The red shirt uprising in Bangkok has brought Thailand’s topsy-turvy politics to a critical juncture as brinksmanship and confrontation intensify. Since early 2009, many tens of thousands of red shirts, nominally under the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) and supportive of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have agitated and mobilised against the coalition government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. After rioting in the streets and retreating in disgrace in April 2009, they regrouped and reclaimed their agenda with street protests in Bangkok in March and April 2010, calling for a dissolution of the lower house and new polls to reboot Thailand’s democratic game.

As the reds ramped up their rhetoric and street demonstrations, their demands for a dissolution of the lower house were set against the defiance and resolve of Prime Minister Abhisit and his patrons and allies. Negotiations were brokered but nothing is likely to come of them unless Abhisit relents. The pro-Abhisit royalist-conservative coalition of army officers, palace insiders, ruling coalition parties, the ‘yellow’ People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), and Bangkok’s co-opted civil society and home- and car-owning middle classes, have closed ranks and hunkered down for a long battle of attrition. That coalition seems aware that new polls in 2008 will only lead to red shirt victory and a return of their government as seen in 2008, even though their Puea Thai party is a third-rate successor to the original Thai Rak Thai party. And this time the reds would be unlikely to allow the PAD yellows to hijack their mandate, as in 2008. Clinging to power under the status quo is the pro-Abhisit coalition’s muddling way forward.

The odds have now stacked against the reds. They can protest until they are hoarse but are unlikely to get their way as long as the pro-Abhisit and anti-Thaksin coalition stands its ground. But Abhisit and his backers are mistaken in their belief that the reds can be whittled down into pacification and submission. That they have re-emerged for more mass red sympathies in the rural north and northeast, where traditional passivity was shaken by former Prime Minister Thaksin’s brand of populism and sense of upward mobility for the neglected masses.

This time the reds have enjoyed limited but unprecedented traction in the capital. The rural downtrodden have been joined by Bangkok’s underclass, the sympathetic menial workers and service providers who hail from upcountry. Some Bangkokians with a conscience of what is not right in Thailand have also shown significant support. The reds have increasingly transcended Thaksin, and even eclipsed the UDD organisers ­in their commitment to political change and for the opportunities they glimpsed during the Thaksin years in 2001-2006.

To be sure, Thaksin’s corruption and abuse of power are now naked, proven in legal convictions and assets confiscation. The reds acknowledge his errors but tend to dismiss them as par for the course in Thai politics.

Abhisit’s patrons and allies are deliberately fixated on Thaksin’s corruption because they do not want to confront the implications of the reds’ demands and grievances. These disenchantments point to a nascent order in Thailand that can only be detrimental to establishment status and vested interests. Their resistance to change stands in the way of future reconciliation where Thailand’s constitutional monarchy will have to own up to a democratic reality in which victorious voters will not let their voices be denied. The hard truth and trial by experience in Thailand have shown that a strong monarchy is ultimately not compatible with a strong democracy. Navigating ways to reconcile the two and settle in a new consensual equilibrium underlines the protracted confrontation between reds and yellows.

The reds have upped the ante with their growing calls for new elections but they cannot dislodge the government as long as Abhisit’s coalition remains intact. As the Abhisit government’s symbiotic relationship with the army is laid bare, underscored by the Prime Minister’s periodic refuge in the barracks, the pro-Abhisit coalition will not give up without a fight.

Nor will the reds disband without palpable concessions. Something will have to give. The culmination of this brinksmanship may well disadvantage the reds in the near term. But each time they are dispersed and return for more, Thailand moves closer to a less favourable outcome for its constitutional monarchy that plays into the hands of a growing republican fringe. The vast majority of Thais still want to preserve their constitutional monarchy but it must be reformed and refitted to meet the demands and expectations of a democratised society.

The establishment forces behind Prime Minister Abhisit are understandably insecure and fearful of change because it can be slippery. Concessions and reforms may know no bounds. But playing this democratic game in a winner-takes-all fashion may mean that they end up with little left at the end of the day.