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news without borders
Abhisit confident
rifts can be healed
SINGAPORE: The social and
political rifts that have
plunged Thailand into a
three-year crisis can
be healed, Prime
Minister Abhisit
Vejjajiva (pix) said
yesterday, playing
down the risks of
further tension
over a royal suc-
cession.
Abhisit became
Thailand’s third prime
minister in as many
months last December after
street protests that climaxed
with the seizure of Bangkok’s
airports, undermining investor
confidence in the country and
hitting an economy already on
the way down.
In broad terms, Thailand’s
crisis is a battle between the
“yellow shirts” – royalists, the
military and urban Thais, who
back Abhisit – and the “red shirts”
– supporters of former premier
Thaksin Shinawatra whose power
base was mainly drawn from the
country’s millions of rural poor.
But Abhisit said Thai society was
not irreparably riven.
“I don’t think the rift is insur-
mountable,” he said in an inter-
view. “The majority of Thais have
a common aspiration. They want
the country to be prosperous.”
“The biggest challenge is to
take the country through this
economic crisis and to emerge
out of this. If we address those
issues I think the majority of Thais
would be satisfied.”
One unifying figure is King
Bhumibol Adulyadej, widely re-
spected by Thais whatever their
political affiliation.
However, many in the yellow
camp support an interventionist
monarchy and the reds resent
the power of Thai elites, leading
to concern that – with the 81-
year-old king facing regular health
scares – the issue of succession
may throw another explosive ele-
ment into Thailand’s volatile mix.
However, Abhisit said there
was no uncertainty around the
questions of royal succession
because there were clear rules
set out in the constitution.
“People are going
to be anxious about
succession issues,
but the rules are
clear and because
the monarchy
remains above
politics it’s nothing
that Thailand can’t
work out,” he said.
Abhisit, an urbane
Oxford-educated 44-
year-old, came to power
through parliamentary defec-
tions his opponents charge were
engineered by the army.
The military ousted Thaksin in
a 2006 bloodless coup and the
one-time telecoms tycoon now
lives in self-imposed exile.
Thai courts have issued sev-
eral arrest warrants for Thaksin,
and the government had also
revoked his passport in April, ac-
cusing him of instigating a rash of
protests that turned violent and
triggered a state of emergency
in Bangkok.
“The former prime minister
has broken the law, has been
convicted by the courts, and so
has to accept the consequences
of his actions in the way any other
Thai would,” Abhisit told bankers
at a Thomson Reuters event,
when asked if he would consider
striking a deal with his nemesis.
Abhisit, in Singapore on a one-
day state visit, said he had made
clear to both Thailand’s police
– who were long seen as Thaksin
allies – and its military that they
should work for the good of the
country, and rise above politics.
“I won’t use them as political
tools,” he said.
“In the past they have been
dragged into politics and been
used as political tools and I’ve
proved that isn’t my intention.”
Abhisit said the conditions
for holding a general election
included getting the economy
back on track and addressing
past political injustices through a
parliamentary committee, but he
declined to put a date on when
there would be a vote. – Reuters
What could
happen next in Iran
AFPPIX
Iranian-
Americans LONDON: Iran’s presidential
and election, in which hardliner
supporters Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over-
protest whelmingly beat moderate rival,
against Mirhossein Mousavi, has set off
Iran in Los the broadest internal unrest since
Angeles on the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Sunday. Iranian protesters have flood-
ed the streets of Teheran and
other cities over the past week
in defiance of a stern warning
by Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei.
Iranian authorities on Sunday
blamed “terrorists” and rioters
for clashes and Ahmadinejad
told the United States and Britain
on Sunday to stop interfering in
the Islamic Republic’s internal
affairs. Iran state television said
10 people were killed and 100
others injured in protests held in
Teheran on Saturday. A separate
report put the number of deaths
at 13.
Here are some questions and
answers on what could happen
next in the Islamic Republic, the
world’s fifth biggest oil exporter,
whose nuclear programme has
alarmed the West.
Are Iranians likely
to obey Khamenei’s
orders to stop the
demonstrations?
Based on what hap-
pened on Saturday
night, just a day after
Khamenei’s speech,
street protests will
continue unless Iran
imposes a state of
emergency or mar-
tial law. Now that
students and women
are involved, it seems
a bit unlikely that the
establishment can
end demonstrations
by force.
Anoush Ehteshami
of Durham University
told Reuters: “I don’t
think the protest will
end. The demonstra-
tions are going to
evolve into different
things. Much will
depend on whether
Mr Mousavi is going
to lead from the front.
