Thai politics is fast getting to that point similar to the climactic scene of Quentin Tarantino’s classic Reservoir Dogs, where the partners in crime draw guns and aim them at one another but are not quite sure who the betrayer is.
All the viewers know for certain is that there will be a lot of blood and deaths.
Trust, mistrust and wrongly-placed trust feature in the movie. The men are like the Pheu Thai Party, its reluctant conservative allies and the People’s Party. All of them do not know who to trust but realise that the climax is coming and a misstep can be deadly.
A complaint alleging that Thaksin Shinawatra may be influencing the Pheu Thai Party in order to pull off a scheme that could endanger Thailand’s political culture and system has been submitted to the Constitutional Court. Pheu Thai publicly has shrugged off the move but may be squirming in private.
The People’s Party, meanwhile, declared in public that it has and will have nothing to do with it. The opposition camp has practically told Pheu Thai: You are on your own. We won’t help you.
The Constitutional Court complaint alluded to the possibility of Pheu Thai joining hands with the People’s Party to effect changes that the conservatives will not like. The complaint referred to alleged extremism that led to the dissolution of the Move Forward Party (which has been reborn as the People’s Party), suggesting a danger to the system if Thaksin, Pheu Thai and the oppositionists were in cahoots.
The petition was submitted to the Constitutional Court by lawyer Thirayuth Suwankesorn, who played a key role in Move Forward’s dissolution. It urged the court to order Pheu Thai and Thaksin to “immediately” end any move that could upend the Thai political system.
Palang Pracharath’s secretary general, Paiboon Nititawan, insisted his party had nothing to do with the petition. But he had apparently known Thirayuth’s movement every step of the way.
This is not to mention the rumoured bitterness of Prawit Wongsuwan, the Palang Pracharath leader whose alleged aspiration to take the top executive post seemingly was rattled recently.
“He (Thirayuth) was doing it as a Thai citizen,” said Paiboon. “(It’s true that) I have said that October 10 would be the beginning of the Pheu Thai Party’s downfall, (but I said it) just because Thirayuth told me so and it looks like a watertight complaint.”
The People’s Party has sounded a lot more reserved. Its leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and secretary-general Sarayut Jailak both said they did not agree with weaponising the justice system against political enemies but, apparently, the party will wait and see how things go.
Pheu Thai, after all, is the People’s Party’s direct electoral competitor, meaning that one’s loss is the other’s gain.
As much as Pheu Thai distrusts the conservatives and the People’s Party even hates them openly, both parties will find it extremely difficult to be reunited. Pheu Thai leader and Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has surged ahead of Natthaphong in the latest popularity poll, cementing a rivalry that officially started in the last general election.
The election results caused the bridges to burn and the popularity poll has added the gasoline.
Apart from its distrust of Pheu Thai, the People’s Party is having a big dilemma, caused by its own criticism of independent agencies which it says are prone to abuse. This is why the People’s Party cannot criticise Thaksin’s legal privileges and his alleged control of Pheu Thai.
It is a big deal. The Thaksin absurdity is one of the government’s biggest wounds yet the main opposition party cannot do anything about it.
The People’s Party has been structurally weakened by the dissolutions of the Future Forward Party and Move Forward Party, meaning the young crop of current leaders must depend so much on popularity, which can change comes the next election.
The situation seemingly benefits Pheu Thai, just like Pheu Thai’s legal or constitutional woes will benefit the People’s Party. Constitutional amendment can benefit both, but will they be able to trust each other enough to pull it off together?
It’s still a mystery today why Tarantino named that movie of his Reservoir Dogs. Theories range from someone wrongly pronouncing a French film title Au Revoir Les Enfants to attempted depiction of animalistic savagery in a
limited space.
Fans and critics, however, loved the name “Reservoir Dogs”, thinking it suited the movie’s theme of mistrust and betrayal.
Take away the small space and genuine bloodbath, Thai politics is generating the same kind of suspicion, treachery and false promises.
And the climax is very close.
