Thai Monarchists Support “People’s Council”
The lie that monarchy is a stabilising institution that unites a nation is taking a battering in Thailand. Violent disorder in the streets is continuing as the opposition tries to overthrow the democratically elected government. The opposition includes what the Financial Times terms “the old royalist establishment”.
Opposition protesters have fired home-made rockets at the offices of the prime minister after two days of street battles in which government buildings have been occupied and lives lost. The European Union described the response of the government as “restrained and proportionate”. However, opposition leader and former prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban said he would “continue to fight” even if elections were called. His government was the very clear loser in the 2011 election.
Earlier this year Somyot Prucksakasemsuk was sentenced to thirteen years in prison under the the country’s “lese-majeste” law. He had written a magazine article that supposedly defamed the king. The year before Ampon Tangnoppakul died in prison while serving a twenty-year sentence for the same offence. Also in 2012 a movie adaptation of Macbeth was banned because of its anti-monarchy overtones.
The opposition has denied that it is provoking chaos in order to persuade the military to intervene. Thailand’s king, who has accumulated almost £19bn according to Forbes magazine, has made no public statement on the actions of his supporters..