern and Presidential, at others smiling, relaxed and fatherly, Obama ushered in a new spirit of inspiration, energy and change in America.

His inauguration, a blend of glitz, glamour and nervous ritual, was watched by a jubilant and relieved planet; keen to herald in Obama and perhaps even keener to bid farewell to the destructive rhetoric and policies of the Bush era, which will likely go down in history as one of the darkest chapters of American history.

Where once the word terror peppered the ragged oratory of Bush, Obama, silver-tongued, his voice booming across the Capitol, spoke eloquently of America's fist being at last unclenched, of a new America committed to rebuilding itself in accord with the morally charged vision of its founding fathers.

Embarrassed and deflated by its failures on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, dishonoured by its arrogant abandonment of once-cherished judicial values and shamed by the excesses and dishonesty which have so completely infected its financial system, America today is a shadow of the superpower that once proudly cast itself as the policeman of the planet; the only superpower willing to use its might in the name of right.

Obama, his breath forming tiny white clouds in the chill air of Washington, declared boldly to the millions listening that he would restore America's pride and honour. He promised to realign his nation's policies with the norms of justice that were once the pillars of its system and to move away from the politics of vengeance that characterised the government of George W. Bush.

To many, especially the descendants of America's slaves, the scene must have seemed surreal. Many sobbed tears of joy as they watched Obama. A black man taking his oath as the 44th President in a city where, as Obama noted, just 60 years ago his father would not even have been served in a restaurant. What more powerful an image of change could there have been than a black man taking over the Presidency from a white Texan and scion of America's political elite?This was truly, as Obama's election slogan so aptly put it, 'change we can believe in'.

As we watched the military helicopter carry Bush into a sombre corner of our memory, one could not help but feel the freshness, optimism, intelligence and humanity that Obama brings to America's highest office. His family looking on adoringly, glowed with pride. Their love and intimacy, captured live on our screens, looks authentic, unforced, genuine.

Finally, one cannot help but believe, or hope at least, that a man whose roots combine oppression, globalism and struggle, a man who has overcome the bitterness of his past and the obstacles that discrimination undoubtedly placed in his way will be better able to understand the needs, fears and aspirations of the many millions of lives his future decisions may affect.

Radio Waves Deepen Thailand's Divide

On the surface, life is normal in Bangkok.

This morning I sat in a traffic jam in a taxi as I have done on so many mornings in this city.

Motorcycles zipped past inches from my window. Neat lines of cars, trundling to work, shimmered in the morning heat haze.

Just as my mind was beginning to grapple with the boredom of my predicament, I became aware of a voice, calm and even in its tone, crackling over the radio. "Aphisit Vejajiva is not a person," said the voice. "The supporters of the democrats are animals."

I can't remember all of the exact words that drifted from the taxi's cheap radio speakers, but I do remember that they were loaded with hatred and menace.

"What radio station is this," I asked my imperturbable driver who seemed as impervious to the invective pouring from his speakers as he was to the mayhem on the streets around him. "Oh this is the taxi radio station," he explained, deadpan. "It's the red shirts' station."

My Thai is good enough now that I feel the weight of words. Phrases emerging from a taxi's radio snag easily in my mind.

I remember thinking how the menace in the words I was hearing reminded me of a scene in Hotel Rwanda, a film set during that country's horrific genocide.

Early on in the film, when the majority Hutus are goading their supporters into killing members of the Tutsi tribe, a voice is heard over a car radio: "“Why do we hate the Tutsis? They are cockroaches…," it says.

Those words were apparently repeated word for word from an actual broadcast on national radio in Rwanda at that time. The ensuing bloodbath and genocide of the Tutsi is one of the great tragedies of modern history.

I was struck by how similar, in essence, the Rwandan broadcast was to what I was hearing on the taxi's radio in Bangkok. The comparison is chilling indeed.

I'm not suggesting that Thailand is about to descend into bloody anarchy on the scale of Rwanda, but the use of radio and television is one of the most powerful means of reaching directly into people's hearts and minds.

Dehumanisation is also one of the best ways of preparing fighters for battle. The subtext behind the broadcast I heard this morning could easily be: The man you are about to hurt or kill is not like you. He is not human. He's just a 'cockroach' or an 'animal'.

Dehumanisation is a tool of war and a justification for cruelty. It was used by the Nazis, who viewed their Jewish victims as sub human. It was even used by a famous Thai monk, called Phra Kittivuttho, who argued in 1976 that it was right for Buddhists to kill leftists because they were enemies of the nation, religion and the monarchy.

