At the same time, many in Chiang Mai profess allegiance to the yellow-garbed People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement, the reactionary royalist street protest movement that paved the way for Thaksin's 2006 ouster and crippled the workings of two Thaksin-aligned governments last year, including by seizing Bangkok's domestic and international airports.
The PAD was previously associated with the Democrats, due to the fact one of the protest group's co-leaders was an elected MP with the party. That link is now less obvious as PAD leaders criticize Abhisit and the Democrats for not getting to the bottom of an April assassination attempt against PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul.
Radio host Terdsak, a PAD supporter, claims that the yellow-shirt network numbers at least 100,000 "official" members across northern provinces. He says their core consists of teachers, state enterprise workers, farmers who opposed free trade agreements and other liberalizing policies during Thaksin's governments, royalist military forces, non-governmental groups, and people who suffered from Thaksin's 2003 war on drugs campaign, which saw the indiscriminate killings of many innocent victims in the north, particularly among ethnic hill tribes.
It also includes a broad swath of the middle class that once supported Thaksin as a son of the north and his bold economic initiatives, but later turned against him for the various large-scale development projects, including cable cars, highway overpasses, and a heavy-handed land grab for a new zoo, that many believed directly benefited his family's or political cronies' business interests.
Among those who switched sides is northern Thai folk singer Suntaree Veychanon, who previously supported Thaksin's tough stand against narcotic drugs. Later, however, she joined mass efforts to drive Thaksin from power and is now a member of a loose network of yellow shirt sympathizers that goes by the name Paa Kee Hak Chiang Mai, or Love Chiang Mai Party.
She understands first hand the rough and tumble tactics of some of Thaksin's local supporters: days after she first appeared on the PAD protest stage in Bangkok in 2006, an unexploded grenade was found in front of her popular riverside restaurant where she performs nightly.
Suryian Tongknukiat, the PAD's chief organizer in Chiang Mai, is a veteran NGO worker from the southern province of Pattalung who married a woman from Chiang Mai and has worked for several years with farmers and hill tribe groups in the north. Handpicked by the PAD leadership in Bangkok, he has been tasked with building the PAD's northern network.
His mission, he says, is to empower common folk, keep the government in check and to spread word about its contentious "New Politics" policies, a conservative platform that once called for a reduction in the number of elected representatives to the Upper House, based on the premise that common voters are too naive to make their own political decisions.
The PAD's decision to advance these vague policies as a proper political party has divided its national network, with one camp feeling their interests are better served as a street movement than by a formal institution, and another that believes a party vehicle will give their ideas more legitimacy. PAD party organizers in the northern province of Chiang Rai recognize the transitional challenge, conceding that they would be lucky to win 20 seats - out of a total of 480 - at the next general elections.
The PAD was previously associated with the Democrats, due to the fact one of the protest group's co-leaders was an elected MP with the party. That link is now less obvious as PAD leaders criticize Abhisit and the Democrats for not getting to the bottom of an April assassination attempt against PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul.
Radio host Terdsak, a PAD supporter, claims that the yellow-shirt network numbers at least 100,000 "official" members across northern provinces. He says their core consists of teachers, state enterprise workers, farmers who opposed free trade agreements and other liberalizing policies during Thaksin's governments, royalist military forces, non-governmental groups, and people who suffered from Thaksin's 2003 war on drugs campaign, which saw the indiscriminate killings of many innocent victims in the north, particularly among ethnic hill tribes.
It also includes a broad swath of the middle class that once supported Thaksin as a son of the north and his bold economic initiatives, but later turned against him for the various large-scale development projects, including cable cars, highway overpasses, and a heavy-handed land grab for a new zoo, that many believed directly benefited his family's or political cronies' business interests.
Among those who switched sides is northern Thai folk singer Suntaree Veychanon, who previously supported Thaksin's tough stand against narcotic drugs. Later, however, she joined mass efforts to drive Thaksin from power and is now a member of a loose network of yellow shirt sympathizers that goes by the name Paa Kee Hak Chiang Mai, or Love Chiang Mai Party.
She understands first hand the rough and tumble tactics of some of Thaksin's local supporters: days after she first appeared on the PAD protest stage in Bangkok in 2006, an unexploded grenade was found in front of her popular riverside restaurant where she performs nightly.
Suryian Tongknukiat, the PAD's chief organizer in Chiang Mai, is a veteran NGO worker from the southern province of Pattalung who married a woman from Chiang Mai and has worked for several years with farmers and hill tribe groups in the north. Handpicked by the PAD leadership in Bangkok, he has been tasked with building the PAD's northern network.
His mission, he says, is to empower common folk, keep the government in check and to spread word about its contentious "New Politics" policies, a conservative platform that once called for a reduction in the number of elected representatives to the Upper House, based on the premise that common voters are too naive to make their own political decisions.
The PAD's decision to advance these vague policies as a proper political party has divided its national network, with one camp feeling their interests are better served as a street movement than by a formal institution, and another that believes a party vehicle will give their ideas more legitimacy. PAD party organizers in the northern province of Chiang Rai recognize the transitional challenge, conceding that they would be lucky to win 20 seats - out of a total of 480 - at the next general elections.
