Outgoing Thai PM Abhisit Resigns As Party Leader

[Jingthing]

Whatever you think of him it's clear Abhisit was a divisive figure in the Thai political landscape. Let us hope a new Yellow leader emerges who is both more willing and able to identify/engage with the Reds allowing the Dems to undermine Thaksin's powerbase with the Poor/North. Only then I think will the Dems be able to lead the Nation democratically and in a truly representative manner.

Oh please. It's all about Thaksin and it is STILL all about Thaksin (the ACTUAL divisive one). Abhisit got demonized by his enemies because he didn't cave in to violent mob rule of the Thaksinista reds during their revolutionary street actions. And what decent leader anywhere in the world. WOULD cave into that? The Thaksin base never gave him a chance, and they wouldn't have given ANYONE (other than a Thaksin puppet) a chance. For Thailand to really move on, they need to work through this Thaksin thing. Very strange how controversy over one man can dominate a large nation, for so long, and apparently, this process isn't nearly over.

Edited July 4, 2011 by Jingthing

[khaowong1]

Just what you would hope for & expect, an honest man keeps his pre-election word, and gives his party the opportunity to consider other options. :jap:

A very honourable man. You see very few of these in politics, anywhere in the world. If only the concept would catch on.

[kumsamut]

Just what you would hope for & expect, an honest man keeps his pre-election word, and gives his party the opportunity to consider other options. :jap:

what about the death of 91 people? how do you know he is honest?

[wolfmanjack]

"As the Democrat Party leader during the election, we won fewer seats than in the previous election, so I think as a good leader I should take responsibility by resigning."

He never had a mandate! Not one but. Military backing was his only mandate - and Abhisit should never ever have been in power.

Now, at last, justice has been done and PTP/red shirts are back in power: exactly what the majority of the people want. And for those who point to the burning of Bangkok last year: never forget that injustice through non-democratic methods (as we saw in Thailand many years ago with Suchinda, and in many other countries across the world since) can bring a powerful backlash.

This post is the only right one, it seems many of the posters do not know he was never elected.....

Tell us one, only one thing this PM did good for the people, rich, poor, investors.... nothing as only his hobby, hunting the only one who was democratic elected.

Abhisit was too nice. One good thing he did for the people was improve the public schools. Lets see if thaksin continues improving them or rolls back Abhisits policies.

[talk2sam]

If nothing else, he looked and sounded good when interviewed by international press. That chap with his own cooking show couldn't even grunt in English

What country do you think this is?Just to inform you, this country is called Thailand .Its National language is Thai. That means there is no demand that to hold political office in this country or any other country where English is not the national language ,, you must be fluent in English.

That is why I stated 'international press'. Have IQs dropped since the weekend?

It's doesn't matter if it's international press, haven't you seen presidents responding to interview question on CNN in their national language, e.g the leaders of turkey and Indonesia.

[wolfmanjack]

Undoubtedly, he did the best he could with a pigs ear of a coalition.

I reckon there is room for him and Korn to go off and make their own party.

He is still relatively young so he could do so in the future. It would be good to see him head a party in which there were only highly competent people who were clean of corruption.

Maybe his name is too tarnished by Rajprasong.

More accurately, tarnished by UDD's propaganda of the events at Ratchaprasong. He has been called a murderer, so the question is whether the naive simple folk actually truly believe such propaganda.

Yes they believe it. My wife, MIL, and 2 SIL all listen to the red propaganda and believe it. They come and tell me all of this anti monarchy BS that is so illogical that it baffles the mind. Plus all of the other stuff they believe. I remember at the time they were thinking of voting for TRT they thought thaksin wound not be corrupt because he was so rich already. Now they admit he was corrupt but they don't care. The ONLY reason they could give me for voting PT was thaksin got rid of the drugs in their village. They do not care that 1500+ of the 2500+ that were killed did not have links to the drug trade and have told me so. They do not care about all of thailand. they only care about their little part of it.

[wolfmanjack]

You've definitely got that right, but I think a large percentage of the debate here has centered around the fact that Thailand's majority, the agrarian north, are primarily poorly educated, disgruntled people, easily sidetracked with the waving of a carrot in front of their faces. These people have spoken, but do they really understand what they've said?

