Tonight Thailand is girding its loins for tomorrow's election. The ballots are printed, the posters stand at every intersection, and starting in a few hours, Thais (as well as your resident foreign correspondent) will be barred from buying alcohol or sharing their political opinions on Twitter or Facebook.

This month of campaigning has been fascinating to watch; Thailand is a complex place. An elementary observation, I know, but sometimes elementary things are also elemental; learning what's not being said is as interesting as understanding what is in the Land of Smiles. Accessing primary source campaign materials can be tough if you don't read Thai.

Monkey says what?

Internet to the rescue! Two excellent Thai-language resources have been doing interesting and witty translation work on Thai election posters: Women Learning Thai (not just for the Ladiez), and Tweet Yourself Thai. Tweet Yourself Thai has also been translating election tweets sent by the main candidates.

In this case, the primary source material is awesome:

Uhhhh, is that lipstick?

This is the current prime minister on the left, who looks like a gassy Chinese baby in this poster. His campaign has been very unpopular. More in-depth analysis from Tweet Yourself Thai here and a summary about what the Yellow Shirts want here.

Candidate Yingluck wais the entire nation.

This is Yingluck Shinawatra, the younger sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who is the controversial prime minister removed from office in a coup. She is basically a political unknown, and the fear is that she will be the puppet of Thaksin. She also has been dolled up like a flight attendant for this election. More in-depth analysis from Tweet Yourself Thai here and a good summary about what the Red Shirts want here.

Rough translation: Politics are like diapers. The more they are changed, the better.

This man, Chewit, is running for parliament on the platform that he has to pay so many bribes as the owner of a chain of "massage" parlours and he's sick of it. His campaign posters are hilarious. He is by far Thailand's most entertaining politician.

Image courtesy of womenlearnthai.com

The "Vote No" animal campaign is the most creative use of language, culture, and political angling I've ever seen. Each of the animals the creators chose embodies traits in Thai culture that are considered undesirable: water buffalo are stupid (this is a common slur used against people from the countryside), tigers take what they're not entitled to, monkeys are tricky, dogs fight, crocodiles are sly troublemakers, and monitor lizards are considered very toxically unlucky (think a black cat crossing your path on Friday the 13th while spilling salt and stepping on cracks and breaking mirrors, simultaneously).

Those are some finely dressed buffalo.

All jungle animals should be wearing suits.

Even common sayings are incorporated with animals dressed as politicians, the tiger in Democrat Blue, and the crocodile in Pheu Thai Red: flee the tiger, meet the crocodile reads the text. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. Let's hope the fires are burning low for tomorrow's election.

The point of the campaign is less creative, however. Funded by the ruling Democrat Party the right-wing People's Alliance for Democracy and a religious party called Santi Asoke, it encourages Thais (who are required to vote by law) to spoil their ballots in an attempt to create either a constitutional crisis where a quorum is not met in the election and it is considered invalid so a caretaker government needs to be formed. Even if it is a campaign spoiler, it's a very creative and culturally interesting use of language. More in-depth explanation available here.

Word to the wise: if you are out and about in Bangkok Sunday after the election, election posters are up for grabs, as they are required to be removed by their sponsoring parties by midnight. Free souvenirs! "Look ma, I got you a poster of a dog wearing a suit!"

Tags: abhisit, red shirts, Thaksin, Yellow Shirts, Yingluck

In the last post we discussed what the Red Shirts want, so now we must turn to the other side of the long-running political conflict in Thailand: what do the Yellow Shirts want?

The future is so bright I gotta wear yellow.

Like the Red Shirts, the Yellow Shirts are not a political party but rather a political movement and an umbrella grouping for several different positions. Officially called the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the Yellow Shirts became internationally famous when in 2008 they successfully shutdown both of Bangkok's airports.

Started in 2006 during the coup to oust former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the Yellow Shirts are staunch opponents of Thaksin and accuse him and his politics of being corrupt threats to the nation and the monarchy. With big-wig backers like Thai media-moguls and army generals, the Yellow Shirts are mostly comprised of the Thai elite as well as the middle and upper classes, with strongholds in Bangkok and the south. The Yellow Shirts are also defined as a royalist movement with their yellow shirts acting as a not-so-subtle homage to the King, whose birth date associates him with the colour yellow.

After Thaksin was ousted in 2006, the Yellow Shirts claimed that their work here was done and voluntarily dissolved. However, they came back on the scene in 2008 when a pro-Thaksin government was elected (the airport debacle).

These days, the Yellow Shirt movement is slightly fragmented and disjointed. Many of the Yellow Shirts are unhappy with the current Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, and have been taking to the streets to protest his handling of an ongoing border conflict with Cambodia. Aside from this issue they see him, and all of today's Thai politicians, as embodiments of corruption and greed.

For this Sunday's election the PAD has been leading a campaign for a "No Vote", which in Thailand, where voting is compulsory, is something like choosing "none of the above". Many of the PAD believe that all the candidates running on July 3rd are corrupt and power hungry, and that what Thailand really needs is a thorough governmental cleanse. Many members of the Yellow Shirts are also supporting the idea of an appointed government for the next three to five years, one that they anticipate will rid Thailand of corruption and get things back on track. Their hope is that by exercising the No Vote on Sunday, the legitimacy of the winner will be contested and the political stability of Thailand will waver.

Plain and simple, what the Yellow Shirts want is governmental shake-up and an end to corruption.

Many thinks to Kip for the photo of the Yellow Shirt protesters. You can see her full Yellow-Shirt photo gallery here.

