Reds should agree to reconcile, pick a better leader

At a meeting with Asian journalists on Friday, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed to "reach out" to ordinary red-shirt supporters. It would be part of his reconciliation roadmap, he said, suggesting that winning over moderate red shirts had become all the more important because their hardcore leaders would never accept any government initiative. Abhisit obviously realises that if only half of Thailand embraces the roadmap, everything will go back to square one.

The olive branch comes from a man who currently has the upper hand. But the real issue is not whether Abhisit will reach out or not. It is whether he does it wholeheartedly, because Thailand's situation cries out for such action. Whether the roadmap will hit a dead-end does not have anything to do with him - that will depend on his sceptical and resentful rivals. It's normal for a "winner" to offer a handshake. Whether the "loser" will take it is another matter.

Abhisit assumes that "moderate" red shirts do exist - and that some may be willing to contribute to a national reform blueprint the government hopes to complete by the end of the year. Over the past two days he has practically pleaded for them to give his reconciliation plan a chance. What his "personal letter" read out on TV on Thursday did not mention, though, was that Thailand does not have any other option at the moment.

The ball is in the red shirts' court. They can either bury their mistrust and join the reconciliation process in order to speed up an election, or they can look the other way and allow "the other side" to come up with a reform plan that they will later decry as one-sided. Or, worse, the red shirts can go back to aggressive anti-government tactics, which have been proven futile, and hope blindly that they will work this time.

For their own sake, the red shirts must join the roadmap, whether it is a noble process or just a game. The movement is now without a reliable leader and it must have realised that any hint of a repeat of the turbulence of the past two months will be opposed by the general public and pre-empted by the government. The red shirts will have to play along until there comes a time when their real power can talk for them at the ballot box.

That's the easy part. Joining the roadmap or "pretending" to go along would not require much. Even "winning" the next election is not the most difficult thing in the world. What would be harder, though, is ditching the figure that caused the red shirts to be in this predicament in the first place. Thaksin Shinawatra, whether he has been the red shirts' dark shadow or inspiration, will have to be ejected. It's high time red shirts show the movement really has gone far "beyond" the man.

Prime Minister Abhisit was right when he pointed out that the yellow shirts were not hell-bent on demolishing a rival political party. The campaigns against the Samak government, he noted, began after the ruling People Power Party vowed to launch constitutional changes to absolve Thaksin and bring him back from exile. That PPP government could still be here, although Samak has passed away, if it had just concentrated on real national issues.

During their volatile protest, the red shirts claimed that the real national issue was that the voice of the poor, their choice of a leader, was never accepted. That is not true. Only Thaksin has been rejected, as modern Thai history will show. Chatichai Choonhavan, arguably a rural choice because he was not much favoured by Bangkok, was overthrown by a coup. But who responded by staging an uprising against the military? It was the middle class in Bangkok.

Then there's Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who was, again, not a Bangkok favourite, but everyone knows what brought about his downfall. It had absolutely nothing to do with the mysterious "elite" mentality.

Chuan Leekpai, who succeeded Chavalit as premier, was forced to leave office by a Democrat Party corruption scandal that now seems trivial, which gave rise to the Thaksin regime. Where were the "elite" to help Chuan if the Democrats' beloved son? There was no blocking of rural choices at all costs. Thai politics might not be the most decent of games, but take Thaksin away from the equation, and ask if there really is a conspiracy against poor people's choices.

Any red shirt-supported party should be able to still comfortably win an election. This, then, means the movement is far from fading away. But can the red shirts become a force to really form a government by the people and for the people? Surely, they can, but first they may have to admit that democracy is not just about the right to make a choice, but also about admitting any wrong choices have also been made.