DEMOCRACY MONUMENT – Political opposition leader Suthep Thaugsuban’s month-long protest excursion was forcibly ended Tuesday night by his own friends and family, who expressed deep concern that the former Democrat MP and longtime anti-Thaksinite had “had enough.”
Having participated in non-stop protesting since mid-October, when the ruling Pheu Thai party first proposed its blanket amnesty bill on the Parliament floor, leading to a walkout of all Democrat MPs, Suthep was, according to several of his friends and colleagues, “showing definite signs of addiction” to anti-government activities.
“Look, we’re all against the amnesty bill, and defeating it has been an important victory for both our party and all of Thailand,” said fellow Democrat Korn Chatikavanij, referring to last week’s decision by the Senate to reject the amnesty bill. “But now we need to get back to work in Parliament, and Suthep just didn’t want to stop protesting. He didn’t want to go home yet.”
According to Korn, it was decided by several MPs to consult with Suthep’s family members, who acknowledged that the former secretary-general has a history of addiction to several by-products of politics, including the adulation of riled-up mobs and the media attention of a sympathetic press.
“Suthep’s always been the life of the protest,” said a cousin who requested anonymity. “He gets drunk on attention and then craves more. He doesn’t want to come down.”
Despite the fact that many of the protests had dwindled in size or outright disbanded following the Senate defeat of the amnesty bill, Suthep had continued to make announcements to the press and to the remaining crowds that the fight “was just beginning” and promising bigger and angrier crowds “of a million people” on subsequent days, which failed to materialize.
Rather than be daunted by the apparent loss of the protest momentum, Suthep began to call press conferences with the other remaining protest leaders, where he made shouting, nonsensical accusations about the Thaksin administration that were less and less plausible, including a bizarre rant about the Preah Vihear temple ruling being a Thaksin plan to “control the secret oil reserves” located off the Cambodian coast some 120 kilometers from the disputed temple.
“He was losing the crowd,” said one of his aides. “People actually stopped cheering at his sound bites, which is incredible considering this crowd will cheer almost anything.” According to the aide, it was Suthep’s decision to resign from Parliament that caused the most elevated concern.
“Losing your job because you can’t stop is one of the clearest signs of addiction,” he said.
At approximately 2:45 AM Tuesday night, when Suthep had finished making his 9th shrieking, expletive-laden speech of the night denouncing Thaksin Shinawatra’s “evil grip” on the nation, several fellow members of the Democrat party and some of Suthep’s own family members greeted him at the side of the stage, informing Suthep that they were staging an intervention “for your own good.”
“We told him that we loved him and that we were very proud of him,” said Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva. “But that it was time to go home, gets some sleep, and go to work the next day.”
According to several witnesses, Suthep became visibly agitated at the suggestion that he go home, and started shouting at his friends that “The protest is over when I say it’s over!” and insisting that until the Yingluck government was out of power, that no one should leave.
Accounts of what happened next are in dispute, with Democrat MPs claiming that Suthep, who was “fatigued and dehydrated,” was assisted in getting into a taxi. However, Meechavai Thongveekul, a reporter from Thai Rath who was nearby says that Suthep became violent and verbally abusive, calling his fellow MPs “a bunch of pussies” and specifically calling Korn a “spineless quitter.” According to Meechavai, Suthep had to be physically restrained from taking a swing at Korn, and was pushed into the taxi by no fewer than five other people.
Abhisit declined specific comment on the incident other than acknowledging that Suthep was a “very passionate man” and stating that Suthep was now at home, “sleeping it off.”
“Addiction to political victory is no different than addiction to anything else,” explained Dr Chatrathip Krapavorn, a psychiatrist at Chulalongkorn Medical Center who specializes in politics-related psychological conditions. “For opposition leaders like Suthep, who have had to endure seven years of failure in trying to eliminate Thaksin for good, only to see him come back every time like some video-game zombie, the taste of victory is so rare that it’s hard to let go of it.”
According to Dr Chatrathip, Suthep’s condition is indicative of a wider trend among anti-Thaksin Thais. “They’re chasing the high of the 2006 coup, like someone in mid-life trying to recapture the joy of their own lost youth,” he said.
“It’s a basic form of denial. Thais are, unfortunately, very good at that.”
