While the installation of a plaque that challenged the monarchy in Thailand at a site near Bangkok’s Grand Palace on Sunday was essentially a symbolic expression of protestors’ angst at being deprived of democratic rights, its removal within a day by the establishment is likely to exacerbate matters.
For the protests in the Southeast Asian kingdom have now gone well beyond opposition to the continuance in power of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha following a military coup in 2014 to anger at Constitutional provisions that protestors say give too much power to the King.
The plaque said that Thailand belongs to its people, and not to the King, and its symbolism lay in its resemblance to a plaque placed outside the Royal Palace in 1932 to mark the end of absolute monarchy.
The older plaque was removed in 2017 after the present monarch took the throne. Protestors had fetched up in huge numbers on Sunday and had cemented their plaque in place. Protest leader Parit Chiwarak reacted to its removal within 24 hours by saying, “The plaque was already placed in the hearts of people. You may remove it, but we will make a new one.”
The growing protests and the installation of the plaque mark the latest challenge to the monarchy, hitherto considered both taboo and illegal under Thailand’s lese majeste laws, and suggest that demands for removal of the Prime Minister and fresh elections are escalating out of control into a direct challenge to the monarchy. Perhaps realising this, the government has been somewhat circumspect in tackling the protests.
While protest leaders have been arrested, they were not charged under lese majeste laws but under other provisions and were released soon after on bail. Prime Minister Prayut, a former General and a staunch royalist who once likened Thailand’s royal family to deities, appeared to be on the defensive even after Sunday’s protests, welcoming the fact they were peaceful and noting that nation, religion and the monarchy, in that order, were the pillars of the Thai people.
While a section of the arch-royalists are incensed at growing demands for monarchical reforms and will not readily accept installation of symbols that challenge the king, the fact that protests have intensified over the past two months and even reached the country’s schools must send shivers down the establishment’s spine and compel it to move cautiously.
The protests had begun to take shape last February after a pro-democracy political party popular with youth was abruptly disbanded. The movement gathered pace despite Covid lockdown restrictions when a popular satirist was abducted in broad daylight from a street in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he had been living in exile.
While Thailand’s government has been effective in curbing the virus, growing unemployment because of the economic crisis has caused the youth to feel frustrated. Now, the tension is palpable for it is unlikely that protestors will back down without tangible concessions.