"Such killings are not the killing of persons," he claimed. "Because whoever destroys the nation, religion and monarchy are not a whole person, but, evil. Our intention must be not to kill people but to kill the Devil. It is the duty of all Thai... It is like when we kill a fish to make curry to place in the alms bowl for a monk. There is certainly demerit in killing the fish, but when we place it in the alms bowl of a monk we gain much greater merit."

The apparent banality of a radio show blaring in a taxi cab in a traffic jam contrasts starkly with the violence of the ideas and thoughts being propagated over the airwaves.

We are again witnessing the same cycle of incitement and rabble rousing that characterised the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which became famous for its use of satellite TV and radio broadcasts.

The relentlessness of the broadcast I heard as I sat in the traffic was hypnotic, chant-like. It was as if you listened to it long enough, like one of those catchy tunes that gets aired incessantly, it would lodge in your brain. It was like a sermon teaching its listeners how to hate.

If one ignores the substance of the arguments on both sides of Thailand's political divide, there should be real concern that the country is continuing along a path of divisiveness in which the opposing groups are using propaganda techniques designed to prepare their supporters for eventual combat.

I can only hope that the Thais will invoke their miraculous ability to pull back from the brink of disaster and thereby avoid the violence which seems to be one of the logical conclusions to the current situation.

The Roots of Thailand's Turmoil

Even with Abhisit Vejajiva at the helm of government, few believe that Thailand's youngest ever Prime Minister, Eton educated and Oxford graduated as he may be, can calm the political turbulence that continues to batter Thailand's democracy.

With his boyish looks and impeccable pedigree, Abhisit was clearly born to lead. Yet while his polish, breeding and academic credentials may make him a seemingly ideal Premier - a man cut from finer cloth than most of his roguish political contemporaries - Abhisit is far from being the unifying figure Thailand needs to navigate through the current crisis.

An almost flawless embodiment of Thailand's privileged, paternalistic and often foreign educated 'high society'; Abhisit's formative experiences are a universe removed from the majority of people he will rule. Though he may have the allure of a Thai-style Obama, Abhisit, youthful and eloquent as he is, remains an icon of elite power.

His accession to the premiership, the result of political horsetrading in the aftermath of the collapse of the previous government, shines a spotlight on the mounting tensions between the concentrated power of privilege in Thailand and the increasingly urgent pressure for popular participation from below.

Such tensions, which are now challenging the stage-managed appearances of democracy, are arguably the most significant underlying factors behind Thailand's ongoing crisis.

In its coverage of recent street demonstrations, the Western media has focused on the most visible and immediate manifestations of Thailand's malaise.

A litany of articles have portrayed the yellow-clad supporters of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) as the centurions of a self-serving, conservative and undemocratic elite; a simplistic explanation of a movement that has a surprisingly diverse support base and which is also driven by a sincere desire to see a clean-up of corruption in government.

The PAD says Thailand's problems are developmental, even cultural. Thailand is not suited to a one-man-one-vote system its leaders argue. The PAD spews nationalistic and royalist rhetoric while characterising the rural majority it seeks to disenfranchise as uneducated, hopelessly venal and by conclusion unfit to vote.

The Economist magazine scandalously pointed an accusing finger at Thailand's revered monarchy: blaming it for deliberately holding back Thailand's democratic development. Again though one cannot deny the relevance of the monarchy to any discussion of Thailand's political future, this argument was misleadingly narrow.

Viewed from a broader perspective, today's political storm is better explained as a fundamental conflict between tradition and modernity, between the reality of privilege and the rhetoric of democratic equality.

Tradition has provided a vital historical and cultural continuum, allowing this relatively young nation state to define its roots by pointing to ancient rituals and cultural traits that can be claimed to be shared by all. The State has promoted tradition by propagating the concept of Thai-ness (kwam pen Thai), a largely artificial cultural construct, as a unifying reference for all of its citizens.

Historically and traditionally, the monarchy has always been the focus of political power in Thailand; a reality that remains partly true to this day. Traditionally, however, the monarch's power was not defined by physical borders but by the fluctuating reach of his aura.

Though Thailand was never colonised, its recent leaders, both monarchs and politicians, have sought to redefine the Thai Kingdom within the framework of a Western style, modern nation-state; complete with the associated apparatus of government and the legitimising clothes of democracy.

