Saturday 31 May 2014

Thailand’s coup: Your questions answered

ROSEMONT, IL - MAY 29: Flying instructor David Schnaible (R) teaches wind tunnel flying to nine-year-old Liam Harrison at the iFly indoor skydiving facility on May 29, 2014 in Rosemont, Illinois. Guests at the facility are introduced to the sensation of free-fall skydiving as they are lifted into the air by fans which generate an upward draft from 80 to 175 miles per hour inside a 14-foot-wide circular chamber. The company operates about 30 similar facilities around the globe which are used for military and competitive skydiver training as well as recreation. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)Thai society is undergoing major change, and politics over the past decade has in part been a battle between the old royalist ruling class and an ascendant majority based in the north and northeast that has benefited from development and has begun to see itself as a political force.

Much of that struggle has played out around one man — former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon deposed by a 2006 coup who now lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a prison sentence on a corruption conviction. The issue of whether to support or oppose Thaksin and his powerful political machine has divided friends, families and the nation.

Thaksin entered politics by founding his own political party and buying the loyalty of local political bosses nationwide. He won a landslide election in 2001, and once in office he cemented his popularity among Thailand’s rural and urban poor majority with unprecedented populist policies. Thaksin was often accused of being arrogant and for bullying critics, as well as a failure to keep private business interests separate from the business of government. This alienated the educated, urban middle class and alarmed traditional ruling circles — royalists and the military — who perceived in his naked ambition a desire to usurp the prerogatives of the throne, or even destroy the nation’s revered monarchy itself...


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From WP News

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