Apparently because of several factors, the red-shirted leaders failed to incite public sentiment to support their side before the judgment day in the Bt76 billion assets seizure case. Eventually, the red-shirted leaders had to postpone the mass rally to next month. It will definite not bode well for the movement to have such a long interval for the rally.
The movement failed to incite public sentiment to support its mass rally mainly because its leaders became rifted. Even the Phuea Thai Party of the big boss, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is also in disarray.
Thaksin, the Phuea Thai and the red-shirted movement have been in disarray and on defensive while the opponents have been creating rumors to attack the Thaksin's side. For example, the red-shirted movement was reported to planning to spend hundreds of millions of baht to organize a massive rally by mobilizing provincial people, especially those from northeastern and northern provinces. Reports had it that about 5,000 people would be mobilized from each area and they would descend on Bangkok after the court ruled to seize Thaksin's assets.
Constitution Court Verdict
In fact, this was the use of old news to apply with the current situation. The formula of 1 per 5,000 was the old plan mentioned when the Constitution Court read a verdict to dissolve the Thai Rak Thai Party and then 111 party executives got a five-year political ban.
At that time, the Thai Rak Thai had over 200 MPs. Calculating from 111 influential MPs in provinces, the party could have managed to mobilize up to 600,000 people to join a rally under the 1:5,000 formula, not counting the number of people, who would have joined the demonstration on their own.
But it was fortunate that the leading members or the 111 Thai Rak Thai executives were rifted and divided into several factions. Some moved to control power in the People Power Party while several other factions defected to form new parties and control the parties from behind the scene.
Mobilizing Provincial People
So, the plan to besiege the capital with the wild or mobilizing the provincial people to protest in Bangkok flopped. Actually, the former Thai Rak Thai MPs could have easily mobilized 600,000 people to join a demonstration in Bangkok.
The secret formula of 1:5,000 was mentioned again when the Thaksin's assets case is reaching its climax. But this report was definitely cooked up by the opponents with hope to damage the red-shirted movement's image and to further weaken the movement, which has been gradually losing stream. If the red-shirted movement does not reorganize itself, it may be terminated eventually. Anyway, the government could not rest assured. The government will have yet to wait and see the reactions to the assets seizure case. The 5 and 6 March will be the days when the red-shirted movement will have to prove that it still has potential or it has lost all stream.
Thaksin has sent messages to the red-shirted leaders from the other side of the world. His messages indicated he knew the game of the opponents. But he could not put all pieces of the puzzle together to understand the complete picture apparently because he is far away and has not received all the information from Thailand. This apparently caused him to inaccurately assess the situation.
Thaksin said two political sides are fighting with the Phuea Thai and red-shirted movement on one side and the Democrat Party, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which are backed by the elitist polity, on the other side. Thaksin said Prime Minister Aphisit Wetchachiwa enjoyed nepotism.
Thaksin failed to see that three groups are now in the fight. Another group, which remains invisible, is the "New Power". It so far appears vaguely as a shadow and it is now gaining strength. And the New Power has very strong political role now.
In the initial phase, the elitist polity borrowed the hands of the New Power to topple the Thaksin regime, causing it to be in disarray.
Now, the elitist polity and the New Power have already ignored the Thaksin regime's mechanisms either in the form of the mass supporters or politicians.
This means, the red-shirted movement is losing support and strength and will be able to hold rallies only once in a while eventually.
The New Power has now established a strong network to help it win the next election once the House is dissolved. The New Power will be able to manipulate the results of provincial elections like how the Thai Rak Thai could in the 2006 general election.
Since the Thaksin regime has been toppled, it is the law of the nature that two tigers cannot share the same cave. So, the elitist polity and the New Power cannot avoid clashing each other.
New Political Game
However, so far the elitist polity has much more advantages over the New Power in the political game. In the first round of fight, the two sides fought with information warfare and it turned out that the elitist polity has been beating the New Power in this war of news reports. Negative reports have come out against the New Power, including the bomb attempt inside the Supreme Court and alleged corruption in the procurements of the GT200 bomb detectors. These reports were aimed at discrediting two persons of the New Power.
The next step is to carry out a graft investigation and the announcement of the corruption finding will be made. The third move of the elitist polity is to reshuffle the Cabinet by seizing control of key ministries. The last stronghold of the New Power is its security base or the armed forces. Successors of the New Power in key military positions will be replaced.
And to try to prevent it from being cornered, the New Power came out to intimidate the Aphisit Government, saying it might not remain in office until the current House of Representatives completes its term. The New Power said the government might have to dissolve the House or resign or else it would be ousted.
Next Step
The New Power said Thailand would have a new prime minister whose initial is "P". Of course, that person is not Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanon. But several fortune tellers predicted that the next prime minister would be Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan. And a coup could not be ruled out although senior military officers, including the two who control the power in the Army -- Army Commander-in-Chief Gen Anuphong Phaochinda and Army Deputy Commander-in-Chief Gen Prayut Chan-ocha, came out to insist there would be no coup.
Nothing is certain regarding to a coup possibility. And if a new coup is staged, the elitist polity will clash head-on against the New Power. They will not fight each other only with soldiers, guns and tanks but the fight will also be joined by civilians and some groups of the masses. The next battle will be much more serious than their earlier war against the Thaksin regime.
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