If he is, he will make
sure that the demon-
strations are peaceful,
orderly and with one
political objective
which is the annul-
ment of the election
result. But if he is
not at the helm of the
demon-
strations, the danger is that
the protest movement will frag-
ment, elements of it will turn to
violence which is not something
you want in this crisis.”
If Mousavi is arrested, he
said, that would raise the scale
of the crisis to a whole new level
and other national figures would
be called on to intervene such
as Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali
Montazeri, former presidents
Mohammad Khatami and Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, who also
heads the powerful assembly of
experts, a clerical body that su-
pervises, appoints and can sack
the supreme leader.
Baqer Moin, a London-based
Iran commentator, said the
protests will continue but on
a smaller scale because of the
heavy presence of security and
militias and the arrest of key
personalities, activists and strate-
gists from the opposition.
“I don’t think there is a secu-
rity solution for this issue. There
has to be a compromise by the
authorities to satisfy at least the
most loyal people to the Islamic
Republic – that there hasn’t
been any malpractices because
we even have some clergymen
among the demonstrators.”
“In terms of law enforcement
the government has sufficient
security power at its disposal to
prevent street demonstrations,
however, it won’t be able to stop
civil disobedience,” he said.
Has the regime lost legiti-
macy, if so, can it regain it?
The street protests, in open
defiance to Khamenei, have
undermined the establishment’s
legitimacy. Before the election,
protesters aimed to encourage
Iranians to unseat Ahmadinejad
but now, the whole system and
the leader himself are implicated.
That is unprecedented.
The only possible way for the
leader to get out of the crisis and
regain legitimacy is to follow
the path of late leader Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini and drink
the “poison chalice” and order
a fresh vote.
In that case, he may lose the
support of some of his loyalists
but he can calm the situation and
also repair Iran’s image around
the globe.
“The legitimacy of the regime
is now an open question. So
long as the masses of the people,
young and old, remain discon-
tented about the electoral results,
the legitimacy of the regime will
remain under question,” Ehte-
shami said.
theSun | TUESDAY JUNE 23 2009
By accepting the result
too soon and by supporting
Ahmadinejad so openly the
Supreme Leader has put himself
in a very precarious situation,
Moin said. “From now on any
criticism of Ahmadinejad, his
government and practices will be
reflected on Khamenei. He sided
openly with one faction within
the Islamic Republic instead of
remaining above all sides as was
the practice in the past”.
Khamenei’s message was
backdown or crackdown, but
can they afford the repercus-
sions of a crackdown?
If a crackdown is the only way to
preserve the system, that is what
will be done. In 1999 university
unrest, the crackdown was ef-
ficient. If the choice is between
accepting the demands of the
protesters or repressing them,
the system is likely to opt for the
harsher method.
“They are all in unchartered
waters,” Ehteshami said. “Neither
side can predict how this crisis
will evolve. While a crackdown
might bring some temporary
respite, calm achieved through
bloodshed will have its own
massive consequences.”
“This will affect the position
of the leadership. The longer
this goes on, more divisions will
appear within the establishment
and the clergy itself,” said Moin.
Will these events force US
President Barack Obama to
abandon his policy of engage-
ment with Iran?
Iranian leaders’ reaction to
Obama’s remarks hints that
there will be no engagement in
the near future. The supreme
leader on Friday for the first time
said his views were more similar
to the anti-Western president
than others who seek a policy of
detente with the West.
More than ever, Iran needs a
foreign enemy to blame. Since
the start of protests, Iranian state
media have focused on the “in-
volvement” of the United States
and Britain in the turmoil. It will
be difficult for Obama to engage
with a country that so publicly
oppresses its own people.
“Obama now has a major
crisis on his hand to manage
rather than initiating a dialogue
because the consequences of po-
litical development in Iran will
dramatically affect the rest of the
region,” said Ehteshami.
Moin said, “I don’t think
it is an option to abandon it
altogether. They may limit the
engagement but abandoning it is
not an option. They have mutual
interests in peace in Afghanistan
and Iraq. They need Iran on
Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Does Khamenei have the
support of senior Iranian
clerics?
There is a clear rift among high-
ranking clerics over the disputed
election. Former president Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani, a supporter
of Mousavi, is very influential
and respected among clerics
and he is also known as one of
the leading figures of the 1979 Is-
lamic revolution because he was
a very close aide to Khomeini.
Ehteshami said “Khamenei
would have said what he said
with assurances from the Guard-
ian Council, Iran’s top legislative
body which groups clerics and
legal experts and has the power
to endorse or annul the vote.”
“He’s got only the support of
a section not the entire clerical
establishment. He relies more
on political and military power
rather than consensus,” Moin
added. – Reuters