When people take to the streets against a government, particularly in a faraway tropical country, it is easy to feel an instinctive sympathy with the rebels, to assume that if so many people feel so passionately then they must have a good point. In the case of Thailand, and the yellow-shirted demonstrators who have paralysed the international airport, this would be a mistake.

The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), as the movement calls itself, is the opposite of popular and democratic. Over six months it has dedicated itself to the overthrow of a Government that came to power after a legitimate election in December. Its leaders propose changes to Thailand's Constitution that would restrict voting rights and have MPs appointed by interest groups rather than national elections. And yesterday it appeared to be closer than ever to success.

General Anupong Paochinda, the head of Thailand's Army, insisted that there would be no repeat of the coup of 2006, but “informed” Somchai Wongsawat, the Prime Minister, that he must dissolve parliament and hold yet another election. The Government, he said, “still has full authority” - except, it seems, the authority to serve its democratically mandated term of office.

The crisis is complex, but it originates with Thaksin Shinawatra, the most popular - but also the most divisive - Prime Minister Thailand has known. Mr Thaksin won repeated elections with his policy of healthcare schemes and microcredit for poor Thai villagers who had long been neglected by the Bangkok political elite. Many middle-class urban voters abhorred him, accusing him of using the wealth he acquired as a businessman to buy the loyalty of Thailand's poor. The PAD began as a coalition of businessmen, activists and grassroots organisations from Left and Right. After months of disorder, he was deposed in a bloodless coup in 2006 and fled to exile. He has since been convicted of corruption and lives as a wealthy international refugee.

After a year of relatively benign military rule the Constitution was revised, a new election was held - and won by close supporters of Thaksin. The PAD re-formed to oust him, on the basis that the poor confused Thai farmers must have been foolishly bamboozled when they cast their votes. It proposed instead a “New Politics” that would reduce the number of elected MPs to 30 per cent, with the rest appointed by business and trade organisations.

In August, with little resistance from the police, PAD supporters succeeded in taking over the Prime Minister's office in central Bangkok and a state of emergency was called, General Anupong declined to enforce it. The ease with which they stormed Suvarnabhumi international airport, a sensitive strategic and security site as well as a crucial economic asset, appears to confirm what many people have suspected - that the Thai security forces do not regard the protection of the State and the upholding of the law as their first priority.

This unprecedented crisis in the rule of law is a nuisance for the foreign holidaymakers who are stuck in the airport; for 63 million Thais, it is a catastrophe.

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