Since 1932, when absolute monarchy was abolished in Thailand, the political establishment has tried to balance the need for historical and traditional continuity with their desire to transform Thailand into a modern democratic nation. During this period, punctuated by coups and counter coups, successive governments have see-sawed between liberal and authoritarian forms of democracy.

Unlike their Western counterparts, however, many of whom took centuries to establish stable democratic systems, Thailand has attempted to build a Western-style democratic culture in a matter of decades.

In many ways, there have been astounding successes. The Thai State has succeeded in creating a very palpable sense of nationhood among its citizens, asking its population to rally around the triumvirate of nation, religion and monarchy. Meanwhile it has implanted the machinery of government throughout the land and inculcated the population with a strong notional sense of individual rights and democratic duty.

One of the Thailand's enduring charms is its apparent ability to combine tradition, its religious reverence for its 'god king', colourful Buddhism and Hindu-style rituals, with the trappings of a modern nation complete with skyscrapers and skytrains.

The "Land of Smiles", as it has become known is place where Western tourists can sample the flavour of traditional Asia while never being far from all the familiar comforts of modernity.

Despite Thailand's successes, the country's recent turmoil suggests that the inherent contradiction between the reality of elite privilege and a State sponsored ideology of democratic equality are finally beginning play out on the streets.

The stakes are high on both sides of the divide. On the one hand, the established elites must find a justifiable argument or the physical means for perpetuating their control of government. On the other, Thailand's majority must now decide if it is to stand by and accept a social contract which will cede considerable power to the political elite or if they are willing to stand and fight (with all that entails) for a more open and equitable democratic system.

Thai Constitutional Court Forces a Timely Interlude

In the latest act of this bizarre political drama, Thailand's constitutional court ruled Tuesday to disband three of the country's governing political parties for electoral fraud.

The verdict forced the dissolution of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's Palang Prachachon Party (PPP) or People's Power Party. Somchai, brother in law of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and 59 other MPs have been banned from politics for five years.

The decision was heralded as a 'victory' by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). On hearing the news, many of yellow-clad demonstrators occupying Suvarnabhumi International Airport broke down in tears.

In a surreal example of the disconnect between the PAD's single-minded commitment to its goals and the massive economic damage inflicted by its airport shutdowns, one of its leaders climbed onto stage and asked demonstrators to "please make sure you don't damage the airport facilities." And this while the nation's economy lay in smoking ruins all around.

As images of the PAD dismantling their barricades flashed across the nation's television screens millions of Thais breathed a sigh of relief.

If many are relieved to have a break from the relentless haranguing of the PAD, few doubt that this is little more than an interlude.

The timing of the courts' decision, just three days before the King's birthday, left almost no space for pro-government supporters to vent their frustration at a verdict many see as highly politicised.

Members of the disbanded parties have been busy forming new parties with new names. If they can muster enough seats, which is not yet clear, the current ruling coalition has every intention of forming a new government and naming a new Prime Minister from its ranks. A parliamentary session to vote on the appointment of a new Prime Minister could take place as early as next week.

If a new Prime Minister is appointed from the ranks of the existing ruling coalition, complete with its renamed parties, few doubt that the the PAD will object and that its yellow-clad army will once again be marching in the streets of Bangkok.

In this scenario the country will remain unstable. The dynamics of the crisis, and the polarisation it has engendered, will remain unaltered.

Pro government supporters now often referred to as the 'red shirts' have, till now, stayed clear of direct confrontation with the 'yellow shirts' of the PAD (barring one violent incident in September). But with public anger at the economic damage wrought by the PAD's airport occupations running high, the potential for violent clashes between these two groups is very real.

At a time when Thais are bereft of a unifying leader able to navigate through this crisis, a great deal of attention will be paid to the King's birthday speech tomorrow in which he traditionally delivers advice to the nation's leaders. His stature and the respect he inspires appears to be the only force capable of, temporarily at least, putting the lid on the explosive tensions threatening this nation's future.

Tragic Comedy

It's hard to know if one should laugh or cry. Thailand's crisis has taken on the air of a black comedy.

Two days ago police officers sat down with the leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) a minority movement that has for months occupied Government House and for the past 7 days the nation's two main airports.

The purpose of their meeting?

To discuss improved security for the demonstrators who have been the target of repeated grenade attacks resulting in scores of injuries, some serious.