The issue isn't that they are well, or poorly educated. They feel they have been left behind for a very long time, simply to provide produce for a very select bunch of people in Bangkok to generate enormous wealth. No political party gave a dam_n about them until TRT came along. Not the dems, not any of the local overlords, no one. All PTP has done in their various political guises is make the people in the countryside believe that they have their needs at the forefront of their ideas and policies. Hardly a political wonderstroke.

Now I don't presume that TRT/PTP is the best answer for their problems, but it isn't much of a political stunt to take a 75 year old political party and stand up after 75 years and claim "We are the people who will help you", when apparently they didn't even notice you existed for 75 years. I don't blame anyone in the North, or North East for voting PTP, it isn't as though they had too many believable options among the political parties who had any track record in delivering anything to make their lot in life one iota easier or quickly tangibly better.

What amazes me, is that no one political party noticed this before, which would only lead me to believe that they were encouraged not to, because it suited the business aims of a few in Bangkok. Roll on the price increases for commodities, and listen to the traders in Bangkok plead poverty.

Right on cue

Thai rice exporters warn of rising prices after polls

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/07/04/national/Thai-rice-exporters-warn-of-rising-prices-after-po-30159440.html

All of you asking what good abhisit did should read this artical.

"Under the outgoing Democrat-led government, Thai rice farmers were also offered higher-than-market prices for their crop, but the government pegged the domestic price to the international market price, and paid farmers a direct subsidy to assure them a profit on their crops.

Called the income-guarantee scheme, the programme benefited an estimated 4 million farmers and cost the government 80 billion baht (2.6 billion dollars) over a two-year period, which went directly into the farmers' pockets."

VS

"The scheme replaced the so-called pledging scheme devised by the former Thai Rak Thai Party of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra during his premiership between 2001 and 2006.

Thaksin is also the de facto leader of the Pheu Thai Party, which has vowed to bring back the rice pledging scheme, in which the government essentially buys up huge stocks of rice from farmers at inflated prices and then stockpiles it for the export market.

The scheme was prone to corruption, with about 30 per cent of the subsidy going to rice millers and politicians instead of farmers, according to research done by the Thailand Developemnt Research Institute (TDRI), a Thai think tank."

"If I were the Thai government I would think carefully about raising rice prices because the surest way to encourage other countries to increase their production is to keep international prices heigh," said Sumitr Broca, a rice industry expert at the Bangkok headquarters of the FAO."

If the price is too high in thailand eventually there will be no exports so essentially the reds will be using taxes to create a welfare system for rice farmers, millers, and politicians.

[LevelHead]

Undoubtedly, he did the best he could with a pigs ear of a coalition.

I reckon there is room for him and Korn to go off and make their own party.

He is still relatively young so he could do so in the future. It would be good to see him head a party in which there were only highly competent people who were clean of corruption.

Maybe his name is too tarnished by Rajprasong.

More accurately, tarnished by UDD's propaganda of the events at Ratchaprasong. He has been called a murderer, so the question is whether the naive simple folk actually truly believe such propaganda.

Yes they believe it. My wife, MIL, and 2 SIL all listen to the red propaganda and believe it. They come and tell me all of this anti monarchy BS that is so illogical that it baffles the mind. Plus all of the other stuff they believe. I remember at the time they were thinking of voting for TRT they thought thaksin wound not be corrupt because he was so rich already. Now they admit he was corrupt but they don't care. The ONLY reason they could give me for voting PT was thaksin got rid of the drugs in their village. They do not care that 1500+ of the 2500+ that were killed did not have links to the drug trade and have told me so. They do not care about all of thailand. they only care about their little part of it.

What the anti-Thaksin brigade do not mention is that it is highly likely - and this is backed up by talking with many policeman - that most of the killings were in fact done by the drug lords.

The drug lords did not want the little people "shopping" them and implicating them, so they set about wiping out the dealers and erasing the links back to them.

It was thugs killing thugs in most cases.

And yes, you will find most Thai people were very happy with the war on drugs, and they hope another one comes again soon, and it is one of the reasons they keep voting TRT, PPP, PTP.

[Ricardo]

Just what you would hope for & expect, an honest man keeps his pre-election word, and gives his party the opportunity to consider other options. :jap:

what about the death of 91 people? how do you know he is honest?

Regarding the deaths of soldiers, innocent-civilians & protesters, I would blame the people who ran the 'peaceful protest', and especially the one who Thinks while they just Act. There was the chance, offered by PM-Abhisit, to end it all peacefully & having achieved their stated-objective of an early-election, but they didn't take it, so the blood is on their hands too.

