What a week, and what a change in the status of the political landscape! It appears that we are entering a period of relative stability, after a huge storm has resulted in essentially the self-destruction of the "red shirts" and exiled ex-PM Thaksin, leaving much weakened support for the red shirts both nationally and internationally.

The "red shirt" opposition gave its biggest, peak effort to bring down the government and failed in the worst ways. However, more disasterously for the red shirts, it left itself in a much weaker position as a result of the many destructive efforts by its mobs which were seen in a bad light by the general public and especially the security forces and civil service across the board, indeed caused local Bangkok residents to rise up against them on the streets -- the most significant skirmishes were with local residents, not the army. This also resulted in considerable internal fracturing within Thaksin's followers.

Like with the yellow shirts, the red shirts proved to be their own worst enemy in the end.

Now, they have stopped wearing their red shirts out of fear that Bangkok residents of all classes may fight them away.

It looks as if Tuesday, April 14, marks the beginning of the end, an unwinding of the protesting groups. Elements will never go away completely, but it's difficult to see them being a major force again anytime in the near future.

Exiled ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in the 2006 military coup and was urging on these protests, showed himself wildly out of touch with reality and dragging others down with him. His interviews on CNN and BBC also shed himself in a bad light.

His adversary, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva, who previously looked like a lame duck PM, tactically handled the situation like a wise man, artistically raised his stock in his national appearances in the mass media (as well as his appearances on CNN and BBC where he came across much better than Thaksin), and has emerged much stronger across the board.

It looks as if this huge storm has resulted in the washing away of so much of the source of trouble in Thailand over the past several years.

I have not recorded all these political events in detail here because the two English language newspapers, The Nation and the Bangkok Post do so well in that. Nonetheless, I do provide my own commentary, analysis, and summary of the main events in my Commentary section at www.thailandguru.com/commentary.html . Please see that section for a summary of the events for outsiders without going into too much detail, and what they mean for the future.