Press pause. Improved security for the demonstrators?

Yes Thailand's police force is now sitting down with the leaders of a movement that illegally controls some of the nation's most essential infrastructure.

Instead of arresting the PAD's leaders and clearing the airports of protesters, Thailand's police force is discussing ways to improve security for PAD protesters.

Yesterday PAD supporters were allowed to leave the protest site at Government house and move to the airports occupied by their fellow demonstrators. The police and security forces did nothing to stem this migration which will greatly swell the numbers holding the airports, rendering the task of dislodging them even more problematic.

Meanwhile, electricity continues to flow to the airports. Air conditioners continue to cool the main terminal building at Suvarnabhumi International Airport; lest the protesters holed up there suffer any discomfort. Suvarnabhumi has become a roomy dormitory for PAD protesters who show absolutely no sign of moving out.

By contrast, approximately 250,000 international travelers must endure the chaos of U Tapao the military airport, designed for some 400 passengers per day, that is now the scene of tumult as tens of thousands of frustrated and anxious travelers, innocent victims of this black comedy, cram into its facilities. Others must travel up to 10 hours by bus to reach Phuket airport in the south, another alternative exit point.

How can one make sense of a protest movement that in its attempts to overthrow an elected government and install a new political process, is prepared to scuttle the very ship in which its supporters, and all Thais, must sail in the months and years to come?

For the actions of the PAD, however honorable their motives may be, are scuttling Thailand's once healthy economy. Investors are fleeing. Exports are literally rotting. Tourists are canceling holidays as fast as they can. The lifeblood of this economy is draining away.

Adding to the absurdity, and adding more dark news to the crisis, the UK's daily Telegraph this week announced that Thailand's was the 7th most dangerous place on earth. Little matter that it is surely more dangerous to walk the streets of London late on a Friday night. The damage has been done. It will take Thailand many, many months, if not years, to recover from the economic wounds inflicted by the current impasse.

The government, for its part, must share the blame for this disaster. It has had numerous opportunities to put a stop to the protests. Yet the PAD, strangely, has been allowed to expand its activities virtually unchallenged. The government, underscoring its own weakness, continues to hide, fearful and cowed, in the northern capital of Chiang Mai; unwilling to confront head-on a crisis which it bears the responsibility of resolving.

Such behaviour is stretching the very definition of government. At present, Thailand does not appear to be governed in any 'normal' sense of the word. Clearly, powerful forces are at work but among these the elected government does not, apparently, wield sufficient influence to deploy such basic tools of state as the police and army.

Which brings us to the role of the judiciary. Here again, Thailand's crisis is illustrating that traditional frames of reference no longer fit. The judiciary, theoretically a neutral force, has become a political football.

In 2001, the constitutional court controversially ruled in favour of Thaksin, then accused of illegal hiding assets. Few doubted his culpability but at that time Thaksin was heralded as the Nation's saviour and the ruled paved the way for him to become Prime Minister. Many believed the courts had yielded to the political current of that time.

Today, the currents are flowing in a different direction. Having already convicted Thaksin and his wife on separate counts, the judiciary will today announce its verdict in electoral fraud cases against three political parties who are members of the current ruling (misnomer?) coalition - including the main coalition party the Palang Prachachon Party (PPP).

Most observers believe the decision will be against the defendants and that these three parties will be dissolved, effectively making it impossible for the PPP and its Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, to remain in power.

Observers suggest that the judiciary through its apparent determination to marginalise, by indictment, Thaksin and the tools through which he continues to influence political life here (namely the PPP party) are implementing a kind of 'judicial coup' using what remains of the courts' legitimacy to open the way for a new government; one that would likely be more to the liking of the PAD and its supporters.

In some ways, even if the balance of power is shifted through a 'judicial coup', this will be just another act in this tragic comedy. For the dynamics that are the ingredients of this dark and increasingly absurd drama will remain as present and as powerful as ever. Only vision and leadership, compromise and conciliation, can now dampen the passion that is burning of both sides of Thailand's political divide.

But wait...There is perhaps one other force that might make a difference. What if the 400,000 passengers now stranded in Thailand were to simply turn up at Suvarnabhumi airport? It is hard to imagine that such a tidal wave of stressed, tired and frustrated passengers could not dislodge the demonstrators. It could be the first instance of 'Passenger Power' altering the political course of nation. It would be a turn no less bizarre than any other in this incomprehensible drama.

