‘Let us vote’: Thai protesters defy junta and labels

BANGKOK: From teachers and tour guides to financial consultants, a small band of anti-coup protesters from a spectrum of Thailand´s divided society is taking to the streets to defy the kingdom´s new junta.

Their message to the military rulers -- return power to the people.

Brought together by social media, they appear to be a leaderless motley crew who began massing within 24 hours of the seizure of power by army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha on May 22.While some are avowed "Red Shirt" supporters of recently ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra, others reject labels that they are die-hard supporters of the toppled government.

Meem, a 27-year-old financial consultant, said he was unhappy with some elements of Yingluck´s administration but stood by his right to vote.

"This is about right and wrong -- not about Thaksin," he said at a tense protest in central Bangkok, referring to Yingluck´s elder brother, a tycoon-turned-populist politician whose overthrow as premier by the military in 2006 ignited the kingdom´s long-running crisis.

"We sell the country as a democracy but in the end it´s run by the army," he added. "It seems like Myanmar 20 years ago."

His views reflect a burgeoning angst among a slice of broadly young, educated middle-class Bangkok residents who want to exercise their right to vote and hope to see an end to the bitter split in Thai society.

That divide broadly pits the Bangkok-based establishment and royalist southerners against the Shinawatra family and its supporters, mostly in the north and northeast of the country.