“Red Shirt is now about Democracy,” says Veera
Judging by previous red shirt gatherings, it is clear there is a strong Thaksin flavor to it. There used to be big video projections ready for Thaksin phone in or video tapes of Thaksin, and the red shirt used to carry a lot of banner about Thaksin. Come this time around, at the current gathering at Parliament house, a great deal have changed.
Even the banners that the red shirt people, individually made them, bought to gathering, there are very few about Thaksin. What happened? Why the change? The best answer comes from a host of different people, mostly technocrats on the side of Democracy, who kept suggesting that the red shirt “could be much more effective if it cut down the Thaksin play and tuned up its message on Democracy.”
“I want to ask my red shirt friend where we go from here, because if it is a pro-Thaksin movement, people like me can’t join it. But if it were primary a force of Democracy, there are thousands like me who will become part of the red shirt,” said Jai Ungparkorn, the son of the Thai icon.
While it may be easy for Veera, the red shirt leader, and Jai and those many others who new to the red shirt to forget about Thaksin, others such as Jatuporn, another leader of the red shirt, is more cautious about the sudden change.
“Thaksin symbolizes elected government from the popular people’s charter, who is greatly loved by the grassroots and was deposed by the coup of the rich and Royalist. How do we not fight for Thaksin, when fighting for Democracy. The two are practically the same thing in Thai politics,” said Jatuporn.
Some observers say however, that Thaksin continued to seek a compromise with the Royalist and thus intentionally want to put on distance with the red shirt. Earlier on, in the previous red shirt gathering, Thaksin promised the gatherings of a major speech that observers said would greatly fire up and inflame the red shirt protesters. However, Thaksin cut out that phone in and gave a mild speech.
Other observers say that the separation will increase the effectiveness of both for their mission. It’s clear their goal are the same but the road differs. They both see Democracy as solving their problems, With Thaksin, a return to democracy means he has a chance for a fair fight for his reputation and assets. With the red shirt, a return to democracy means ends to military involvement in Thai politics.
What the red shirt risk is a great selling point, since the grassroots love Thaksin and his plight is a great concern for many Thais. But if it seek to champion democracy, it may end up loosing points with followers such as when the PAD started to talk about “new politics.”
But Veera appeared to have made up his decision to abandon the Thaksin card.
The fight has always fundamentally been between the people’s charter and the military’s charter, he say. “If we get the people’s charter back, Thaksin will automatically be taken cared off with a just judiciary system. If we have Thaksin but not the people’s charter, we loose everything.”
Thai Intelligent News 