Meanwhile, his hold on power is set to be challenged. Supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister, plan to surround Mr Abhisit’s office on Saturday clad in red shirts, emulating tactics used to paralyse last year’s government by the yellow-shirted supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD).
Kasit Piromya, the foreign minister, was a prominent supporter of the PAD, the rightwing group that occupied the prime minister’s office and the airports last year. His presence in the cabinet, in the eyes of political analysts, is a result of the Faustian bargain Mr Abhisit’s Democrat party made with the right wing to get into power, leaving it in thrall to the military and its conservative allies.
Mr Abhisit came to office after the former goverment was deposed by a court decision over electoral fraud. He won a controversial parliamentary vote with the support of defectors from the former coalition government. The military was seen to have weighed in to encourage waverers. The army chief said at the time he was merely giving advice to MPs who came to his house.
The prime minister has been hesitant on criticising the military and many believe his reform agenda has been compromised. “It is the military’s dividend for putting Abhisit in power: they can now dictate policy,” says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
When groups of starving and dehydrated Muslim Burmese Rohingya refugees picked up at sea this month accused the Thai military of having abandoned them, the prime minister gave a blanket denial. “Let’s be clear that Thailand has not violated the human rights of the refugees. The military has maintained that it has not breached any humanitarian principles on this issue,” Mr Abhisit said.
Continuing revelations have forced him to order an investigation. However, it is to be carried out by the internal security operations command, a shadowy part of Thailand’s national security apparatus accused of playing a role in the affair, in which 500 people are said to have died.
Mr Abhisit has also come under fire for his administration’s enthusiastic support for the country’s draconian laws on lese-majesty. These are intended to punish those who insult the country’s royal family, but critics say they are being used to muzzle political debate and intimidate opponents.
Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, the justice minister, has said protecting the royal family from insult is his priority. “Whatever is deemed as affecting the monarchy must be treated as a threat to national security.”
Mr Thitinan, the Chulalongkorn political scientist, says the government’s conflation of lese-majesty with national security portends a dangerous path. “The witch hunt could get out of control and we could be looking at a new McCarthyism,” he said.
“These cases are going to undermine [the prime minister’s] whole legitimacy and credibility. He’s supposed to represent clean government and the rule of law but the gap between rhetoric and reality is getting wider,” said Mr Thitinan.
For the moment, most Thais seem willing to allow Mr Abhisit some leeway to cope with the country’s manifold economic problems, but analysts are warning that time is running short.
Thailand’s divisions have dominated its politics for the past three years.
On the streets, the division appears as a conflict between the red-shirted supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former premier who welded the country’s rural poor into a potent politial force, and the yellow-shirted supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, which draws its support from the country’s middle classes, supported by elements in the army, monarchists and big business.
The PAD managed to paralyse the last government with a series of increasingly disruptive protests. The election of a new government has gone some way to placating the PAD but has enraged Mr Thaksin’s supporters, leading to fears of a return to political paralysis.
