One Night In Bangkok: State of Emergency

So I live in Jakarta for a whole year and all is peaceful . . . move to Bangkok and one month later its a State of Emergency! Before you get to carried away, please understand that the State of Emergency was declared by the Prime Minister, who is (naturally) the one most affected by all these protests, and perhaps feeling the emergency more than anyone else. The trouble seems to be limited to about one block of Bangkok - although there was talk of shutting down the airport, cutting off the internet, shutting off the electricity, so far nothing has really happened.

The People's Alliance for Democracy is the one arranging the protests, aimed at the resignation of the Prime Minister. They say that the PM wasn't democratically elected, and that his People Power Party is really a front for the Thai Loves Thai Party that was deposed in the last coup (2006).

I asked some Thai hashers about the election. They said vote buying is the norm. One was offered six-hundred baht (about 20 USD) to vote for the current prime minister.

The big worry now is that a major telecom company has joined the strike and is threatening to shut off all of our internet if the PM doesn't step down. That would be a REAL emergency!

Yesterday, it was agreed that Thailand would have a referendum vote on the new government. Here's hoping it will shut everybody up and the airport will stay open so that we can go to Phuket next weekend!

So far, the King has refused to step in and settle the matter (he did help out in the last coup, which was very smooth and bloodless, as coups go)

Here's some pics (SERIOUSLY! NONE FROM NICHADA, NONE TAKEN BY ME!) from the Bangkok Post: