The response of the Thai military is always a question, but although there has been talk of a coup — which would be the 18th in Thailand’s history — most analysts say it seems unlikely for now.
After its ouster of Mr. Thaksin two years ago, the military installed a civilian government that was widely accused of being incompetent and ineffectual. Last December, the generals relinquished power and held a parliamentary election. To the military’s chagrin, backers of Mr. Thaksin won the election and Mr. Samak was named prime minister.
Despite its name, the People’s Alliance for Democracy, leading the anti-government protests, is explicitly calling for a less democratic structure.
“We used to chant the mantra of elections all the time,” Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the protest leaders, said in an interview Thursday. “Now elections in Thailand lead to a very shabby democracy.”
In a political environment where vote-buying is chronic, the People’s Alliance has proposed a Parliament that would be dominated by appointed rather than elected representatives. “There is always an investment of money to seize power using democracy as a front,” Mr. Sonthi said. “Once a party is in Parliament, without proper checks and balances, without a transparent news media, you cannot call it democracy.”
For its part, Mr. Samak’s government is quick to argue that it was democratically elected just seven months ago and that it has not committed any gross errors. But it is also widely derided as venal and incompetent — a “shambolic misadventure” in the words of an editorial published Monday in The Bangkok Post, which has generally been critical of Mr. Thaksin and his supporters.
“The Samak administration is now a leading candidate for the worst government in the 76 years of constitutional monarchy,” the editorial said.
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