Red Shirts Moving For A Showdown: Jatuporn

[p_brownstone]

Just as i am going for my holiday trip during march. News of rally start coming up again. OMG. Why do they love to rally so much.

Because the leaders get a nice payout and (unofficial) commission from Thaksin and the protestors get a daily allowance plus food and travelling expenses paid.

I believe the Red Shirt "leaders" are just stringing this "Rally" out and delaying it as long as possible simply so that their master (or rather the guy who thinks he is their master) in Dubai will keep sending funds to them to pay for the "100,000 pickups" etc. etc. - the longer they postpone it the richer they will become.

When they can no longer postpone it any further they willl simply disappear with the loot - leaving Thaksin and his supporters in the lurch.

Patrick

[hammered]

No, they didn't. Most voters in the North East favoured the same candidates, and their proxies, as always. Thaksin merely bought many in 2001, and did deals with the rest to form a coalition, and then bought out most of the rest in 2005. He linked up with the vote winning (and vote buying) cabals of Newin, Chavalit, Banharn and others to win the elections. And still felt the need to have to cheat. If people were so enamoured of Thaksin, and the policies of the TRT, in 2001 then why did he need to do this? If that were true then he could have run new, "clean" candidates under the TRT banner and still won the election.

I'm going to ignore your embarrassing apologetics for the military junta that grabbed power if you don't mind.In normal circumstances I would pull you up on your very misleading comment about what "normally happens in parliamentary democracies", but not on this occasion.

The part of your reply quoted is more interesting, and raises a very fair point, namely why did Thaksin participate the same old Thai electoral chicanery when in most peoples view he had the support anyway.I suspect the answer is the obvious one - meglomania and a kind of anal retentive determination.I know you doubt whether he had that basic support, but election after election proves you wrong.

The next election will be interesting. Unless the government collapses soon the economic upturn will start to impact and trickle down. The increase in revenue collection will enable expenditure. On top of this it seems the cracks in PTP and the UDD etc are getting harder to paper over. The same may be said of the military and the Dems but with the big miulitary change in Sept/Oct that likely gives breathign room of up to a year.

Organising a million person demo will be a challenge on many levels and be very very expensive one way or another. Even Chalerm admits this.

However, who wins between the red movemnt and the currenet government in th run up to the election will impact on the election. If the reds win and the government collapses the government enter teh election looking beaten and weak. If the reds fail to topple the government PTP go into the election looking somewhat enfeebled compared to before. We shouldnt underestimate the power of the "winner" to influence things.

The Mahasarakham result was the interesting one of recent times the margin should have been a lot bigger. Wonder what Newin has going on behind the scenes as he is no slouch when it comes to Isaan politics and it isnt likely the Dems suddenly surged in that area outsiode their traditonal Ubon and Amnart districts.

[brahmburgers]

Oct '09: 'A large Red Shirt rally will show everyone the 'will of the people.'

- no rally happens -

Nov '09: 'A really large red shirt rally will rattle the government.'

- no rally -

Dec. '09: 'There will be a really really big demonstration, and the government will fall.' - no demonstration takes place -

Jan. '10: 'The Reds will organize a million supporters to protest in front of the high court.' - no one shows up -

Feb. '10: 'Millions of Red Shirt supporters will descend on Bangkok March 10th.'

- nobody will show -

.....Who's still afraid of the Big Bad Red Wolf? .....not I.

Edited February 25, 2010 by brahmburgers

[ballpoint]

I'm going to ignore your embarrassing apologetics for the military junta that grabbed power if you don't mind.In normal circumstances I would pull you up on your very misleading comment about what "normally happens in parliamentary democracies", but not on this occasion.

Well, you've neatly sidestepped the very real fact that he was illegally occupying the PM's chair at the time, as he was outside his mandate. His term was up. What do you suggest should have been the response? Allow him to carry on as long as he felt like? I confess to my ignorance when I say I don't know if this has ever happened in a western democracy. It does seem certain though, in the opinion of a constitutional lawyer, there is no legal barrier to prevent the UK queen from dissolving its parliament "The short answer to whether the Queen would ever do the unthinkable and dissolve Parliament contrary to the Government’s wishes is that there is, almost certainly, no legal impediment to her doing so. But the constitutional objections against such a course would be likely to prove overwhelming unless there were some constitutional crisis". http://lawisanass-wingate.blogspot.com/200...issolve-uk.html - Would the refusal of a PM to step down at the end of his term be construed as a constitutional crisis? I rather think it would. And her Australian representative has certainly dissolved its parliament in her name, in very dodgy circumstances, in the past. Thanks to decades of political interference, there is probably no Thai court that would have taken it on themselves to force him out, and it is interesting to consider what the agents accused of masterminding and carrying it out, the military and the Privy council, have in common.

The part of your reply quoted is more interesting, and raises a very fair point, namely why did Thaksin participate the same old Thai electoral chicanery when in most peoples view he had the support anyway.I suspect the answer is the obvious one - meglomania and a kind of anal retentive determination.I know you doubt whether he had that basic support, but election after election proves you wrong.

No, election after election simply proves that Thaksin didn't have the guts to put his true popularity to the test by running clean candidates in his name. He might still have won, we'll never know. The fact that he also felt the need to cheat makes reaching one conclusion not too difficult.

[SomTumTiger]

NE

Oct '09: 'A large Red Shirt rally will show everyone the 'will of the people.'

- no rally happens -

Nov '09: 'A really large red shirt rally will rattle the government.'

- no rally -

Dec. '09: 'There will be a really really big demonstration, and the government will fall.' - no demonstration takes place -

Jan. '10: 'The Reds will organize a million supporters to protest in front of the high court.' - no one shows up -

Feb. '10: 'Millions of Red Shirt supporters will descend on Bangkok March 10th.'

- nobody will show -

.....Who's still afraid of the Big Bad Red Wolf? .....not I.

Next up! The MILLION BILLION MAN MARCH! Hammered's comments about the rising power of the current government, linked to the global economic recovery, are real and tangiible. Please keep saying "if the government survives". I see no indication of any weakness. Abhisit seems to have firm control over all parties, and is doing a lot of really good things policy and legislation-wise, albeit with far less fanfare then we came to expect when the opposition was in power. No "One tambon, one sugar packet, one cow, one viagra pill" policys coming lately lol.

[h90]

Just as i am going for my holiday trip during march. News of rally start coming up again. OMG. Why do they love to rally so much.

Because the leaders get a nice payout and (unofficial) commission from Thaksin and the protestors get a daily allowance plus food and travelling expenses paid.

I believe the Red Shirt "leaders" are just stringing this "Rally" out and delaying it as long as possible simply so that their master (or rather the guy who thinks he is their master) in Dubai will keep sending funds to them to pay for the "100,000 pickups" etc. etc. - the longer they postpone it the richer they will become.

When they can no longer postpone it any further they willl simply disappear with the loot - leaving Thaksin and his supporters in the lurch.

Patrick

I have the same idea about it....

[aikawa]

Haha. I am just really unlucky then.

1st holiday trip to BKK > Riot during Songkran @ April 09.

2nd holiday trip to BKK > So called rally during March 10.

dam_n, i should send Thaksin a hate mail.

[otherstuff1957]

^ Yes, but this is Thailand. They won't have to disappear after pocketing the millions, they will just have to smile & wai nicely and all will be forgiven.