Deadly bomb attacks in Bangkok a week ago have rekindled political tensions in Thailand and cast doubt on the ruling junta's promise to restore democracy here after a military coup, analysts say.
The New Year's Eve blasts capped a year of remarkable political turbulence, even for a nation that has slogged through 18 coups along its often stumbling, eight-decade path toward democracy.
"I see this as a continuation of the crisis and the confrontation and the turmoil that we saw last year," said Chulalongkorn University political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak.
The battle for political control of this Southeast Asian nation began in the streets early last year, with months of peaceful protests against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was finally ousted by the military on Sept. 19.
The country breathed a sigh of relief after the coup, as army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin promised to restore democracy within a year and to root out the culture of corruption Thaksin was accused of creating.
Sonthi set up an interim government of mainly technocrats and launched a slate of peace initiatives to quell an insurgency by Muslim separatists in southern Thailand.
But public relief was short-lived. Insurgent violence in the south quickly grew bloodier and shadowy arsonists began burning schools in the northern Thai heartland, a one-time Thaksin stronghold.
Meanwhile Thai media, which had generally welcomed the coup, began to criticize the slow pace of investigations into alleged corruption in Thaksin's government and questioned the purpose of the military takeover.
Trust in the new government was badly shaken when its financial team sparked a market crash on Dec. 19 with a bungled attempt to control the baht.
The currency control measures were quickly eased, but public confidence was still on the wane when the explosions hit Bangkok. Thai stocks, which were Asia's worst performers last year, sank more than seven percent last week.
"We can see that the coup has gone wrong," Thitinan said.
"They did not conduct a decisive coup. It was a coup that left Thaksin and his cronies off the hook," Thitinan said.
Thaksin has been in exile since his ouster, but the military has not revoked his diplomatic passport -- allowing the billionaire to travel freely -- and has made little visible progress toward filing any formal charges against him.
Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont has accused factions linked to Thaksin of staging the bombings, which killed three people and wounded 42 others.
The government and analysts have generally ruled out southern insurgents as the culprits. But Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtas said on Thursday he believed the bombers were "men in uniform," meaning either police or military.
Hours after Boonrawd made the remarks, rumors of a counter-coup, or possibly a new coup by Sonthi against the very government he installed, swirled around the capital.
The rumors proved baseless, but highlighted the national case of the jitters.
"It is a small group of people holding onto a large reserve of power," political analyst Panitan Wattanayagorn said of the junta. "They are very much looking like a fortress that is being attacked from all angles."
New bomb scares have rattled Bangkok for the past week and worries about a new power struggle have Thais bracing for another rocky year.
Many analysts have suggested that police or military who fell out of favor after the coup, but who are not directly aligned with Thaksin, could be behind the blasts.
"I am not convinced that the bombs were the work of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra," said Thawee Surarithikul, dean of political science at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University.
"But it could be the work of either police or military from the previous regime who lost their influence and power," he said.
The concern among many analysts is that the latest instability in Thailand could prompt the military to delay the drafting of a new constitution and postpone elections that had been promised for October.
"If the bombings were a one-off, they can regain control and get their act back together. Then the constitution timetable is still intact," Panitan said. "But obviously if the bomb threats continue, then the military might be forced to do something more drastic, like another coup."
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