Abhisit picks the wrong colour
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Regarding Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva's explantion of why he wore a red shirt and also Korn Chatikavanich's statement that "everyone is entitled to wear red", is this to be construed as their emulating the red shirts, whose views they usually oppose
Or are they trying to get rid of the colour shirt divide by crossing lines (the Democrats don’t have a shirt colour)?
Whatever the intent, the public associates the red shirts with Thaksin Shinawatra, and the Democrats represent an alternative (thankfully) to him and the communist-style “red villages”, so you would think the Democrat leaders would want to make the opposite point – that there is nothing about the red shirts worth copying.
Symbolism is important in politics, and this seems to send the wrong message. Having been attacked by the red shirts, Abhisit has a very legitimate reason to want to disassociate himself from their tactics and methods.
More to the point, when Abhisit is filing defamation lawsuits against persons associated with the government and is opposing the reconciliation bills, which are correctly described as a whitewash of crimes, it is meaningless to pretend that he shares common ground with them by wearing a red shirt.
The Democrats have announced that they might censure the government in September. This is one of the few checks and balances on a very weak legal system here. Hopefully Abhisit will not be wearing a red shirt during that event and will focus on getting good information on the five issues.
The Brain
Bangkok
