Reality lesson for Red Shirts

It would seem Thaksin Shinawatra is very upset about some stickers that are starting to appear around Bangkok saying he will be the President of a new state. The fact of the matter is, this one simple sticker encompasses the reality of what Thaksin opponents have known for years, but completely eludes the lesser educated Thaksin supporters.

Getting bombarded with Thais all in a panic about a revolution was part of today’s stack of emails asking about what was going on. But to sun it up Connecting the Dots does not see that is happening. This is more of a lesson to the lesser educated Thaksin supporters about being careful what you ask for. There does not seem to be enough support for Thaksin across Thailand to make that happen. In fact Connecting the Dots feels if you look at the demographics for the accept or reject vote on the 2007 Constitution and thin out the reject vote by about 20%, you would see a fair spread of today’s possibility for a revolution.

When you look at it, the Pro Thaksin people are a minority, but because of how the population is laid out in Thailand, they have significant voting power that can swing the balance of power because of the number of constituencies. Connecting the Dots estimates that only about 1/3 of all Thais actually support Thaksin. It is the loud and aggressive behavior of Thaksin supporters that lends to the illusion of their numbers being bigger.

So getting back to the lesson of the new sticker, there will be a lot of effort and energy being used by the Red Shirt leaders to blur and offset the damage of this reality. Thaksin has been labeled a dictator by more than one politician as well as the educated public. There have been no challenges to that because of Thaksin’s systematic stripping and gutting all of the checks and balances that insure a democracy meet the description of dictator. The court would simply rule supporting the Thaksin dictator view is not defamation as that is a bit of a no brainer to see happening in a court that is not corrupt.

So as education or lack of is the key to Thaksin’s power, this new sticker looks to make it in your face to Thaksin supporters about what Thaksin is really about. It does not matter who created the sticker, in fact it will be very easy to defend with facts. Thaksin wants things as they were in September 18, 2006, and that is the template of the lesson. Short of a few military moves of pro Thaksin officers, Thaksin already had near absolute power and could effectively squash any challenge to his authority by controlling people that were meant to be independent.

In fact it would not surprise Connecting the Dots if this is only the first of a series of in your face stickers to educate Thaksin’s under educated supporters about what Thaksin is really all about and start to close the gap some.


One Response to Reality lesson for Red Shirts

  1. crocodilexp says:

    You’re right that Thaksin had dangerous authoritarian tendencies and was no promoter of democracy out of principle (only when it suits him).

    However “education” you mention is a slimy slur used by the elites. Let’s face it, 80+% of the “educated” (i.e. yellow-shirt) Thais could not name, say, leaders of Soviet Union, USA and Germany in 1941. Not that it matters the least bit — their “education” consists of buying into and being able to justify the semi-feudal social system of Thailand.