The political stalemate which has dragged on for three months took a dangerous turn yesterday with an unrepentant speech by caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on the faltering rice scheme and the government’s crackdown on rally sites.
Amid calls for political compromise to save the country from further damage, what happened yesterday showed that if there really were behind-the-scenes negotiations with the protesters as rumoured, they were fruitless.
Both sides still refuse to put the national interest before their own, and appear ready for a suicidal showdown.
As I write, four people have been killed during the raids. The protest leader claimed the policeman was killed by the accidental dropping of a bomb among riot police themselves.
The government blamed it on violent protesters. Needless to say, such blame games only add more pain to the families they left behind. How many more people have to die in this power struggle?
The riot police retreated after quick raids while the protest leaders are rallying for more supporters from Bangkok and beyond for a political showdown today. No one knows what will happen when night sets in.
In the past month, the rhetoric on the protest stage has been particularly violent, with calls for not only Ms Yingluck to step down, but also demands that she and the whole Shinawatra clan leave the country — or risk asset confiscation and imprisonment when the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) takes over the country.
The rhetoric is peppered with ridicule and sexism towards Ms Yingluck while being downright contemptuous of Thaksin Shinawatra and Chalerm Yubamrung for the impotency of the Centre for Maintaining Peace and Order (CMPO), with the aim of provoking it into action.
The government returned the call yesterday. But it should not believe for a minute that wiping the rally sites off the streets can save the government and return peace to the country.
Apart from the crackdown, Ms Yingluck’s "Dear Farmers" speech has actually added more ammunition to the anti-government movement.
The speech came after the Government Savings Bank suffered a mass run on deposits on Monday which prompted the bank boss to stop the inter-bank loan designed to replenish the rice-pledging fund.
If the government’s most submissive bank dares say no, it would seem to have little hope of persuading other financial outlets to throw it a lifeline.
With the farmers’ protest spreading like wildfire, Pheu Thai’s end is near despite its election victory.
That’s why Ms Yingluck addressed the farmers directly in her speech, complete with quivering voice and tears welling in her eyes, to ask for farmers’ sympathy as the government struggles to pay them.
In the speech, she blamed everyone else — the opposition, the protesters, the banks, the anti-corruption body — for the rice scheme fiasco, but not her government, her brother, or herself.
This was a silly move. Whoever wrote the speech has made Ms Yingluck appear unrepentant — hypocritical even — for having the nerve to call the disastrous rice-pledging scheme a great success.
If that’s the case, then why have 11 farmers committed suicide? And why has the government failed to pay the farmers, dating from long before the anti-government protests started?
The scheme is supposed to work as a revolving fund. For it to work, the government must sell the pledged rice to pay for the farmers’ new crops. But in the past two years, it has failed miserably to do as hoped.
While keeping information on rice stocks and sales a top secret, which smells of corruption, the government keeps asking for more and more loans to pay the farmers even though the scheme has already exceeded its budget ceiling.
We are talking about over 700 billion baht of taxpayers’ money.
The farmers, as Pheu Thai’s voting base, need a decent explanation from Ms Yingluck. But what about the taxpayers who are paying for the scheme?
Many people in the middle are unhappy with the government’s policies, but disagree with the PDRC’s ways.
They want to see the government admit mistakes, promise to stop the disastrous scheme, find better ways to help the farmers, and stop the confrontations which only strengthen the PDRC further.
But Ms Yingluck’s unrepentant speech has added fuel to the fire. It slapped the faces of the people in the middle and threatens to push them to the other side even as the political temperature on the streets keeps rising.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.