
Thailand’s Royal Spell Has Been Broken
On the surface, Thailand appears to be stuck in a never-ending cycle.
Elections are held in which voters voice increasingly clear demands for change, only for those to be denied by the royalist old guard that has dominated my country for generations. Each of the past several elections, going back to 2005, have resulted in the winning party being denied its right to form a government or overthrown in a military coup or otherwise removed from office.
So when Thailand’s Constitutional Court last week ordered the dissolution of the country’s most popular political party — the pro-reform Move Forward Party, which won last year’s national election on a platform of curbing royal prerogatives — it seemed like the latest chapter in a normalized process of political stagnation.… Seguir leyendo »