Tags: politics, Yellow Shirts

Folk around the world are aware that something is brewing in Thailand ahead of this weekend's elections. They may have heard of the Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts, though from there on out things likely get a bit hazy. The political situation in Thailand is so nuanced that just being in the country does not provide you with even a fraction of the answers. So here we are today to try and break a few things down. This post will concentrate on one side of the equation: what do the Red Shirts want?

A sea of Red Shirts

The Red Shirts are not a political party, but rather a political movement supporting certain politicians and ideas. Officially known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (the UDD), the Red Shirts first came onto the scene in 2006 after a coup ousted the prime minister they supported, Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin found much of his fan-base among Thailand's rural and urban poor, with particular strongholds in Thailand's north and northeast.

As premier, Thaksin initiated populist policies such as microfinance investments in small villages and cheap healthcare; initiatives that readily appeased these target low-income groups. With these policies plus a dash of charisma, Thaksin became an icon to many of Thailand's poor, including the impressively large population of farmers. (This despite a "war against drugs" that saw thousands of extrajudicial killings occur.)

By the same coin, Thaksin is hated by the Thai elite and is seen by them as the embodiment of corruption and a threat to the monarchy.

Ready to roll.

In April and May 2010, the Red Shirts became international news when they organised protests that grew so big and went on for so long that they managed to shut-down much of Bangkok. Why were they on the streets?

In 2006, after five years in office, Thaksin was ousted in a national coup. Since then Thaksin has been living in exile in Dubai, unable to return to Thailand without being sent to prison.  In 2010, a court order ruled that many of Thaksin's assets would be seized (he was a then-billionaire) which enraged many of the Red Shirts who were already upset for a multitude of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that Thaksin was no longer in power. Protesting ensued.

These 2010 protests also focused on the Red Shirts' insistence that the current Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, hold elections early and be removed from office. (The Red Shirts consider Abhisit to be a puppet for the Thai conservative elite and a man who came to power illegitimately.)  The military violently dissolved the protests, resulting in 91 deaths, and many Red Shirt leaders were sent to prison.

To this day, the Red Shirts say their fight is one to end socioeconomic double standards in Thailand and to promote justice. But the Reds do now encompass a wide range of political agendas, mostly anti- what they see as the establishment (they somehow see Thaksin and his family as not being part of this elite). Though most Reds do support the Shinawatra family, the two are not always synonymous.

Commuting to the protest.

In this Sunday's election, Thaksin's younger sister Yingluck is the front-running candidate for prime minister, with the Pheu Thai party. Huge numbers of the Red Shirts support Yingluck, and will be going to the polls on Sunday to vote for Pheu Thai. Thaksin has claimed his sister as his "clone" and many voters think that if Yingluck is elected, Thaksin will soon be back in Thailand. For Thailand's lower classes, Yingluck is a logical choice as she promises policies such as an increase in the minimum wage to 300 baht per day.

So, what do the Red Shirts want? In the simplest of terms it seems they want what most voters want: their person back in power and/or their people taken care of.

Tags: Pheu Thai, red shirts, Thaksin, Yingluck

The posters are hung, the rallies and protests have begun, and the alcohol restrictions have been posted: IT'S ELECTION TIME IN THAILAND!

Not sure this one needs a caption.

So exactly how does democracy work in the Kingdom, you might ask? It works the same way it works elsewhere: messily.
Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932 with a prime minister as the head of government, and a regent as the head of state. King Bhumibol Adulyadej is currently the longest-serving regent in the world and is a greatly respected and loved king. Currently, Thailand directly elects 375 members of parliament from geographic districts, and a further 125 are chosen by proportional votes for a political party. There is a second chamber, called the Senate, with 77 members being elected from each of the 76 provinces and one from Bangkok, and 76 appointed members.

Thailand has had a turbulent history with democratic self-rule; it has had more than 15 coup d'états, and 18 changes of constitution. The reforms of the 1930s were focused on limiting the power of the royal family but did little to ensure real democratic government. Thailand was almost always ruled by either a military dictator or a military junta until the early 1990s.

Thailand went through periods of liberalisation (almost always bookended by yet another coup) until 1991, when the democratically elected government was deposed by the military and, a year later in May of 1992, an army general was appointed as the prime minister. Thousands of people took to the streets. The military attempted to crush the protests violently, and a horrified nation watched as people were shot, arrested, and tortured by the military. After three days of violence, the King intervened, the violence was stopped, and a process was started that culminated in the constitution of 1997, widely viewed as the first Thai constitution to set real balances of power for the government and to enshrine citizens' rights.

Since Black May, as it's called, Thailand has struggled to accept popularly elected, yet very imperfect governments. Normally, voters would wait to vote them out, but with a history of top-down government change via military intervention, it has proved tempting to just protest until someone kicks out the leaders so everyone can start again, which is what worked in 2006 (military) and again in 2008 (court decision dissolving the ruling party), but didn't in 2010. Next Sunday's election is the first "normal" election since 2005, with five years of coup, protests, and political insecurity foreshadowing this event.

That aside, what's it mean for travellers? It means if you're here on Sunday, you'll have a chance to see democracy Thai-style. Check out a local polling station -- they're located in every neighbourhood across Bangkok (if you're at a loss, ask at the nearest police substation). While visitors (and resident non-Thais) obviously can't vote, you can enjoy grilled meat, street food treats and the chance to people watch. Also, as soon as the polls close at 15:00, all those election posters become fair game (they are supposed to be removed from the streets by the next morning), so if you want a three-metre high poster of a gila monster wearing a suit, now's your chance.

Be forewarned: Bars, restaurants, and stores are not allowed to sell beer from 18:00 Saturday, July 2 until midnight Sunday, so stock up if you're going to need provisions.

DEMOCRACY! DEMOCRACY! DEMOCRACY!

Tags: election posters, politics, the King