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Thailand’s yellow-clad protest – A Revolution against corrupt Democracy

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Published on Friday, 28 November 2008 04:11

MSNBC’s World Blog news correspondent Ian Williams wrote an article to guide the unfamiliar reader on the political battle that has been going on in Thailand. The situation in Thailand boils down to this. The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), a coalition made up of middle class, educated academics, and other parts of the Thai population, want the current government out of power. This organization is well organized, and they have even their own guards to ward off government forces. They have taken control Thailand’s airports, and possibly due to the current Thai’s political blessing, the current Thai government has been very cautious in responding to the protest.

PAD wants to reform the current democratic process and instead make a shift of power that would have most of its members be in the new government. Although the current government has been elected in a fair democratic vote, there has been allegations of voter bribery and other questionable tactics that convinced the large rural and poor populous to vote for the current government, which the PAD accused them of being corrupt. PAD wants change now.

The interesting part that caught my attention was that the PAD wants the current monarchy to survive and continue retain or even gain political power. Some commenters to the article mention that even though the poorest communities do acknowledge that the current government did engage in corruption, they also mention that the corruption process actually gave “back to the community”.

I will be watching if there will be any more developments from the Thai government or from the silent majority in the rural parts of Thailand.