Who caused the civil unrest in Thailand?

The ongoing turmoil in Thailand has stirred up trouble again: On April 10, red shirts supporting former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra stormed the ASEAN Summit venue in Pattaya, causing the summit to be canceled. On April 12, the Red Shirt Army surrounded the Ministry of Interior of Thailand, and Prime Minister Abhisit was attacked when leaving the Ministry of Interior. It is said that Abhisit's arm was slightly injured and he has been sent to the hospital for treatment. Similar conflicts have occurred many times since Abhisit became prime minister in December last year. On December 28, tens of thousands of Thaksin supporters blocked all the doors of the National Assembly compound in an attempt to prevent new Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva from entering the National Assembly to deliver his first policy speech. On April 7, Abhisit was besieged in a hotel by hundreds of red shirt demonstrators for several hours. When Abhisit's motorcade left the hotel under heavy security, it was still used by the demonstrators. Rocks struck and the rear window of his car was shattered. The main members of the Red Shirt Army come from farmers in northern and northeastern Thailand, and they are in great contradiction with the policies of the upper-middle class and traditional elites in Thai cities represented by the current government. On the surface, the cancellation of the summit has humiliated Thailand, and the red shirts should bear the main responsibility, but tracing the root cause, Thailand's current chaos is inseparable from the coup that led to the resignation of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin Shinawatra was the only Prime Minister of Thailand after the war to complete his four-year term. During his tenure, he established the People's Bank to support small and medium-sized enterprises; postponed farmers' debt repayments for three years; established the "Rural Million Baht Development Fund"; implemented the "30 Baht" Medical Plan"; develop "One Village One Product Plan" with local characteristics, etc. These measures have reduced the burden on the people and improved social welfare and security, allowing Thaksin to gain huge support and popularity among the middle and lower classes, which account for 70% of the population. The middle class, intellectual class and local hereditary lords, who account for about 30% of the population, are dissatisfied with Thaksin's forces who blindly "please" grassroots voters and harm the interests of the middle and upper classes. In terms of numbers, they are in the minority, so it is difficult to shake Thaksin's power in every election; but economically, the wealth they control accounts for more than 80% of the country's economy, and they have greater influence on politics, economy and public opinion. , so when they "organize", they can always have a huge impact on the government elected by a majority vote. In September 2006, Thaksin was overthrown by a military coup while attending the United Nations General Assembly and became a wanted person, making it difficult for him to return to his home and country. In 2008, Prime Minister Sharma, who inherited Thaksin's mantle and came to power in strict accordance with democratic procedures, was also deeply persecuted by demonstrations by the opposition Yellow Shirts. They occupied the Prime Minister's Office and even opened stalls in the Prime Minister's Office to trade goods without overthrowing the government. After refusing to give up, Sharma was eventually sentenced to step down by the Constitutional Court on the groundless charge of "advertising cooking on a television program." After the ruling party alliance re-appointed a new Prime Minister Somchai, the Yellow Shirt Army believed that Somchai, Thaksin's brother-in-law, was a "Thaksin puppet" that was more difficult to accept than Sharma, so they continued to occupy the Prime Minister's Office and the Bangkok airport, resulting in 30,000 passengers are unable to board flights every day, and Thailand is losing millions of dollars in tourism revenue every day. In December last year, Thailand's Constitutional Court finally ruled that the ruling party's election fraud was established, dissolved the People's Power Party and the other two parties in the ruling alliance, and imposed a five-year ban on participation in politics. Somchai was forced to step down. After Abhisit came to power, the forces supporting Thaksin began to "treat him with his own medicine" and formed a red shirt army to besiege Abhisit and demand that he step down and hold new elections. Currently, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is in a dilemma. Thai public opinion believes that Abhisit underestimated the strength of the Red Shirt Army and had "inevitable responsibility for oversight" in preventing the summit from being impacted. Severely punishing the Red Shirts means intensifying the conflict between the Red Shirts and the government. Many coups in Thailand's history were triggered by government or military police suppression. Abhisit cannot take this risk. Coupled with Abhisit's economic inaction after coming to power, Thailand's economy is expected to contract sharply by 4% this year, which puts Abhisit's ability to govern the country into question. But regardless of Abhisit's political fate, the biggest victim of the political turmoil that has lasted for more than two years is Thailand's democratic system. Although Thaksin has flaws in his integrity, using a military coup to overthrow an elected leader will only bring long-term harm to the country's democracy that has not yet gained a firm foothold. It can be said to have opened Pandora's box. The people's demands for taking to the streets to demonstrate are legitimate, but occupying the Prime Minister's Office and storming into the Ministry of Interior are illegal and an abuse of their rights. At this point, neither the Yellow Shirts nor the Red Shirts have shown their proper democratic qualities. However, the Yellow Shirts were the instigators of this mess.

Democracy is a game rule that determines the ownership of political power based on the number of votes received. Since all parties decide to participate in this game, it means that they are willing to accept any outcome of the game. The Yellow Shirts refused to recognize the election results on the grounds that Thaksin was "corrupt" and "populist", and the Constitutional Court was reduced to a tool of political struggle. This was a major violation of the rules of the game. The Red Shirts followed the same pattern and retaliated with tit-for-tat, which shows that Thailand's democracy is still immature. The opposing parties only hope to use democracy to serve their own interests, but are unwilling to use democratic principles to restrict their words and deeds. Once the results of the democratic process are unfavorable to oneself, every effort will be made to overturn them. Since the overthrow of the autocratic monarchy in 1932, Thai democracy has gone through 18 coups, and the constitution has been suspended and revised countless times. However, Thai democracy has not been able to function. On the contrary, it has been undergoing coups, government rotations, democratic elections, and military control. Spinning in a strange circle. This is due to the historical reasons of military intervention in politics. The more important reason is that the various political forces in Thailand have not yet formed a reverence for and belief in democratic rules, and have not learned to deal with differences of opinion in a compromise and compromise manner. Instead, they only regard democracy as See it as a tool and hope that democracy can be used for your own use. This is not only the dilemma of Thai democracy, but also the fundamental reason for the failure of democracy in many third world countries.