Regarding corruption, one can only say that despite 2-1/2 years in-power, there is no evidence yet, that I'm aware of. Surely they would have dug-up some mud, and thrown it at one of the debates, if they could find any ?

I would also add that, despite the temptation to call an earlier-election with arguably a better-chance of the Dems winning, just after the riots, Abhisit insisted on a period of peace in the run-up to any election. This was one of the justifications for waiting until November for the early-election which he did offer. Running a fairer-election, in the national interest, was more important than personal-interest. Not a bad epitaph for an outgoing-PM.

Edited July 5, 2011 by Ricardo

[kurnell]

If nothing else, he looked and sounded good when interviewed by international press. That chap with his own cooking show couldn't even grunt in English

What country do you think this is?Just to inform you, this country is called Thailand .Its National language is Thai. That means there is no demand that to hold political office in this country or any other country where English is not the national language ,, you must be fluent in English.

That is why I stated 'international press'. Have IQs dropped since the weekend?

It's doesn't matter if it's international press, haven't you seen presidents responding to interview question on CNN in their national language, e.g the leaders of turkey and Indonesia.

Yes...and??

[hammered]

What the anti-Thaksin brigade do not mention is that it is highly likely - and this is backed up by talking with many policeman - that most of the killings were in fact done by the drug lords.

The drug lords did not want the little people "shopping" them and implicating them, so they set about wiping out the dealers and erasing the links back to them.

It was thugs killing thugs in most cases.

And yes, you will find most Thai people were very happy with the war on drugs, and they hope another one comes again soon, and it is one of the reasons they keep voting TRT, PPP, PTP.

That is the line the police and government came out with at the time. No human rights organization ever bought that it was a major factor. That people are so willing to support extra-judicial killing is a big worry in any society that hopes to be democratic. Everyone deserves their day in court whatever they have done in a democracy and it is usually best to look at what the neutrals say about such campaigns rather than interested parties. After all we wouldnt ask the army about the May killings and beleive their response. If any more drug wars are launched lets hope they are done within the law and not subject to multiple criticisms by the human rights organizations

Edited to add: Back on subject the Democrat party need to find a leadership that appeals to all including more to people in areas that they are currently unpopular in. Any democracy needs a both an opposition and a viable alternative to the governing party and right now the Democrats are really the only choice for these roles in Thailand, and they need to do better. Whether people like Abhisit or not or whether they think he is fairly or unfairly labelled, he is now in reality divisive and distractive for a huge number of people and to reelect him will only be lessen effectiveness of opposition and lessen the chance of offering a viable alternative, which is difficult enough already. And whether Thaksin is divisive or not is irrelevent to these decisions about the Democrat leadership

Edited July 5, 2011 by hammered

[tranquillize]

All the good honest people in Thailand get rejected. its just the dumb way it has always been.

Abhisit is honest? I must have been wrong about him this whole time!

Yes, you were.

Thank you so much for correcting my error. Silly me for not trusting a politician.

[DumFarang]

Whatever you think of him it's clear Abhisit was a divisive figure in the Thai political landscape. Let us hope a new Yellow leader emerges who is both more willing and able to identify/engage with the Reds allowing the Dems to undermine Thaksin's powerbase with the Poor/North. Only then I think will the Dems be able to lead the Nation democratically and in a truly representative manner.

If the Dems are smart, and I'm not saying they are, they could bide their time until the bs policies like this price hike on rice finally turn out not to be helping. Surely there will be others too. Then they can move in and try to fix the situation/s with the farmers that the PTP is almost surely going to create. That would help curry favor in the north. Who knows what they'll do, but they can't stand by and allow this almost civil war-like divide to exist between the political parties and the north and south.

The northerners/poor have shown that they must be heard, now they need better representation than the likes of Thaksin and family.

[DumFarang]

Just what you would hope for & expect, an honest man keeps his pre-election word, and gives his party the opportunity to consider other options. :jap:

what about the death of 91 people? how do you know he is honest?

And you think he has the blood of 91 dead people on his hands? That was a very complex situation. How would you have handled it?

[DumFarang]

What the anti-Thaksin brigade do not mention is that it is highly likely - and this is backed up by talking with many policeman - that most of the killings were in fact done by the drug lords.

