It seems that when a populist policy goes bad, the damage to the Government is in direct per portion to the money involved. So in the case where 130 Billion Baht (4.3 Billion USD) is involved, it stings a lot. In this case the demographic population of Thailand that elected the Pro-Thaksin government is now a major victim of Thaksin sponsored corruption, and because of that their eyes have been opened by their empty wallets and their empty stomachs.
The Pheu Thai Party (PTP) has been busy accusing the Anti-Thaksin protesters of convincing the Thaksin supporting demographic population being the poor rice farmers to turn against the Government. However ironically it is not specifically the Anti-Thaksin protesters, it has been opposing political parties like the Democrats who have been right along working at doing that. It may be added without much success. It is not even the Anti-Thaksin protesters that are convincing the poor rice farmers to turn against the Government.
The truth of the matter is, it is the Government themselves through their failed rice pledging scheme that is turning the farmers against them. This reinforces the fact that all fatal political moves in Thailand are self inflicted.
It would seem that the Government is already doomed and possibly Thaksin’s influence as well. It will be a long time before the farmers will forget how they have been hurt by this. However the Government still wants to end the Anti-Government protest, and they are now limited to what is known as a surgical strike.
The State of Emergency for the most part is useless as that would quickly turn whatever remaining support they have against them by going in and attacking the peaceful Anti-Thaksin protesters. By seeing bloodied faces of farmers on the news who are now part of the Anti-Thaksin group, and knowing they are only there as a last resort to get what is owed to them, it will be like the iceberg that sunk the Titanic busting open the entire length of the ship and not just part of it.
So the attempted surgical strike of arresting the protest leaders with the hopes the movement will fall apart seems the only option. But it seems in reality going after the Anti-Thaksin protesters at this point offers zero gains as other things have been set in motion that will end the Government. So any attack would be more about inflicting pain for daring to challenge Thaksin. It is a bit like punching the cop that arrested you.
But even now the Anti-Thaksin protesters are trying to help the farmers and that seems to be winning over the farmers. Just on a humanitarian level where Thais are helping Thais, it is the right thing to do. The possibility that it could cause the political landscape to shift against Thaksin altogether is just an added bonus.
That would involve something that is clearly illegal by stealing rice and attempting to sell it at a huge discount to be sure it sells. If the Government were to try and stop this Robin Hood style approach, it would be read as turning against the farmers and that would not go over well at all. It simply puts the Government in a catch 22 situation. In any case for the Anti-Thaksin protesters that look to undertake this, another well known idiom may apply and that is ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’.
