Once again the phrase Thaksin Regime has found it’s way into the news in Thailand. If you have been following the happenings in Thailand over the last 2 or 3 years, you will know that the coup in September 2006 was staged to stop the Thaksin regime that was hours away from assuming complete control of the country by removing all that could stop them. The last remaining item for the Thaksin regime was controlling the military, however the military moved first stopping the Thaksin Regime with a bloodless coup.
Moving forward to today, the Thaksin regime has bought it’s way back into power in the elections of December 2007. As most of Thaksin supporters are poor and undereducated, that did not take much effort or money by the Thaksin regime. There is a very clear line between the educated Thais who don’t like the Thaksin regime, and the undereducated Thais who simply don’t know better.
Thaksin is the power broker in Thailand even that he has been banned from politics. His deep pockets and the greed of his regime are causing anxiety and tension to rise exponentially.
at the heart of the matter is The Thaksin regime faces getting dissolved again, and Thaksin himself faces a few decades behind bars. So at the moment the Thaksin regime is driving forward to change the constitution to let themselves and Thaksin off the hook. This huge slap in the face to the Thai people has set off rallies seeking the ouster of the politicians that support the change of the constitution. There are Thais who feel this is also a slap in the face of the King as the King endorsed the constitution. It certainly takes a huge set of balls to work at changing the constitution of a country just to stay out of jail. The rallies are on going as this is being typed so by post time the situation may have changed for the worse.
The military up to now has been mostly quiet attempting to let democracy work, however the Thaksin regime truly does not care about democracy and only uses the word democracy to continue to lead the undereducated Thais. The military commander has said the police must keep the pro and anti Thaksin regime protesters apart. The Anti Thaksin protesters have always been law abiding and peaceful, however the Pro Thaksin protesters mostly are looking to incite violence. The police are in the pocket of the Thaksin regime and when they think nobody is looking or cares they allow the pro Thaksin people to attack the anti Thaksin people claiming they broke past police lines.
The Thaksin regime is very familiar with the use of underhanded tactics and employs them regularly. If the threat of violence persists, the time to the next coup will be greatly shortened as one is expected by the majority. Only if the government changes from it’s self serving actions will the coup be avoided, and that is not likely because that is all the Thaksin regime seems to know.