Thai Color-coded Politics Escalating with the Rice-pledging Scheme

Thai’s color-coded politics has again inflamed tensions in the country as the “red shirts”, who sympathize with deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, declared November 1 to be red-shirt day to protest against what they see as unfair treatment of the former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra over rice subsidies. With the promise of a rice subsidy program, the ex-prime minister led the Pheu Thai Party to a sweeping victory in the  2011 elections . The program guaranteed to purchase rice from Thai farmers at THB 15,000 (roughly $450) per ton, almost up to 50 percent higher than the global market price. And it was indeed initially favored by farmers, who made up almost 40 percent of the Thai labor force. However, the economic logic behind the strategy was fundamentally flawed: Ms. Yingluck miscalculated and thought Thai’s market share was large enough that it could easily drive up global prices  by purposely reducing its s rice supply. Instead, other countries such as India and Vietnam  promptly filled the void and boosted their domestic production of rice. This response greatly diminished Thai’s exports and yielded a loss of USD $ 4.4 billion from 2011 to 2012. By January 2014, many farmers did not receive their money as the government defaulted on its payments. Not long after, Ms. Yingluck was charged by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) with dereliction of duty in administering the rice subsidy program, and she was impeached in January 2015.

Almost ten months later, as the former prime minister is battling against the government’s plan to seize her assets to pay for losses incurred from her rice-pledging scheme, her supporters decided to defend her policy and called for fairer treatment of her administration. Their planned action, however, has worried the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) as the council regards it as a political movement that may instigate further political unrest in the country. Ms. Yingluck, despite her appreciation for the moral support, “is not pleased to see such a movement being planned,” either, for it might bring about instability. The actual impact of this movement  still remains to be seen, but it has surely reflected the Thai government’s resolve in cracking down all potential situations of political unrests.