Will a marriage of convenience take place?

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Will a marriage of convenience take place?
By The Nation
2011-01-31

Ex-PAD member's plan to unite yellows, reds against govt can be laughed away The "unthinkable" had become "implausible" lately and on Friday it was upgraded to just "unlikely". Chaiwat Sinsuwong, a key member of a splinter group of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), still has some way to go before his ambition to get the yellow shirts to join hands with the red shirts to oust the Abhisit Vejjajiva government can really become something the ruling Democrats will fear. The proposed merger, as of now, remains something to be sneered at.

There are a few reasons why Chaiwat's idea will stop at "unlikely". First, Chaiwat does not represent the mainstream yellow shirted movement and then he has not even been on good terms with the PAD leaders. Moreover, the PAD joining the red shirts is like you joining your sworn enemy, someone you had pledged to die fighting against. As for the red shirts, joining the yellow shirts would be tantamount to spitting on your own ideology.

But this is Thai politics, where ideology can be thrown to the winds. To the yellow shirts, Abhisit seems a "bigger enemy" than the red shirts, who have had the prime minister as their arch-rival since his rise to power. That means the two camps might decide that they should join hands to tackle him first and take care of each other later. The question, however, remains how far each camp is prepared to go in betraying its own belief in order to put Thaksin away.

Since their birth, the red shirts have foresworn to fight dictatorship. They view Abhisit's premiership as a result of the 2007 coup that overthrew Thaksin Shinawatra. The yellow shirts, on the other hand, don't mind the kind of "dictatorship" that allegedly propelled Abhisit to power, and they also wouldn't mind if the same force (dictatorship) brings him down.

Therefore, can the red shirts live with it if "unconstitutional force" causes Abhisit's political demise? If Abhisit is forced out and whoever is installed through "special means" to replace him, will the red shirts defend their much proclaimed principles? If not, why did they start campaigning against Abhisit in the first place?

If the marriage of inconvenience does happen, it will mean Thai politics will evolve from "A Tale of Two Cities" to "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Will that be a healthier situation or something that we should be worried more about? Nobody can really tell. On one hand, we can relax a little knowing that the apparent extremism on both sides was in fact something quite flexible. On the other hand, we can never know how far political rivals in this country will go to get what they want.

"Abhisit is as bad as Thaksin" has featured in yellow-shirt leader Sondhi Limthongkul's recent public statements. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Sondhi used to support both men wholeheartedly, albeit at different times. Coming to think of it, Thailand's political crisis has revolved around key players who have liked each other coming to hate each other - Sondhi, Thaksin, Abhisit, Newin, Chamlong, Chaiwat and so on.

Chaiwat, who has had a fall-out with Chamlong, on Friday insisted that it was not a travesty for the red and yellow shirts to join hands. Such realignment or re-alliance was common in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he pointed out. Enemies can work together to fight the more powerful common enemy first and take care of their own scores later.

It's up to the public to differentiate real principles from personal fondness or hatred. Counting on any one of the politicians to tell us who to like or who to hate could enslave one to an ideology that keeps changing form. The oldest, most boring cliche - "There are no real friends or real foes in politics" - is the only thing that has held sway in Thailand.