Thai Protests: A Fight For Democracy & Reforms
Protests have erupted all across Thailand. So, how did the country get here?
The Protests
The people in Thailand, mostly young people are fed up with an establishment that has undermined their democratic rights and the country’s progress. The protests have mostly been led by university and high school students known collectively as the “Free Youth Movement”. On July 18, the Free Youth group drew around 2,500 people to a protest in Bangkok and made three demands:
- Dissolve parliament
- Amend the constitution
- Stop harassing critics
In August, students at Thammasat University listed 10 demands for reforming the monarchy. The demands included taking away the monarch’s legal immunity, eliminating the lese-majeste law, investigating the disappearance in recent years of several critics of the monarchy among others. In the same month, over 10,000 people joined a protest at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument.
In late September, the protestors started demanding the resignation of Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha. In October, thousands marched in Bangkok, with some staying overnight and the protestors obstructing Queen Suthida’s motorcade. On October 15, Prayut signed an emergency decree to quell the protests, with over 20 protestors being arrested. The next day, police used water cannons to try to disperse the protest by thousands of people opposing the ban.
The Thai Government
At present, Thailand has a military government. It is a *constitutional monarchy with the monarch as the head of state. This means that the country has a Prime Minister as well as a king and a queen.
*A constitutional monarchy is a system of government in which a country is ruled by a king and queen whose power is limited by a constitution.
In 2014, Prayuth led the army in a coup and took over the country. He went on to rewrite the constitution, extending powers of the army and the monarchy over his five-year rule. In 2019, Prayuth won an election of questionable legitimacy. Why questionable? Because in the same election, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the leader of the Future Forward party (FFP) also competed. He is a fierce critic of the Thai government and military. He was especially popular among young people and this vote was supposed to end the military’s political dominance in the country.
However, in a turn of events, the constitutional court disqualified him as a member of parliament. He was found guilty of owning shares in a media company when he applied to be an electoral candidate in 2019. Afterwards, Thailand’s Election Commission voted to disband FFP, thousands of protestors took to the streets of Central Bangkok to show their support for the party.
The protests gained momentum after Wanchalearm Satsaksit, a Thai political activist who has been a vociferous critic of the PM’s administration was suspected to be abducted by the ruling elite of Thailand.
The Shift
Even though Prayuth ordered the withdrawal of the week-old state of emergency in Bangkok on Thursday, the protestors are still not satisfied. Free Youth said via Telegram that, despite the emergency rules being lifted, the government still hasn’t responded to any of the key demands. One of their crucial demands is the resignation of the PM. The organisation said that it will strengthen its turmoil if he doesn’t resign in three days and was preparing to call another mass gathering.
On October 14, when the royal family drove through the protest and for the first time in Thai history, they weren’t surrounded by a cheering crowd but by hundreds of people shouting at them. Do you remember the lèse-majesté law that we mentioned earlier? That law can lead to 15 years in prison for anyone who ‘defames, insults or threatens’ the King, Queen, heir-apparent or regent. However, right now, the Thai activists are publicly airing frustrations, thus risking arrest and 15 years in prison. This shows a radical shift in perspective in Thai people’s minds.
So, where does it go from here? At present, there aren’t any indications that the protests will come to an end and it has spread to other parts of Thailand. Claudio Sopranzetti for Aljazeera wrote, “A public statement of this magnitude questioning the monarchy had not been heard in Thailand since the 1930s..” So, this is a historic event happening in Thailand and we have to wait and see if Prayuth accepts the demands and how this protest is going to shape the future of Thailand.
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