Thai PM braces for another weekend of clashes

From the moment Abhisit Vejjajiva was elected Prime Minister of Thailand by a special vote of Parliament in 2008, the British-born, Eton-educated politician has been fighting off one crisis after another.

First there were claims about the fairness of his appointment. Second, there was a mounting economic meltdown to contend with.

Then, just months after he was elected, campaigners held demonstrations in Bangkok that saw the country's worst street violence for two decades. Two people were killed; many injured.

Now the 45-year-old, who is said to support Newcastle United Football Club and enjoy the works of Albert Camus, may be facing his toughest challenge.

After two weeks of demonstrations during which thousands of the Red Shirts opposition have taken to the streets of Bangkok and hurled blood - which they had queued up to donate to the protest - at his home and office, reports suggest that events have taken a toll on the Premier. He is forced to live and work in a military base and rarely sees his family.

With the Red Shirts promising yet more demonstrations in the capital, the head of the 15-month-old Government will receive increasing demands for him to dissolve the Parliament and call an early election - an election his opponents are certain they would win.

"It is not easy going for him. The demonstrations are serious because they show that the Red Shirts have not gone away," said Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a dissident academic who fled Thailand to live in Britain.

"The Red Shirts are increasingly using the language of class and it shows that the Government does not enjoy the support of the ordinary people. Everything the Government has done to try and legitimise the manoeuvring that led to Abhisit's appointment has not worked in the eyes of the people."

Abhisit, head of the Democrat Party, became Prime Minister in December 2008 amid a constitutional crisis following a court decision to outlaw three parties forming the ruling coalition.

Even as he secured his position by a 235-198 vote in Parliament, opposition activists blocked access to the building and smashed the windows of MPs' cars.

His most immediate challenge comes this weekend when the Red Shirts - most of them supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra - plan to hold yet another demonstration in Bangkok. Experts say that when up to 150,000 demonstrators gathered on March 14, they received an unusual amount of support from residents.

The display of political muscle is deemed important by the opposition, which is convinced it has the numbers to win parliamentary polls, which have to be called by the end of next year.

For all of Abhisit's confident rhetoric of winning the election, some analysts believe it is remarkable the opposition is even active after last year's violence.

"The Red Shirts shouldn't even be a viable movement. People shouldn't be touching them with a barge pole, you would've thought, after what they did to Bangkok last year," Supavud Saicheua, managing director of Phatra Securities, told Reuters. "But a year later they are back stronger, with a better message, more convincing, and able to get cheers from people in Bangkok."

Others say Thailand's political turmoil will continue until the Red Shirts' main grievances - greater empowerment of poorer rural voters who were lured by Thaksin's populist policies such as cheap loans - are met.

Conservative elements, including the military and those close to the royal family, are unlikely to surrender such influence easily.

For Abhisit, nothing is going to get any easier any time soon.

ABHISIT VEJJAJIVA
Comes from a wealthy family of Thai-Chinese origin.

Was born in August 1964, in Newcastle, northern England, to medical professors.

Educated at Eton College and then Oxford University, where he graduated with first-class honours in politics, philosophy and economics.

Joined the Democrats, Thailand's oldest party, in 1992 and, aged 27, entered Parliament as one of its youngest-ever members.

Tried and failed to become party leader in 2001 but was successful in 2005.

Was made Prime Minister in 2008 after a Constitutional Court ruling removed from power the Government led by allies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

- INDEPENDENT