Street wise:Focus on SEC as 'soft' protesters get tough

Aside from petitions to the authorities, the protests have been softer than during the 2005 demonstration when Wireless Road, where the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) office is located, was blocked by tens of thousand protesters led by General Chamlong Srimuang.

This is understandable. Without a leader, the campaign lacked force.

And how could Chamlong be as violent as in the past, when he is leading a much more important mission - to erase Thaksinomics from Thai society?

This convinced Vichate Tantiwanich, executive vice president of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), that the exchange's attempt to have Thai Beverage listed here should be accomplished this time.

"Thai people have a better understanding that the company intends to list its shares, not raise funds," he said in an interview with Bloomberg, while exchanging text messages with a Thai Beverage executive.

Prasong Vinaiphat, deputy secretary-general of the SEC, also said there was no reason to block the listing attempt.

But, just when things were expected to go smoothly, the campaigners against the local listing of alcohol companies started starting to get their act together again.

Earlier, they said 1,000 protesters would gather at the SET building on Ratchadaphisek Road on Friday, when the SEC is expected to approve Thai Beverage's share-offering filing.

On Monday, they threatened to mobilise 10,000 protesters, and this time the schedule

was brought forward to tomorrow.

Yesterday, our newsroom received notification that they would gather today - and the number of protesters would be 100,000, including about 5,000 monks. At the end of the letter was a quotation from Sanvian Indaravijaya, a founder of the SET, "Right is right, though nobody honours it. Wrong is wrong, though it is exercised by all".

In a way, they were countering Prasong's notion yesterday implying that Thai Beverage stock should be allowed to trade in Thailand, as it is already traded on the Singaporean bourse. To them, no matter how others perceive the alcohol business, Thailand should not lower its guard in keeping the sector under tight control.

Indeed, the threat came at the right time - when there was a rumour that those leaders of the 2005 protest had gone soft this time because they took bribes from Thai Beverage. That rumour has been quashed, given the threat to mobilise up to 100,000 people.

Now, all eyes are fixed on Friday to see whether history repeats itself, should the SEC retreat under huge public pressure.