Thai army manoeuvres as Yingluck eyes election victory

AFTER Thailand's military removed her brother in a bloodless coup on a hot September night five years ago, the front-runner in next month's closely fought election has good reason to fear the generals will go after her.

As Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, surges ahead in the race to become Thailand's next prime minister, the army has cast aside its neutrality, analysts say, and looks intent on derailing her.

How far they will go is unclear. If she prevails over prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's ruling Democrat Party and forms a government, a coup is one option, though unlikely due to the risk of drawing thousands of Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters into the streets in a reprise of last year's bloody clashes with troops.

Most analysts and diplomats suggest she may cut a deal with the army. But in the days leading up to the 3 July election, the army is doing what it can to stop her momentum and foil her plans for a general amnesty that would clear the way for Thaksin to return from self-exile in Dubai, where he lives to avoid prison following a graft conviction he says was politically motivated.

Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha, instrumental in the coup that toppled Thaksin, made a stern-faced address on two army-owned television channels last week, stressing the military would not meddle in the election. But he warned of threats against Thailand's monarchy and urged the public to vote for "good people" and to avoid a repeat of previous polls, a not-so-subtle reference to a decade of elections won by Thaksin allies.

By wading into the political fray, the army risks inflaming a sometimes-violent, five-year political crisis in which the rural and urban poor red shirts are pitted against a traditional elite of generals, royal advisers, bureaucrats and old-money families who back the ruling Democrats.

Prayuth's comments were widely seen as a move to discredit Yingluck's Puea Thai Party following opinion polls that show it is likely to win the most votes in the election.

The army has been a major force in politics since Thailand became a democracy in 1932, staging 18 coups - some successful, some not - and several discreet interventions in forming coalition governments, almost all with the tacit backing of Thailand's royalist establishment.

Since the last coup, the military's budget has nearly doubled and it has stood firm behind Abhisit and battling with pro-Thaksin red shirt demonstrators. The last face-off in April and May last year killed 91 and wounded at least 1,800.

"The general image of the military has not exactly complemented Thailand's democratic process," said one observer. Kan Yuenyong, an analyst at the Siam Intelligence Unit, said the stakes are high for the military, which faces a possible purge if Yingluck becomes premier.Since Yingluck's 16 May nomination, the 43-year-old businesswoman has championed Thaksin's populist legacy. Yingluck says she will pursue reconciliation, if she becomes prime minister, vowing not to interfere with the armed forces. But not everyone is convinced. Mistrust of Thaksin runs deep and her assurances are unlikely to be enough.