Thai political crisis eases as PM orders the police to stand down
Print Edition
The political crisis that has engulfed Thailand’s capital for more than a week eased suddenly yesterday after the prime minister ordered police to stop battling anti-government protesters.
The move was timed to coincide with celebrations of the king’s birthday later this week, a holiday that holds deep significance in the Southeast Asian nation.
In a sharp reversal in strategy that followed two days of increasingly fierce street fighting, riot police lowered their shields and walked away from heavily fortified positions around Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s office at Government House.
Shortly afterward, thousands of jubilant demonstrators waving the red, white and blue Thai flag swarmed across the compound’s grassy lawn, snapping photos of themselves with cellphones and screaming “Victory belongs to the people!” Yingluck was not there at the time.
The government move was widely seen as offering demonstrators a face-saving way out, and the government expressed hope it would defuse a conflict that has killed four people and wounded more than 256 in the last three days. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, however, vowed to keep up what has become an audacious struggle to topple Yingluck and keep her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, from returning to power.
Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 military coup, and Yingluck’s rivals have repeatedly accused her of being his puppet.
“You can rest assured that this is a victory that is only partial ... because the tyrannical Thaksin government endures,” Suthep said. “We must continue fighting.”
After seizing several government ministries last week, and smashing barricades with bulldozers and commandeered police trucks in street fighting that erupted this weekend in isolated pockets of the city, the protesters refused all offers to negotiate.
Instead, they demanded Yingluck’s government hand power to an unelected council that would appoint a new premier — a demand Yingluck flatly rejected.
Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party was elected with an overwhelming majority in 2011 and is currently unbeatable at the polls.
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