The drug lords did not want the little people "shopping" them and implicating them, so they set about wiping out the dealers and erasing the links back to them.

It was thugs killing thugs in most cases.

And yes, you will find most Thai people were very happy with the war on drugs, and they hope another one comes again soon, and it is one of the reasons they keep voting TRT, PPP, PTP.

That is the line the police and government came out with at the time. No human rights organization ever bought that it was a major factor. That people are so willing to support extra-judicial killing is a big worry in any society that hopes to be democratic. Everyone deserves their day in court whatever they have done in a democracy and it is usually best to look at what the neutrals say about such campaigns rather than interested parties. After all we wouldnt ask the army about the May killings and beleive their response. If any more drug wars are launched lets hope they are done within the law and not subject to multiple criticisms by the human rights organizations

Edited to add: Back on subject the Democrat party need to find a leadership that appeals to all including more to people in areas that they are currently unpopular in. Any democracy needs a both an opposition and a viable alternative to the governing party and right now the Democrats are really the only choice for these roles in Thailand, and they need to do better. Whether people like Abhisit or not or whether they think he is fairly or unfairly labelled, he is now in reality divisive and distractive for a huge number of people and to reelect him will only be lessen effectiveness of opposition and lessen the chance of offering a viable alternative, which is difficult enough already. And whether Thaksin is divisive or not is irrelevent to these decisions about the Democrat leadership

Actually I'm kind of thinking that Thaksin's the divisive figure. Is he not? Abbhisit just didn't do anything that made him particularly popular and aided in his party losing. I wouldn't call that a dividing force, not to mention his party hasn't mounted an effective campaign in decades.

However, I agree that it is moot. Absolutely the Dems must find a way to reach out to more people, especially the north.

[TommyDee]

Undoubtedly, he did the best he could with a pigs ear of a coalition.

I reckon there is room for him and Korn to go off and make their own party.

He is still relatively young so he could do so in the future. It would be good to see him head a party in which there were only highly competent people who were clean of corruption.

Maybe his name is too tarnished by Rajprasong.

More accurately, tarnished by UDD's propaganda of the events at Ratchaprasong. He has been called a murderer, so the question is whether the naive simple folk actually truly believe such propaganda.

Yes they believe it. My wife, MIL, and 2 SIL all listen to the red propaganda and believe it. They come and tell me all of this anti monarchy BS that is so illogical that it baffles the mind. Plus all of the other stuff they believe. I remember at the time they were thinking of voting for TRT they thought thaksin wound not be corrupt because he was so rich already. Now they admit he was corrupt but they don't care. The ONLY reason they could give me for voting PT was thaksin got rid of the drugs in their village. They do not care that 1500+ of the 2500+ that were killed did not have links to the drug trade and have told me so. They do not care about all of thailand. they only care about their little part of it.

an interesting post all the way thru, but the final statement could be true of anywhere in the world

[Deeral]

it is very sad that so many posters on TV instead of discussing the results in either a dispassionate or partly objective manner can only posts are based purely on which party they happen to LIKE. It exactly the same mentality that pervades the football terraces.......i guess where a lot of these people would feel most at home

[wolfmanjack]

He is still relatively young so he could do so in the future. It would be good to see him head a party in which there were only highly competent people who were clean of corruption.

Maybe his name is too tarnished by Rajprasong.

More accurately, tarnished by UDD's propaganda of the events at Ratchaprasong. He has been called a murderer, so the question is whether the naive simple folk actually truly believe such propaganda.

Yes they believe it. My wife, MIL, and 2 SIL all listen to the red propaganda and believe it. They come and tell me all of this anti monarchy BS that is so illogical that it baffles the mind. Plus all of the other stuff they believe. I remember at the time they were thinking of voting for TRT they thought thaksin wound not be corrupt because he was so rich already. Now they admit he was corrupt but they don't care. The ONLY reason they could give me for voting PT was thaksin got rid of the drugs in their village. They do not care that 1500+ of the 2500+ that were killed did not have links to the drug trade and have told me so. They do not care about all of thailand. they only care about their little part of it.

What the anti-Thaksin brigade do not mention is that it is highly likely - and this is backed up by talking with many policeman - that most of the killings were in fact done by the drug lords.

The drug lords did not want the little people "shopping" them and implicating them, so they set about wiping out the dealers and erasing the links back to them.

