Thai parliament dissolved by Yingluck

[opebo]

Parliament ('the House') has been dissolved - a step in the right direction, I think:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/383957/pm-dissolves-house-but-anti-thaksin-protest-continues

Also the protests are staying strong. I'm hoping for an end to the red regime soon

[opebo]

Talking to my Thai friends - apparently this is a strategy by the government to try to defuse the situation and avoid giving the army its much coveted excuse for a coup.  It remains to be seen whether the strategy is successful - it is obviously not indicative of a very strong position.

[opebo]

This is the traditional Red/Yellow sides in Thailand - the red is red, all the other colors (mainly blue for Democrat) would side with Yellow.  



In the event of a coup, Bangkok, the South, the 'eastern seaboard' and a few Central areas would probably be very happy.  Isaan (the Northeast) and the North would be deeply unhappy and a civil war is a possibility.

[opebo]

One hopes on principle that it is, although one also hopes on principle that the election to come doesn't involve statistically significant vote-rigging.

Most people 'in the know' suggest that in this process the Democrats will boycott any ensuing election, delegitimizing it, and then the anti-corruption court (largely royal appointees) will dissolve the red party for vote-buying/corruption, leading to a royally appointed 'yellow' or Democrat government.

Its a cycle.. the alternative to a direct coup d'etat.

[opebo]

Hopefully she wins an even larger majority.

If there were an election, she would win... but, it is somewhat doubtful at this point whether that will be the denouement.

[opebo]

.. The Democrats seem to be the only party with a coherent ideology, and it's one I actively approve of.

Yeah that's the funny part - a more humane party could hardly be imagined, and yet they only govern after coups and various other 'non-democratic' machinations.  The Red/Thaksin cabal by contrast are particularly brutish populists: very democratic, but much more corrupt than the elite the claim moral superiority over, as well as far worse in their abuse of human rights.

[opebo]

a more humane party could hardly be imagined,

(I say this as somebody who's only slightly Red-leaning in my analysis of Thai politics and generally pretty unhappy about what I see there but considering your claimed views on politics in almost every other country this particular hypocrisy really needs to pointed out whenever possible:) One that wasn't 'classically liberal', perhaps, even if it somehow resembled the existing Democrat Party otherwise? You're a real friend of the proletariat, opebo, a real good friend.

My point is that from Western sensibilities a classically liberal party should be familiar and appealing - certainly more so than the brutal law-n-order client-populism of the Reds.  In practice - particularly how they deal with a variety of minority groups (Muslim ones in particular), as well as marginalized in society like criminals, the Democrats are very atypically humane in the context of Thai society.  In fact they are also not averse to a social safety net - though admittedly a rather limited one, and probably they do acquiesce to it only as an attempt to be competitive to the Reds. 

I'm all for a bit of socialism, but that is not what the Reds represent here.  The idea solution in Thailand, to my mind, is to eliminate 'democracy', and have a near-absolute monarchy with the Democrats as appointed caretaker government forever.