REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BANGKOK - A few years ago, Suthep Thaugsuban was a suit-and-tie wearing deputy prime minister of Thailand and a senior executive of the country's oldest political party. Now, the 64-year-old career politician has ditched his office attire, distanced himself from the opposition Democrat Party and found a new calling as a street fighter.
Suthep is the mastermind of Thailand's latest round of street protests and has vowed to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra by taking over every government ministry. After storming the Ministry of Finance earlier this week and camping there two nights, Suthep led protesters for a fourth day Wednesday in what he calls a people's power uprising.
Whistle-blowing throngs massed inside or around at least six of the government's 19 ministries, although they left half of them after a few hours. One large group led by Suthep entered a sprawling government office complex that houses the Department of Special Investigations, the country's equivalent of the FBI, and prepared to camp there overnight.
"We like peaceful methods," Suthep told reporters, his voice hoarse from speaking above the crowd's roar. But he added, "If we don't succeed, then I am prepared to die in the battlefield."
"The people will quit only when the state power is in their hands," he said. "There will be no negotiation."
The brash threat is the boldest challenge yet to Yingluck's embattled administration, and it has raised fears of fresh political violence in the divided Southeast Asian nation. Yingluck has repeatedly said she wants to avert violence and offered to negotiate an end to the crisis. So far, security forces have not even fired tear gas to prevent protesters from forcing the closure of multiple government offices. A warrant was issued for Suthep's arrest, but he has ignored it.
"We must not regard this as a win-or-lose situation," Yingluck told reporters at Parliament. "Today no one is winning or losing, only the country is hurting."
Protesters want Yingluck to step down amid claims she is a proxy for her brother, billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup but remains central to Thailand's long-running political crisis. Thaksin lives overseas to avoid a corruption conviction that he says was politically motivated.
Before becoming a protest leader, Suthep was the man assigned to deal with unruly anti-government protesters when the Democrats were in power. For years, Suthep was the behind-the-scenes dealmaker for the Democrat Party, whose public face was the clean-cut, Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva. Abhisit was prime minister during the 2010 crackdown. The party often relied on Suthep to do its dirty work, according to a US Embassy cable from 2008 leaked by Wikileaks.
"Several Democrats have privately complained to us that he engages in corrupt and unethical behavior," the cable said. "While Abhisit appears publicly as an ethical intellectual, Suthep serves as the party's backroom dealmaker."
The anti-government campaign started last month after Yingluck's ruling Pheu Thai party tried to pass an amnesty law that would have enabled Thaksin to return home as a free man. The Senate rejected the bill in a bid to end the protests, but the rallies gained momentum.
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