During his party’s seminar on Koh Samui, Deputy Prime Minister and Democrat Party Secretary-General Suthep Thaugsuban called on the people to help protect the monarchy to prevent civil war.

On 2 Apr, Suthep presided over a seminar attended by about 1,000 local party members as well as core leaders such as Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij, Deputy Interior Minister Chamni Sakdiset and Bangkok MP and former Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin.

At the seminar, new party members were recruited, and brochures praising the achievements of the party during its two-year tenure in government and CDs containing video clips and photos about the red shirt rallies in April and May 2010 were distributed.  A video about the red shirt rallies was shown before the start of the seminar, which drew a lot of attention from participants.

According to Suthep, the Democrat Party intends to set up a branch on the resort island by the end of April.

Suthep said that the Democrat Party was the real people’s party, open to anyone from any walk of life.  The party has many potential party leaders and candidates for the premiership including Apirak, Korn and MR Sukhumbhand Paripatra, the current Bangkok Governor, showing that the party never lacks leadership, unlike Thaksin’s party which is still headless and has to await orders from abroad.

‘Now the Pheu Thai Party and Thaksin are using communist methods to mobilize the mass.  So the people have to be aware of this.  The country is currently beset with problems because of the red shirts, the Pheu Thai Party, the men in black—an armed force fighting for Thaksin to return to power, and the yellow shirts who think that they have power and mass and can do whatever they want, attacking everybody who holds differing opinions and seizing Government House, although they [currently] have only 300 people.  I ask everybody to help protect the monarchy, because now when [we] open the websites of the red shirts, we’ll see only attacks against the institution, which is unacceptable to me.  I insist that my talking about the institution is not to gain votes, but for national security.  If [we] don’t protect the institution which binds our hearts and minds, we’ll risk civil war,’ Suthep said.

He said that although they sometimes did not feel comfortable with the political behaviour of Thais in some provinces, they had to put up with it and give those people time to reconsider.  They cannot use the armed forces to attack them like in Libya, and have to fight under the democratic system and let the people, the owner of the country, decide.

He asked the Pheu Thai Party to fight under the democratic system, and not to exploit its political mass mobilization during the general elections.