Can someone summerise the reason for the unrest in Bangkok?

Question

Its barely 9 months since the elected government took office. What's gone wrong?

Answer 1

The folks who are opposed to Prime Minister Samak are also opposed to the basic concept of democracy...that each person should have one vote.

The educated and wealthy people in Bangkok are pitted against the poor and uneducated rural folks.

Since there are more poor uneducated farmers than there are big city folks, the big city folks feel that they are getting outvoted.

Since they control most of Thailand's wealth, they feel that giving an equal vote to some uneducated country bumpkin isn't fair.

Problem is the rural folks have been neglected in Thailand for years.

Many of them still live in poverty.

Without the "one person, one vote", the power will swing to whomever is rich and powerful.  The poor will always be unrepresented and neglected.

If the rich and educated want control, they need to dangle carrots in front of the poor rural folks to get them to throw their support behind the opposition party.

That's how a democracy works.

It's worked well for western nations.  It will work for Thailand.

Answer 2

In Summary, the elected government is perceived to be nothing more than puppets of the former corrupt Thaksin government. The PAD (democratic party) is hoping to flush out the rest of the former Prime Ministers corrupt cronies that were recently elected.

The current Prime Minister and many MP's are elected on the strength of the rural Thailand vote, where voters are uneducated and there have been massive cases of vote buying.

All the academics and wealthy elite of Bangkok seem to support having the PAD run the country.

Answer 3

PAD TRUTH  





  People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD)

  The truth, PAD is formed by a large number of educated and middle class Thai people whom pay a majority amount of taxes and all revenues. We can’t accept the extravagant government, they waste our national budget. Most of money has been spent on unnecessary projects and corruption. Some has been distributed to poor and uneducated people in rural area, a majority amount of Thai population, to convince them for political election vote. That is the strategy that Thaksin & Samak (Thaksin’s nominee) has been used to win the election and rule Thailand. Is this a true democracy ?  

We gather together to protest corruption and save our country from being in bankruptcy. If you don’t believe you can check Thaksin’s financial status before and after his prime minister era. Samak and his political party is Thaksin’s nominee and try to change our latest constitution to save Thaksin and his colleagues, despite one of his member has been judged on cheating in the latest election, and may lead to dissolve his political party.  

Please understand us. Thank for your attention.  



Sorry for the inconveniences to all Thailand visitors. This will be going on just in a short period.

Answer 4

alright, so most of the country people like the PPP so the PPP got voted in fairly. it's legal.

however, samak has ties with Thaksin, and that's what the PAD is annoyed about, they think he's corrupt and everything. so they're protesting. at first the protests were alright, they were peaceful and actually - dare i say it - LEGAL.

but then the violence started, and there were dirty tricks on each side. there are vids of the PAD mob throwing tear gas at themselves and pretending the police did it, and they cropped a picture so ti looks like the policeman is holding a gun to some person's head.

quite honestly, this whole thing is going quite out of hand and it's just plain annoying for locals to get around. both sides have done nasty things. this is coming from an unbiased point of view.

it's like the republicans breaking into the white house.

:(