Opponents of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra prepared another mass rally yesterday calling for him to quit, as an unusual television broadcast of the king bolstered calls for compromise.
With political tensions rising, major television channels late on Sunday re-broadcast a speech given by revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1992, when he urged the then-military government and pro-democracy protesters to negotiate a settlement and avoid violence.
"Turn to each other and do not confront each other to solve the problem," the king said in the video, which has never been shown in full since the bloody uprising that forced the military-backed premier to resign.
PHOTO: AFP
The leader of those protests, Chamlong Srimuang, has joined the movement to oust Thaksin.
Although officials would not say who authorized the prime-time broadcast, the video was widely seen as a message from the king, whose adviser last week called for talks to end the crisis quickly and peacefully.
"The speech was a signal to warn all the parties involved in the current situation. The government wants to bring back peace so we need to talk to each other," Thailand's top security official, Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya told reporters early yesterday.
But Sondhi Limthongkul, a key leader of the current protest movement, told his supporters late on Sunday that the speech was a message for Thaksin to resign.
"The real meaning of the king's message is that Thaksin must resign," Sondhi told a group of his supporters as they held a vigil ahead of yesterday's protest.
"We face the same situation [as in 1992] at the moment. The difference is that we are now fighting a political dictatorship, not a military one," Sondhi said.
Sondhi and his People's Alliance for Democracy, a loose coalition of anti-Thaksin groups, planned to gather from about 6pm in a field near the royal palace in Bangkok.
They said they would hold an all-night rally before marching on Thaksin's office during his weekly Cabinet meeting this morning.
Meanwhile, thousands of Thaksin's supporters, mainly poor farmers, were also heading to Bangkok for their own rally today.
Keenly aware of the potential for clashes, police said they would create a space for Thaksin's supporters to hold their rally near one of Bangkok's main bus terminals, far from the royal palace and Government House.
The military-backed premier who resigned in 1992, Suchinda Kraprayoon, added his voice yesterday to the calls for Thaksin and his critics to negotiate a solution to the crisis.
He told the Thai-language Post Today newspaper that an independent mediator should hold talks between the two sides.
Political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak said the king's broadcast was a "significant" development in the crisis that began more than seven weeks ago, when Thaksin's family sold its nearly 50 percent stake in telecom Shin Corp to a Singapore investment firm.
"It's a signal that we should not reach a situation like 1992 again. This is a call for dialogue and a compromise," he said.
Simmering criticism of the prime minister's autocratic style exploded in late January, when his family earned US$1.9 billion off the Shin Corp deal, which used legal loopholes to avoid paying tax.
Protesters accusing him of corruption and abuse of power have held weekly rallies since Feb. 4.
But the premier is believed to enjoy widespread support among rural Thais who have benefited from his populist policies.
Thaksin called snap elections for April 2 in a bid to defuse the crisis, but the opposition are boycotting the polls.
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