Country divided on class lines
Leaders of the anti-Thaksin movement are stressing the fact that Thailand is basically divided by social class when it comes to the question of whether caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is fit to rule or not.
The dividing lines are between the rural poor and the urban and educated, and whether the issue of ethics is more important than populist policies which Thaksin seems to have made the poor feel are of benefit to them. In the early hours of Monday, when tens of thousands of protesters surrounded Government House, different speakers made reference to the issue. "The middle class in all Thai cities no longer accepts Thaksin Shinawatra, and Thaksin must be so used to buying people with money that he's forgotten that some can't be bought," said Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the five leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). On Friday, Thaksin tried to show he was still popular with the rural poor by bussing in many of the 200,000 people who attended his Sanam Luang rally. Sondhi alleged they were either paid or misled to attend the pro-Thaksin rally. Somkiate Pongpaiboon, a lecturer from Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University and another of PAD's leaders, said it was sad to see the rural poor, who owe an average of Bt40,000 per household, coming to Bangkok to console the rich and corrupt premier. "It's easy to survive in the Northeast as a politician if you have money. But Northeasterners won't let you stay for too long, they'll kick you out," he said. Female poet Wannaporn Chimbanjong told the largely middle-class protesters that they would have to woo the rural poor and make them understand the truth. "We'll woo them back. Can we do it?" she yelled to the crowd, who responded with a resounding "yes". Buri Ram Senator Karun Sai-ngarm remind the protesters that solving the country's disparities of income and opportunity could not be overlooked if political reform and democracy were to succeed. He said the issues of farm debt, land reform and lack of capital among the rural poor were essential. "We have to deal with their debt first. Other groups can wait, the poor must come first," he said. Some speakers, like anchorman Samran Yodpetch of ASTV, a cable TV network owned by Sondhi's news empire, felt the anti-Thaksin demonstrators were superior to the pro-Thaksin crowd. "We are not hired demonstrators, and what's more we still have to donate money," Samran said in the early hours of yesterday. He was referring to the Bt1.1 million in donations that the anti-Thaksin crusade had received so far.
Pravit Rojanaphruk The Nation
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