Thailand's Incomprehensible Tangle

It is almost impossible to understand the folly into which Thailand, Buddhist kingdom of tolerance and smiles, has descended.

The country's two main airports have been closed for the past 5 days affecting over 100,000 international travellers and inflicting incalculable damage on this nation's once effervescent economy.



The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) flaunts the law and taunts the government with impunity. It's control of vital infrastructure smacks more of insurrection than mere 'protest'.

The Nation newspaper reported today that PAD guards had arrested a plainclothes policewomen who narrowly escaped being lynched by angry demonstrators at Don Muang airport. It is a strange reversal of roles when the security apparatus of a protest movement starts arresting police officers.

Earlier in the day police retreated when confronted by PAD security guards at checkpoints on the road to Suvarnabhumi international airport.

Both these events underline the impunity with which the PAD can now act; publicly undermining the credibility and authority of the police and government while adding to a growing sense that the country has slipped beyond the effective control of the state.

Since its emergence in 2006, the PAD has moved a long way beyond its original mission to remove former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (ousted in a military coup in September 2006) and his cronies towards something more akin to a conservative revolution.

The PAD's inappropriately named New Politics proposal outlines a system where only 30% of government would be directly elected by the people. This would shift Thailand away from its existing 'one man one vote' system throwing the nation's democratic evolution into reverse.

It is hard to comprehend how the PAD, a movement that currently mobilises perhaps 30-40,000 supporters in Bangkok, has managed to take Thailand's economy and political system hostage.

The protesters occupying Suvarnabhumi airport number 3-4,000 people (at the lowest points), composed mainly of ordinary middle class folk, many of whom are women. Security is provided by a thin crust of highly motivated PAD guards who are referred to as 'Sivichai fighters' ('Nak Rop Sivichai' in Thai).



The PAD has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of funds and appears to benefit from some very highly placed support, creating a sort of force field of judicial immunity. The movement's legitimacy was given a major boost when Queen Sirikit attended the funeral of a PAD protester killed in the riots outside Parliament on October 7th.

Holed up in the northern capital of Chiang Mai, an hour's flight from Bangkok, the government of Somchai Wongsawat, though defiant, appears weak and indecisive. Somchai's reluctance to return to Bangkok, the epicenter of political life, reinforces the image of a regime that is literally losing its grip on the levers of power.

Similarly, the government's inability or unwillingness to take action against PAD activists occupying strategic locations suggests either that it is simply too weak to act or that it believes there is some strategic political advantage to be gained from letting the PAD take control of such key facilities.

A measure of the government's insecurity was that it did not dare launch a police action without declaring a State of Emergency at the airports and gaining the explicit support of the courts. In any normal situation an incumbent government would be well within its rights to expel protesters from a strategic facility such as an international airport.

The role of the nation's armed forces also remains unclear. Despite calls by the PAD leadership, the army has refused to step into the fray. Its commanders are aware that military intervention would provide a temporary halt to hostilities but would not address the fundamental divisions fuelling the current crisis.

The government at one point announced that the navy and air force would be used to help disperse protesters at the two airports but they have so far taken no action.

The military is possibly waiting for a more significant deterioration of the situation that would enable its commanders to argue that the country is completely ungovernable, giving the military an excuse to assume a more permanent expanded role in Thai politics.

Meanwhile Thailand is in a state of suspended animation. The streets, though abuzz with coup rumours, bear testimony to a strange dislocation between the sporadic violence and growing intensity of Thailand's crisis and the banality of everyday life which continues virtually uninterrupted.

But if Thailand's streets remain clogged with traffic and its local markets continue to bustle, the nation's balance of international credibility is rapidly evaporating. The short and long term outlook for Thailand's economy, already buffeted by a global downturn, is grim. Much of Thailand's appeal as an investment location has resided in the relative reliability of its infrastructure, the convenience of its geographical location as a flight hub and its ability to insulate the economy from the shenanigans of its politicians.

The current situation bears little ideological analysis. Thailand's elites are engaged in a cynical battle of interests, the outcome of which will likely determine the nation's political future, most particularly in the period following the passing of Thailand's much revered monarch who has become the traditional arbiter in times of deep crisis.

Hell bent on advancing their own agenda's Thailand's political leaders seem so blinded by their ambition that they cannot, or prefer not, to see the huge damage they are inflicting on the country. The principal losers, sadly, will be the Thais themselves, whose genius for finding smiles amidst conflict has, till now, seen them through so many dark times.

