2.

Please

explain

the

relationship

between

the

Thaksin

regime

and

the

emergence/development of the Yellow Shirts and the Red Shirt movements?

Thailand political situation has not been in its most stable position in the past decade. The
explicit polarization has ignited when the Yellow shirts protesters, who later on seen as elites
or the upper class, started their protest against Thaksin Shinawatra, the Prime Minister at the
time. In the meanwhile, the Red shirts or the United front of Democracy against
Dictatorship (UDD) was formed in late 2006 to be counter-protest to the Yellow shirt
movements. This essay aims to explain the relationship between the Thaksin regime and the
emergence of the Yellow Shirts and the Red Shirt movements.
The reasons behind the Yellow shirt protest lied essentially to the social factors. It was
explained that since the participants were not poor, so it was necessary to look back to see
what had happened with Thai economy in the past decade that was so significant that
frustrated the non-poor so much that they had to come out to the demonstrate. Thaksin was
attacked by issues threatening the middle class which was the most crucial political
instrument for the middle class. Furthermore, the populist policy was not as useful to the
middle class, as it was to the poor. It was true that the middle class did benefit from the
universal healthcare but not much from the SMEs bank, village funds, etc, but not as much as
the poor. On the contrary, it caused more insecurity to the middle class. Firstly, because of the
fact that more of them work in the formal sector, thus proportionately they paid more tax,
which was the main resource for the subsidies provided for the populist program. Secondly,
they did not directly benefit from many of the programs, which, to them, were created to
serve politicians scheme. Thirdly, it reduced some quality and standards of services that they
were used to. To be more elaborated, for example, the universal healthcare or 30 Baht cures
all program clearly created equality to all Thai citizens to access the healthcare.
It was reported that the limited subsidies for the health scheme deteriorate the medical
standard in the hospitals that joint the program. Since the budget was lower, thus the program
were not able to cover all the expenses, led to the lower standard comparing to the more
expensive ones that the government did not subsidize. As a consequence, if the middle class
wanted a better service, they had to go to the private hospitals, which began to privatize and
the fees became more expensive for the middle class. In other words, in order to maintain a
good life they used to have, they now had to pay more. These also are the reasons that it was
believed to be the urge for the middle class to join the protest to against Thaksin regime.

However, there also were other issues relating Thaksins legitimacy that were mentioned
during the protest. For instance, the Supreme Court had convicted him for corruption charges
such as tax evasion and violation of law prohibiting political figures from having business
deal with governmental organization. Nevertheless, to conclude, the Yellow shirts emergence
actually based mainly on the middle class agendas. The movement consisted of
homogeneous group, characterized by their economic and social status. However, the shared
societal interest among the group was the fear of alteration that came together as part of
modern society. Thaksin Shinawatra who had successfully symbolized himself as the messiah
of these changes such as bureaucratic administration reformation and the introduction of
populist policy, became a threat to the conservative middle class. This caused the frustration
among them, along with the politicized issue of disaffection to the monarch the feeling and
emotion of the people was used to catalyze the movement.
Regarding to the Red shirts, it is composed of various groups that categorized in five different
groups within the movement as; 1) Thaksin himself, 2) those hired by Thaksin, 3) idealistic
reds, 4) violent extremists and 5) the poor and their sympathizers from both urban and rural
areas. On the contrary, they were loosely organized networks drawn from an emerging class
of urbanized villagers that straddled both urban and rural society, and who had been
mobilized by pro-Thaksin politicians and other actors
Often times, media portrayed the Red shirt participants as poor farmers, who likely came
from the North or Northeast of Thailand because they benefitted directly from Thaksins
populist policy. This image had become the dominant development usually explained as class
and economic grievance. Also, because of the nexus between the Red shirts and the
Assembly of the poor who had notably number of participants from the Northeast of the
country and successfully organized mass movements in Bangkok in the 1990s. It was stated
that the Red shirt movement was a significant political phenomenon dominated by the lower
class or the primary producers, mostly farmers, also secondary producers such as skill labors,
commodity and service producers, and the petty to middle level of employers. Namely, the
lower and lower middle class were the main body of the rallies, while the middle and upper
class were the minority.
In conclusion, the concept of the non-privileged poor was taken by the Red shirts whose
crucial plan was to create equality for all under the name of democracy. On the other hand,
the concept of the privileged middle class, bureaucrats and elites was taken by the Yellow

shirts. An important issue that the Red shirt used against the Yellow shirt was that the elites
had been blocking the poor from the accessibility to resources to sustain the formers power.
This whole concept of implementation of double standards and inequality was used by
Thaksin to portray his commonality to the Red shirt participants, along with the image of
poverty alleviation provider; Thaksin was able to buy the heart of the excluded ones.
Furthermore, the head of the coups viewpoint on the people indicated disrespectful attitude
that the conservative ruler had over the people, together with the fact that Thaksin, the poor
icon, was ousted created discontinuity in peoples lives and indicated the comeback of the
conservative power which oppressed the poor before Thaksin came. Lastly, the connection
between the royal family and the Yellow shirt participants was constantly used to emphasize
the inequality between the two classes.