"Oxford-educated party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva... the new prime minister.... supporters include Bangkok's middle class, influential military figures and foreign investors who see him as a stabilizing force"
Well, if he is the one the people have chosen:
"Thai opposition to form government; Democrat Party builds coalition in protests' wake" by Denis D. Gray, Associated Press | December 7, 2008
BANGKOK - Thailand's main opposition party said yesterday that it plans to form a new government with the help of defectors from the ruling coalition, which could appease an antigovernment group that paralyzed the capital, shutting down its international airport for a week.
The MSM bias is already showing.
The opposition Democrat Party announced it had mustered the backing of 260 lawmakers in the 400-seat lower house, allowing it to form a government with Oxford-educated party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new prime minister.
But the party's apparent triumph, managed during a still chaotic situation the day after Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport reopened, will not be sealed until Parliament meets within the next 30 days to endorse Abhisit and the five-party coalition behind him. The former ruling party said it would not give up the fight.
The Democrat Party is supported by the People's Alliance for Democracy, an activist group that headed mass demonstrations against several recent governments led by exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies. The protests culminated in a weeklong siege of the capital's two airports.
The Democrats cobbled their coalition together against a somber backdrop: Thailand's revered 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, regarded as a cornerstone of stability, is ill. However, the palace announced yesterday that the king's condition had improved and his inflamed throat and fever had subsided.
It was feared that if the ruling coalition has selected a new prime minister close to Thaksin, that could again ignite mass protests. But for now it appears the opposition has the upper hand. The Democrat Party secretary-general, Suthep Thaugsuban, told a press conference the negotiations with other parties had been "the smoothest discussion" he has ever had because everyone realized the country's stability was at stake.
Translation: The people, the army, and EVERYBODY is against the RULING GLOBALIST CABAL and some politicians don't wanna get fried in hog fat!!!!
"This was the hardest decision we have made, but the country needs to move forward. We have to think of the country's survival and so we apologize to our MP friends and the people who support us, but we can't work with them anymore," said Boonjong Wongtrairat, a representative of 37 MPs who defected from the government camp and its leading Phuea Thai Party....
**************
Sombat Chanthonwong, a political science professor at Bangkok's Thammasat University, said many voters would find it hard to accept Abhisit as the new prime minister because he did not emerge from an electoral contest.
British-born Abhisit, 44, is a sophisticated politician, but critics say he is out of touch with ordinary people, particularly the rural majority, and lacks charisma. His party's supporters include Bangkok's middle class, influential military figures and foreign investors who see him as a stabilizing force.
Thaksin is still popular among the rural masses, reflecting the deep divide between the urban elite and the country's poor.
The political developments occurred as the country's main international airport was being restored, although officials said yesterday that it could be at least a month before traffic was back to normal. Suvarnabhumi international airport officially reopened Friday. --Thai opposition to form government--"I'll tell you, ya kinda get sick of the lies, know what I'm sayin'?
"Former Left-Right Alliance against Globalization and America
by Thongchai Winichakul
28 July 2008
Article
Almost all Thai rightists I interviewed for my recent research perceived that the threats to Thailand today are capitalism and America. Even lifelong anti-communist ‘Phor’, an alias used for this research, who has tenaciously held the idea of national security being under threat from two strands of communism, sees that Thailand has to be cautious of the CIA interfering and agitating groups of Thai people to the point of being a threat to security. Of course, they were well aware that the threats from capitalism and America are not one and the same as the communist threat.
The rightists’ discourse of capitalist threat obviously differs from the leftists’ Maoist anti-capitalist discourse of 30 years ago. These rightists speak pretty much the same anti-neo-liberalism and anti-globalization language which Thai intellectuals and activists have adopted since after Oct 6, 1976.
Although all the interviews were done years after the 1997 economic crisis, the pain caused by the capitalist crisis was still alive in their memories. Their discourse on the cause of the crisis turned out to be nationalist and against ‘farang’ or western capitalism, pointing to western capitalist giants led by the US bullying emergent smaller capitalist nations. For the ease of digestion and propagation, it was made a story of conspiracy among a handful of global political and financial figures, often including George Soros in particular. The ‘Washington Consensus’ was understood simply as a plot by western capitalist neo-conservatives to destroy smaller states. With the calamity besetting Thai nationalist capital which had eagerly embraced globalization over a decade earlier, globalization has become undesirable. Their discourse against western capitalism was therefore not of a socialist bent, but was outright nationalist, against those ugly farangs abusing decent Thais.
Most of the interviews were done during the years of Thaksin administration which was seen as representing the evil western capitalism, subsequently labelled as ‘vicious or immoral capital’. The exasperation against Thaksin and globalization and the global anti-American sentiment fed into one another. Among the rightists I interviewed then, only one person liked the Thaksin government, and the rest were suspicious of Thaksin because he was pushing the agenda of globalization.
--MORE--"For more on the day-today reporting, go HERE