Future Looks Bleak for Thailand

The situation in Thailand continues to deteriorate with no sign of a solution to this nation's increasingly bitter political impasse.

Anti government protesters of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have now succeeded in shutting down Suvarnabhumi international airport, cutting the nation's principal transportation link to the rest of the world.

PAD protesters are preventing Ministers and Senators from attending meetings in Parliament and the government's temporary offices at Don Muang Airport to the north of the city are surrounded by yellow-clad supporters of the PAD.

Meanwhile thousands of PAD sympathisers continue to occupy the grounds of Government House. Sporadic clashes between rival political groups are taking place throughout the capital, Bangkok.

Faced by this situation the police, cowed by criticism of their violent response to protests outside parliament on October 7th, which resulted in several deaths and hundreds of injuries, have chosen to stand by and allow the PAD to pursue a strategy aimed at creating a situation where Thailand is ungovernable.

Under the magnifying glass of the media, which delivers images crammed with PAD protesters clad in yellow, it looks as though we are witnessing a popular revolution against an impotent and unpopular regime.

Yet the demographics of Thailand's political conflict actually favour the incumbents.

Few doubt that if the government were to be dissolved and new elections held, the People's Power Party (PPP), or any other anointed representative of ousted Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, would likely be returned to power.

On the surface, the PAD is a movement driven by a profound disillusionment with the state of Thai politics which, as society and the economy have modernised, have remained ossified in a state of 'Third World' corruption.

The PAD's support base is an unlikely alliance of hard-line conservatives, liberal intellectuals and members of the urban middle class. Its leaders' incessant tirades against the corruption of the political elite and its goal of delivering what it calls 'New Politics' (of which more below) resonates profoundly among these groups, who are hungry for an upgrade of the political system.

Among those who support the government there is, paradoxically, a deep felt resentment that the PAD is actually seeking to roll back Thailand's political development. That the PAD represents the forces of old rather than new politics.

Many of those who voted for Thaksin, of whom most live in rural areas particularly in the North and North East, see Thaksin and his PPP as their best chance for flexing their democratic muscle.

Exploiting the rural bias of Thailand's political demographics, Thaksin and the PPP have played the populist card, offering a policy platform tailored to the interests of the rural majority who have faithfully returned their champions to power.

Like the PAD, Thaksin built his support on a platform that promised political renewal. The slogan of his now-banned Thai Rak Thai, the vehicle which he rode to an electoral landslide in 2001, was Kit Mai Tham Mai which means New Thinking, New Methods.

Beneath the surface of these powerful political currents, however, is the reality that Thailand's traditional political establishment faces the challenge of a traumatic succession when the much-loved and revered King Bhumipol Adulydej, 81 and in poor health, passes from the scene.

The King has served as an ultimate incarnation of legitimate authority in Thailand and has, through his judicious intervention in times of crisis, been able to contain most destructive forces within Thai politics.

Aware of the impending vacuum and of the huge stakes at a national level, conflicting poles of power have already begun competing and it is their struggle that is today being played out on the streets of Bangkok by equally disillusioned segments of the population.

The PAD, which relies heavily on royal symbolism (yellow is the colour of the King) is seen as the political expression of the traditional conservative elite. The PAD's New Politics proposal outlines a political system which would do away with the current one man one vote democracy replacing it with a model that would see only 30% of government representative elected through popular suffrage. The remaining 70% would be appointees.

The pro-government movement, whose supporters wear red, is seen as an expression of the populist democratic energy unleashed by Thaksin.

Thaksin Shinawatra's 'success' in political terms was to have opened the pandora's box which is the dislocation between the interests of the rural majority, who were largely passed by during Thailand's boom years, and those of the growing urban middle class who benefitted massively from the nation's 'miracle' economic growth. It is ironic, and represents a cynical triumph of political marketing, that one of the nation's wealthiest tycoons should become a hero for the poor.

As Thailand's political opponents square off, as the nation's economy and government slide into paralysis, there is no obvious solution to the current impasse.

For while each interest group possesses powerful leadership there appears to be no unifying figure, beyond that of the King, that can offer the Thai people a vision of what could lie beyond this crisis.

The reality is that for a nation to be able to move into the future it must first of all have a clear vision of what that future might consist of. Until a leader emerges from the fog of Thailand's political turmoil, Thailand's future looks bleak indeed.