Democracy Is Suffering in Thailand

Three years after a royalist coup, nothing is solved

On September 19, 2006, the Thai army toppled the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra. Soldiers sported yellow royal ribbons and the military junta claimed that they were staging the coup to protect "Democracy with the King as the Head of State."

They certainly were not protecting democracy. The coup came after massive street demonstrations against Thaksin by the royalist and conservative People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), where many PAD members and leaders of the Democrat Party had called for the King to sack the elected prime minister and appoint another one. Later, the yellow-shirted PAD took on a semi-fascist nature, using extreme nationalism and having its own armed guard. They used violence on the streets of Bangkok.

It was always an exaggeration to claim that "all Thais revere the King" or that "the monarchy has held the country together for decades." Statements like that gloss over the level of coercion surrounding public attitudes to the monarchy, the deep tensions in society and the serious lack of power, courage and character shown by this king throughout his reign. Nevertheless, for 20 years after the mid 1980s the monarchy was very popular. This was more to do with the weakness of the opposition and the level of promotion that the institution received, rather than any "ancient or natural" love for the king among Thais. Yet, it was enough to convince most Thais that monarchism was deeply embedded in society.