Protests against the Prime Minister have been going on for quite some time.  Now they are starting to look seriously revolutionary.

Washington Post - Protesters Flood Thailand's Main Airport

"We want to seize the airport to show the media that the prime minister cannot control anything in Thailand," Suwan Kansanoh, a retired government official who was among the  protesters, told journalists by phone.

The  airport raid was the culmination of two days of demonstrations billed by the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy as the "final mass rally" to oust the "killer government."

The government, led by Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, has refused to resign, insisting that the overwhelming mandate it won in elections held at the end of last year still stands.

At the core of the dispute lies the legacy of Thaksin Shinawatra, the controversial telecommunications billionaire and former prime minister who was removed from office in a military coup in 2006 amid allegations of corruption and cronyism.

Thaksin inspires visceral hatred among PAD supporters, who believe that the current government is his proxy. Somchai is the former prime minister's brother-in-law.

But as last year's elections proved, Thaksin and his allies still have the support of Thailand's rural poor -- a constituency he and his successors have courted with cheap health care and subsidized loans.

The "middle classes versus the oligarchs/rural poor" angle is rather interesting.  Thaksin has been likened to Berlusconi, a multimillionaire media tycoon who bought his popularity by controlling the media.

The situation has begun to turn violent, with pro- and anti-government protesters on the streets fighting each other, and repeated bomb attacks on the anti-government forces who have been long camped out at the Prime Minister's official residence.

Agente France-Presse - Thai Protests turn violent, 10 hurt

BANGKOK - Thai anti-government protesters opened fire on rival activists and beat them with sticks on Tuesday, wounding at least 10 people as a second day of demonstrations in Bangkok descended into violence.

The clash erupted on a road to the disused air terminal where thousands of demonstrators behind a six-month street campaign to topple the administration have besieged the makeshift headquarters of premier Somchai Wongsawat.

Separately, crowds clad in yellow clothes that symbolise their loyalty to Thailand's revered monarchy tried to blockade the main Suvarnabhumi international airport ahead of Somchai's return from a trip abroad.

-snip-

The clashes came a day after protests by the PAD -- a loose coalition comprising royalists, Bangkok's old elite and the middle class -- forced the cancellation of a parliamentary joint sitting on Monday,

The alliance has said it is in a "final battle" against the government elected in December, which it accuses of being a corrupt puppet of exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup.

Somchai, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law, rejected the protesters' calls to quit and the government insisted that a key cabinet meeting would go ahead on Wednesday at an undisclosed location.

"Anyone who wants to overthrow or resist the government is attempting a rebellion," Somchai told the Thai National News Agency on board a flight from an APEC summit in Peru.

Somchai's plane had been diverted to land away from Suvarnabhumi Airport "due to heavy protests", government spokesman Nattawut Saikuar told AFP, without disclosing where it would touch down on Wednesday evening.

Early on Monday some 10,000 protesters surrounded Bangkok's old Don Mueang international airport where Somchai is temporarily based. Protesters have occupied the prime minister's official office in Bangkok since August.

Protesters have been so effective at blocking the various governmental venues that the government has been forced to meet in Cheney's undisclosed location.

The government meets in secret amid protests

Spokesman Nattawut Sai-gua indicated the government had effectively gone into hiding to avoid thousands of protesters who surrounded the prime minister`s temporary headquarters at Bangkok`s domestic airport and embarked on a cat-and-mouse chase to block their meetings.

The government evidently seeks to turn the tables on the protesters, who in past actions manage to attract public sympathy with claims of police brutality.

Protesters seeking Somchai`s resignation have occupied his Bangkok headquarters, known as Government House, since Aug. 26, forcing him to relocate to a makeshift office in the VIP area of the former international airport.

Police made no attempt to break up the demonstrations, standing aside as protesters blockaded Parliament on Monday. At the old airport, the police left an office compound when officials did, leaving the protesters free to rally but without a target.

The siege of the temporary government office was part of the protesters` strategy to fan out across the city in a bid to interrupt government meetings whenever and wherever they take place.

The coup which ousted Thaksin to begin with was performed by the military, and from the above quotes it would seem that the security apparatus is not supporting the government as vigorously as might be expected.  Such protests would have been suppressed with some violence in the US months ago.

It would also seem that the King is dead-set against Thaksin and his supporters.  The degree to which the King is revered in Thailand is hard for westerners who've not been to Thailand to grasp.  He's both the symbol of Thai independence, Thai culture, and everybody's nice old grandpa, all at once.  Before a movie plays, everyone has to stand up to watch a brief film of the King feeding the poor and supervising the construction of ditches and stuff.

Hard to say what's going to happen.