Thailand Defence and Security Report Q3 2009

The key issue for Thailand remains as it did in 2Q09: to what extent will a clearly deteriorating economic environment exacerbate tensions between the 'yellow shirt' supporters of new Prime Minister Abhisit Veijajiva and the 'red shirt' supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra? The Thai economy has already entered a technical recession, with Q109 data showing a contraction in GDP of more than 7% y-o-y following a Q408 fall of 42% y-o-y. The external outlook remains grim with exports continuing to tumble at the start of the year, falling by 25.3% y-o-y in January. By April there was little sign of recovery when exports were down 26.1% and imports down 36.3%.

There was a slight improvement in passenger vehicle sales in April (up 5 % compared with April 2008) but the commercial vehicle market remained depressed with sales down 27% y-o-y.

Although there was a partial lull in tensions after the December 15 parliamentary vote that brought a change in administration, the new Democrat-led government under Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has remained subject to both internal and external pressures that threaten its very viability.

Matters came to a head in April when the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), or the so-called 'red shirts', stormed the 14th ASEAN Summit in the eastern beach resort city of Pattaya, forcing the meetings to be cancelled. The UDD rally aiming to oust the government led-by Prime Minister Abhisit later escalated into clashes with the military and Bangkok residents, leaving more than 100 injured and two dead.

The UDD now says it will hold a mass rally on 27 June in Bangkok to demand 'true democracy' and to oust the government led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajjiva, a core leader, Jatuporn Prompan, said. He expected a crowd of 100,000.

Meanwhile, the UDD's arch-rival the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), also known as the 'yellow shirts', announced on May 25 that it had agreed to form a new political party to fight for 'new politics', its code word for largely appointed parliamentarians.

Abhisit's grip on power appeared to be slipping by early June with discontent among his party's coalition partners after Abhisit stepped in to block a lucrative bus leasing deal they had been supporting.

This quarter, we have introduced a significant new aspect to BMI's Defence reports, which is the City Terrorism Rating (CTR). This assesses the risk of a terrorist attack. The CTR takes into account the overall BMI Terrorism Rating for the country in question. It also incorporates the 'prevalence' of terrorism, which recognises the frequency of attacks, and whether the city is a target for terrorists. The CTR also recognises the 'threat' of terrorism in terms of the likely numbers of victims and the ability of groups to launch sustained campaigns.

In Thailand we assess the CTR for Bangkok. These City-Specific Ratings are created via an integration of the state-wide threat, with an evaluation of the city-specific characteristics and level of activity.