Beware the watermelons

“IT'S true that we feel anti-government, and we will try to avoid serving the government's demands,” says a uniformed police colonel calmly but deliberately. Sitting behind his desk in Khon Kaen, a provincial capital in north-eastern Thailand, he says that about 90% of his local colleagues harbour equally seditious thoughts. They are fed up with being exploited by the government in Bangkok to “discredit and obstruct the opposition every day”, manufacture evidence and apply the law unequally.

The colonel, who is reluctant to give his name, was one of the many officers bused into Bangkok to police the demonstrations last April and May by self-styled “red shirts”, the main opposition to the government. By day he loyally did his job, but by night he, like many of his colleagues, donned a red bandanna and fraternised with the protesters. He was not there on May 19th when the army—unjustifiably in his view—stormed the red-shirt camp. He complains that, although many of the protesters who were rounded up are still in prison, no one has yet been brought to justice for the killing of 90 or so people during the weeks of protests. The injustice and oppression in Thai society that red shirts talk of is what “the police see and feel every day”, the colonel says.

On December 22nd the government lifted a state of emergency that it had declared in Bangkok and surrounding areas during the red-shirt unrest. But such complaints by a senior officer suggest that the conservative coalition government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrat Party is far from secure as it begins its third year in office. Openly red policemen are nicknamed tomatoes by the public. The colonel says that in his part of Thailand only a slightly smaller proportion of soldiers than police share his political views. Green on the outside but red at the core, these troops are called watermelons.

The government promised a process of “reconciliation” after the killings in May, but there is little sign of one. Even the best-mannered of the government's critics—let alone the radicals in the north-east—survive in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. The government is required to hold general elections before the end of 2011. In a broadcast on December 26th Mr Abhisit hinted that the poll will take place sooner rather than later. He hopes the election will be peaceful, but in today's bitter and polarised political environment few expect the build-up to them to be anything other than violent. The red shirts have vowed to take to the streets again twice each month. A new and apparently harder-line army chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, is waiting for them.

A lot, then, will turn on the strength of the red shirts. The movement was founded to support the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006. For many reds, Mr Thaksin remains a hero. They hope for his return from Dubai after the election. Mr Thaksin is particularly popular in rural areas, such as the north-east, where his microcredit and health-care schemes helped the poor so much that the present government is extending them.

Mr Thaksin's supporters also credit him with trying to bring democracy to Thailand. (He convincingly won two elections before being forced into exile.) They believe he was usurped by a conservative, aristocratic establishment. Many red shirts favour a reform of the monarchy, to reduce its power and influence. Mr Thaksin's supporters range from former provincial governors to students sporting Che Guevara T-shirts, and from businessmen to policemen. If all his supporters voted for his Pheu Thai party then it would almost certainly win the election, even if not with an overall majority.

The government has used the emergency laws and other security legislation to round up red-shirt activists. But the movement is now strong enough in areas like the north-east to flourish in spite of such measures. The red shirts have set up their own radio stations to compete with the government's despised broadcasting service. The government, knowing how influential these stations can be in rural areas where villagers depend on radio for news, has been playing a cat-and-mouse game to get them off the air. Thanik Maseepitak, a red businessman, erected a state-of-the-art radio mast and equipped a broadcasting studio in Khon Kaen early in 2010, only for it to be ruled illegal. Two hundred soldiers arrived in October to cut all the mast-wires and cart off the studio kit. Undeterred, he has just set up another radio station in a nearby village. To avoid detection it changes frequency almost every day.

Doubts persist as to whether the movement can emerge as anything more than a fan club for Mr Thaksin, who is a divisive figure in Thailand. (In 2008 he was convicted in absentia of corruption.) The leadership of the Pheu Thai party is weak and disunited, and there could well be defections from the party as it wrestles with the question of how much influence Mr Thaksin should exert over it. This could play into the hands of Mr Abhisit. In order to win over red-shirt supporters, his government has announced a string of populist economic policies, such as free schooling for 12m students, more financial support for the elderly and, most recently, low-cost loans for the poor. Thailand's strong economic performance might help him too. But the ripe tomatoes and sour watermelons remain to be convinced.