By Shawn W. Crispin
New rounds of confrontation seem more likely than long-term reconciliation.
After a year of military-imposed political order, the specter of instability is rising again in Thailand. As self-exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra and coup-maker premier Prayuth Chan-ocha trade barbs and threats, including sensitive accusations involving the monarchy, new rounds of confrontation seem more likely than long-term reconciliation.
The controversy was sparked by Thaksin’s claim in a May interview published by a South Korean newspaper that the royal advisory Privy Council was instrumental in staging the anti-government street protests that served as pretext for the May 2014 military coup that toppled the beleaguered remnant of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra’s elected administration.
Prayuth has denied that palace advisers played any role in his putsch, which the former army commander has consistently insisted was launched to restore stability after months of debilitating, and at times lethal, protests. Those convulsions were launched in response to a proposed political amnesty by the Thaksin-aligned Peua Thai party that would have allowed the criminally convicted Thaksin to return to Thailand a free man.
Read the full story at The Diplomat