It was thugs killing thugs in most cases.

And yes, you will find most Thai people were very happy with the war on drugs, and they hope another one comes again soon, and it is one of the reasons they keep voting TRT, PPP, PTP.

Of course Thaksin and the police are going to claim most of the killings were drug people killing each other. What else would you expect them to say? You expect to admit to tying a kid to a tree and beating him to death? What about the wife and kid of a drug dealer shot to death in a car when the actual drug dealer was no where to be seen? OOPS! I guess it was their own fault for driving in the family car. There are a few cases where the police have been tried and found guilty but not enough. In any case the police claim to have killed less than 100 of the 1,000 that were associated with the drug business. What about the other 1500 that were not involved in the drug trade at all? You expect the police to admit to that?

[wolfmanjack]

Just what you would hope for & expect, an honest man keeps his pre-election word, and gives his party the opportunity to consider other options. :jap:

what about the death of 91 people? how do you know he is honest?

And you think he has the blood of 91 dead people on his hands? That was a very complex situation. How would you have handled it?

If it would have been me there would have been more black shirts taken out by snipers complete with videos of the weapons they were carrying. That might have been even more messy because they were hiding amongst the non armed members of the reds.

[hyperdimension]

he is now in reality divisive and distractive for a huge number of people and to reelect him will only be lessen effectiveness of opposition and lessen the chance of offering a viable alternative, which is difficult enough already.

How is Abhisit divisive? It is only UDD's smear campaigns that have tarnished him. He and the The Democrats should have made a public effort to counter such smear campaigns, however, instead of getting into mud slinging matches, it seems that Abhisit just wanted to quietly and diligently focus on his job and let the people see the good outcomes that help them. The problem was that the noise of the UDD kept the attention of the people on their hate campaigns and not on Abhisit's achievements.

Could Abhisit file some defamation suits?

[DumFarang]

he is now in reality divisive and distractive for a huge number of people and to reelect him will only be lessen effectiveness of opposition and lessen the chance of offering a viable alternative, which is difficult enough already.

How is Abhisit divisive? It is only UDD's smear campaigns that have tarnished him. He and the The Democrats should have made a public effort to counter such smear campaigns, however, instead of getting into mud slinging matches, it seems that Abhisit just wanted to quietly and diligently focus on his job and let the people see the good outcomes that help them. The problem was that the noise of the UDD kept the attention of the people on their hate campaigns and not on Abhisit's achievements.

Could Abhisit file some defamation suits?

Agreed. Thaksin, the whole PTP, and the Dems in general are far more divisive than Abhisit will ever be.

[hammered]

he is now in reality divisive and distractive for a huge number of people and to reelect him will only be lessen effectiveness of opposition and lessen the chance of offering a viable alternative, which is difficult enough already.

How is Abhisit divisive? It is only UDD's smear campaigns that have tarnished him. He and the The Democrats should have made a public effort to counter such smear campaigns, however, instead of getting into mud slinging matches, it seems that Abhisit just wanted to quietly and diligently focus on his job and let the people see the good outcomes that help them. The problem was that the noise of the UDD kept the attention of the people on their hate campaigns and not on Abhisit's achievements.

Could Abhisit file some defamation suits?

Yes and the mud slung at him stuck and now he is a distraction from the opposition doing their job and a viable alternative party being moved towards. It doesnt matter if he was technically good or liked by some people or some feel sorry for him. Political reality is that in many places he is seen as unelectable and quite worse. Politics isnt a nice clean game. And in the places where Abhisit is seen this way there is sympathy for Thaksin who they think unfairly driven out. To them their hero who was elected was driven out by a coup, which isnt democratic or legal and then eventually Abhisit was forced onto them by the same guys who led the coup and then he oversaw/ordered the killings at Rachaprasong. This is how it is seen and that isnt going to change. Time to move on to an untainted leader or just face more defeat and confrontation. Of course Abhisit is divisive and worse a major distraction from his party being able to do anything. This is about political reality that has just been amply demonstrated in a national election. Do the losers want to move on and become competetive again, which is actually good for the country, or do they want to just refight the same battles ad infinitum until totally destroyed, which also isnt very good for the country. The coup of 2006 was an utter failure and the wrongs that have come from it can be righted now in a deal or be fought over again and again until the outcome is a lot more devatastating for the side that is always losing. It really is time to move on. The dems and their supporters have just had two years in power and all theyhave done is increase the Thaksin side majority. The writing is on the wall. It just needs to be read.

Oh and if you go back and check all my old posts, you will find I am not someone who supported Thaksin or any of his parties. But it really is time to end all this and look to the future and that future is going to imho include Thaksin

[DumFarang]

he is now in reality divisive and distractive for a huge number of people and to reelect him will only be lessen effectiveness of opposition and lessen the chance of offering a viable alternative, which is difficult enough already.

How is Abhisit divisive? It is only UDD's smear campaigns that have tarnished him. He and the The Democrats should have made a public effort to counter such smear campaigns, however, instead of getting into mud slinging matches, it seems that Abhisit just wanted to quietly and diligently focus on his job and let the people see the good outcomes that help them. The problem was that the noise of the UDD kept the attention of the people on their hate campaigns and not on Abhisit's achievements.

Could Abhisit file some defamation suits?

Yes and the mud slung at him stuck and now he is a distraction from the opposition doing their job and a viable alternative party being moved towards. It doesnt matter if he was technically good or liked by some people or some feel sorry for him. Political reality is that in many places he is seen as unelectable and quite worse. Politics isnt a nice clean game. And in the places where Abhisit is seen this way there is sympathy for Thaksin who they think unfairly driven out. To them their hero who was elected was driven out by a coup, which isnt democratic or legal and then eventually Abhisit was forced onto them by the same guys who led the coup and then he oversaw/ordered the killings at Rachaprasong. This is how it is seen and that isnt going to change. Time to move on to an untainted leader or just face more defeat and confrontation. Of course Abhisit is divisive and worse a major distraction from his party being able to do anything. This is about political reality that has just been amply demonstrated in a national election. Do the losers want to move on and become competetive again, which is actually good for the country, or do they want to just refight the same battles ad infinitum until totally destroyed, which also isnt very good for the country. The coup of 2006 was an utter failure and the wrongs that have come from it can be righted now in a deal or be fought over again and again until the outcome is a lot more devatastating for the side that is always losing. It really is time to move on. The dems and their supporters have just had two years in power and all theyhave done is increase the Thaksin side majority. The writing is on the wall. It just needs to be read.

Oh and if you go back and check all my old posts, you will find I am not someone who supported Thaksin or any of his parties. But it really is time to end all this and look to the future and that future is going to imho include Thaksin

Mostly true, it's a good post. However, Abhisit still isn't divisive. His party actually wants him back since he resigned. He was just the guy standing at the head of the Democratic line when all the mud stuck, so he decided to step out of the way and let it stick to someone else for a change, smart move. Whoever gets the next majority leader job for the dems will be in the same line of fire Abhisit was, b/c it was aimed at hurting their party and its pursuits. He's just not a very controversial figure like say Thaksin is or even his sister. Abhisit would have to be more dangerous and interesting to be counted among the divisive characters of Thai politics. He's more like that smart dog the family used to own that always shook hands and rolled over on command, and that made him part of the family.

[badmedicine]

It don't matter. He's still divisive for the simple reason that he was in charge when the demo at RJP got busted. Whatever you think about the merits of how he handled it, the fact is as Hammered said it'll always be something to distract from any re-invention of the Dem Party —— and hell do they need reinventing.

[DumFarang]

It don't matter. He's still divisive for the simple reason that he was in charge when the demo at RJP got busted. Whatever you think about the merits of how he handled it, the fact is as Hammered said it'll always be something to distract from any re-invention of the Dem Party —— and hell do they need reinventing.

Naaaa...Thaksin's divisive for the simple reason that there are people who will always love him and those who will always hate him. He really forces people to take sides, even after exile. Unless Abhisit wants to get back in the spotlight he should be able to just quietly fade away now. I personally like the guy. I always found him believable and felt in my gut that he has a good heart. His legacy will probably always be RJP and the 91 deaths, but there are a lot of positives that could catch up with him too given enough time. Until then, unfortunately, he's just the guy who stepped in after the military coup, tried, and failed, albeit against nearly impossible odds. When people like him fail they're a distraction and an old, tarnished face when a new one is needed, just as Abhisit was when the military stepped aside. He's not a political wedge like Thaksin is. Being divisive and being a distraction are two similar yet completely different things. Thaksin=divisive--Abhisit=distraction