I understand that His Majesty The King was unable to deliver his traditional speech due to illness. From what I can understand, the traditional speech was delivered by the Crown Prince.

I can't follow if the speech was written by His Majesty or His Highness, perhaps another blogger can let me know.

I hope the king makes a full and speedy recovery.

link

Chalerm for PM?

So Chalerm is tipped to be the next PM? Is that going to help the country? Chalerm is, of course, the father of this man.

Read the article. By the way, he was found not guilty.

Back patting

Since I saw Thaicrisis give himself a pat on the back for some accurate forecasts this week, I though it might the time to do the same for myself. Hey, nobody else is going to do it!

1) The class war, it’s escalation and the fallout of the Thaksin feud was predicted by yours truly back on my old blog, which is now deleted.

2) The fallout of the constitutional referendum and predictions for the previous election were called by myself.

3) As you know, the end result of Thaksin’s Man City bid were called by me.

4) And I saw the judicial coup coming early on.

Admittedly, none of these evnts required a huge amount of astuteness.

It just goes to show: even a broken clock can be right twice a day :-)

A few interesting comments from Thaksin's Dubai (ArabianBusiness.com) interview:

"Do you know how many countries there are in the world? There are 197. And only 17 have an extradition treaty with Thailand," he notes with a thin smile. "Better still, only 10 of those treaties are active. So, don't you worry about me, I still have many places to stay."

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"With me at the helm I can bring confidence quickly back to Thailand, and that is why we have to find a mechanism under which I can go back into politics."

What does his wife think about this? "She has divorced me," he responds, bluntly - end of subject."

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"He admits that going back now would be too risky, but insists that "time is on my side"."

"But could he really be PM again? Shinawatra is adamant that it could happen.

"The coup is still there - it has been transformed from a military coup to a judicial coup," he explains."

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"I don't care, though - I thank them [The UK] because I went there, I bought a football club then sold it and made some money in the process," he says. "They gave me a place to stay, even though it was short-term. My children went to school there.

One day, they will understand better, and they will feel sorrow for what they have done because they have not respected their own democratic values."

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"I cannot live in my own country. There were many assassination attempts, and my family has been broken up because we all have to live in different countries. I regret the result, but not what I have done. You see, I love the Thai people."

________________

In fairness, his swipe at the UK was not reported with 100% accuracy by The Nation.

Also, it may not be wise for me to make a link but New Mandala has a very interesting article right now.

This is the news you will read in the next few days:


1) The Constitution Court will dissolve the PPP party, meaning a new election must be held. The PPP and UDAD will be furious but will not demonstrate because they do not wish to do so during the celebration of His Majesty's birthday.

2) The PAD will hail it as a victory and disperse from the airport, citing that they wish to respect His Majesty's birthday.

There is one other prediction I would like to make but I cannot.

In future, more Thaksin proxies will be elected and the struggle will continue.

A follow on from my Peasant's Revolt post.

So I'm thinking of a country that was divided across borders and by ethnic identity and income and lifestyle. That might sound very different to Thailand but if we think carefully, is it really so different?

One group felt oppressed and ignored by the government. They pressured a nationalist politician who sympathised with their cause. He organised rallies to intimidate other factions. On one occasion he organised a huge rally to make demands for his group. The rally stopped outside the president's office (Government House) where the nationalist politician told the president: "Give us what we want or address this group yourself!". In other words: "Hands up or this lynch mob will be set on you!".

A smaller state in the nation published magazine articles criticising the group. The group responded by organising a "Rally of Truth" to intimidate the small state and its people. It wasn't too hard for them to do that, because by then the military were clearly on their side.

Another state elected their own prime minister, but amazingly he was rejected by the police force in the region who had already decided they sided with the nationalist politician in our story. The police helped to whip up a rebellion against their own regional prime minister.

The nationalist politician decided to go about amending the constitution to crush critical press and remove regional assemblies (so that he would have more power). His followers became increasingly violent and bigoted. They often organised rallies under various guises and through proxies. Each side began to viciously ridicule and mock other sides, often with dangerous propaganda.

It descended into a bloody and miserable war that lasted until NATO intervened.

It is a recent event that has many similar elements to the Thai situation: misplaced nationalism, resentment amongst citizens based on income, ethnicity and values, factional squabbles and politicisation of the military and police. However, there are differences. Thailand is a long established country and has the guiding light of a monarch, something the nation I refer to lacked.

Ian knows what I am talking about, he met the founding father of this republic.
Can anyone else tell name the nation and people involved in my tale?

Countdown to civil war

Bangkok Pundit recently rated the chance of a coup at five percent. I'd say that percentage is higher and increasing by the moment. (NB Pundit has mentioned to me that he was talking about the chances of what will happen next, he expects that the chance of a coup at some point is actually higher.)

Somchai is effectively exiled in Chang Mai. In Thailand - even more so than other countries - a leader outside the capital is greatly weakened.

The refusal of the army to deal with the seizure of the airport - the heart of Thailand's main industry - is incredible. The pledge to use the navy and air force instead even more so. No greater symbol of the polarisation of the Thai establishment could be imagined.

Nobody has absolute control or power. Nobody seems sure of a solution. A dissolved parliament will lead to re-election of the PAD's (and other people's) enemies. Dissolution of the PPP will result in a new party being formed and Thaksin's rage increased further. A coup brings the nation to rock bottom but at least returns control to one entity.

Next week is the birthday of His Majesty The King. His Majesty traditionally uses the occasion to deliver a speech that often contains guidance and wisdom for Thai people. This year, as ever, people will listen with great interest.