BANGKOK, THAILAND — Before thousands of anti-government demonstrators could finish packing up their giant woks, folding cots, golf clubs and other articles of airport occupation today, their leader was warning of the possibility of more crippling protests.
Sondhi Limthongkul, the media mogul who heads the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy, warned that he's ready to call demonstrators back to the streets at any moment despite the resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat after a court order to dissolve his governing party.
"The PAD will return if another proxy government is formed or anyone tries to amend the constitution or the law to whitewash some politicians or to subdue the monarch's authority," Sondhi told cheering supporters.
Anti-government demonstrators who during the last week caused two Thai airports to shut down, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded, celebrated Somchai's resignation, singing and waving the country's red, white and blue flag as they promised to end their occupation of the facilities.
The Nov. 25 seizure of Suvarnabhumi Airport, a $3.8-billion glass and steel symbol of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's largesse, is just the most dramatic in half a year of protests that have divided this country. Last week, authorities also closed the Don Muang domestic airport out of fear that protesters who stormed the terminal building might harm passengers and aircraft.
The prime minister's decision to quickly step down Tuesday, after the Constitutional Court banned him from politics for five years and ordered the dissolution of his party, hasn't resolved the fundamental dispute facing the nation.
The demonstrators regard Somchai as a puppet of Thaksin, his brother-in-law. Thaksin was overthrown in a coup in 2006, fled overseas and was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison on corruption charges.
The opposition says the National Assembly put Somchai in office in September at Thaksin's bidding.
But in elections dating back to Thaksin's first landslide victory in 2001, the majority of Thais have shown time and again that they like the policy shift he led, offering more help for the poor, such as universal healthcare, and farmland for more than 1 million landless families.
