Protesters force new Thai PM to delay maiden speech [-Abhisit caught in his own game?]

Thai anti-government supporters surround parliament (AP)

December 29, 2008
Anne Barrowclough
Times Online (UK)

Thousands of anti-government protesters have surrounded Thailand's parliament, forcing newly installed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to postpone his maiden speech, which he had been due to give today.

Carrying signs reading 'Government of treason', and 'Give us back real democracy', the protesters, who support the exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra blocked the entrances to parliament and dared MPs to pass through their ranks to get into the building.

With only a few opposition politicians willing to run the gauntlet of red-shirted protesters from the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship (DAAD) Mr Abhisit's speech was delayed for five hours.

Parliament speaker Chai Chidchob said on local television that if the safety of MPs could not be assured; "we might have to postpone it to a later date."

Under the constitution, the government has until January 7 to delivers its policy statement to a joint sitting of the House of Representatives and Senate.

The protests have sparked fears of a repeat of the political turmoil orchestrated by the anti-Thaksin group People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) that paralysed the former government for months and came to a head with an eight day long blockade of Bangkok's airports.

While the PAD protests aimed to toppled the government of Somchai Wongsawat, Mr Thaksin's brother-in-law, today's demonstrations are aimed at pressuring the government to dissolve the legislature and call snap elections.

The members of DAAD claim that Mr Abhisit and his Democrat Party came to power through a virtual coup d'etat.

They say they will remain in place while the government tries to deliver its policy statement Monday and Tuesday.

Eton and Oxford educated Mr Abhisit scraped into power in a closely fought election on December 17, two weeks after Thailand's Constitutional court dissolved the government of Mr Somchai.

In his inaugural address, the chaotic country's third prime minister in four months vowed to reunite the divided country and restore Thailand's tourist industry, which was decimated by the airport blockades.

Hopes that his election would soothe political tensions are tempered with a concern at his less than reputable rise to power - a rise that owes more to the backing of his powerful friends in the military and amongst the monarchists than true democracy.

However Mr Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006, and who has been accused of pulling the strings of the former government, is being seen as something of a spent force. Although he retains strong support in rural areas, he has lost ground recently as former loyalists defected to join Mr Abhisit's governemt.

Local media has speculated that Thaksin, who has been convicted in absentia of corruption has lost much of his immense wealth in the global economic crisis and no longer has the funds to support his backers.