Strange Times, Part Three

Bangkok streets were pretty quiet here today and yesterday. On buses and on foot in many parts of the city, I never saw a red shirt. The only demonstration I came across was a counter-protest in the center of Victory Monument. About 400 people waved Thai flags and held signs that said in Thai "Don't dissolve parliament" and in English "Stop red shirt violence" and "Stop hurting Thailand." I went past the street that leads to the major malls where the red shirts have now consolidated, saw traffic moving in every direction, but didn't walk down toward the epicenter for a closer look. For a couple of days the sky train has been running only through the stations at the far ends of each line. If you want to go to the center of town you have to find another way to go.

What comes next? The papers suggest that the courts may dissolve the Democrat Party. Officially, that move would be explained as punishment for some long-ago electoral infraction. Practically, it would be payback for a similar decision handed down against the parties that used to be in power before the current government was installed by the courts about eighteen months ago. Dissolving the Democrats would also offer Abhisit a face-saving exit: he wouldn’t be directly blamed for what has increasingly been described as a fiasco last Saturday night, when the army’s attempt to clear the streets of red shirts ended in bloodshed.