Editors note: The following statements were sited in the articles Politics in Thailand returns to the streets - By Thomas Fuller - The International Herald Tribune.

Somaska Kosasik is one of the leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy, which organised the demonstrations of the past week.

"The government didn't win the vote among educated people," said Somsak Kosaisook, The poor and uneducated were "trapped" into voting for the government, he  said.
Update: The leaders of the so-called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have already said that they would not accept a parliamentary solution to the crisis. In addition to demanding that Samak resign, they want an overhaul of Thailand's system of government, saying only 30 percent of seats in parliament should be elected (so 7 out of ten Thai voters will not be allowed to vote), with the rest appointed.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University.

He says the current round of anti-government protests is different from those of previous years and could set a "bad precedent" for Thailand. They were not provoked by an imminent crisis and, unlike in earlier decades, the protesters were trying to bring down a democratically elected government, not military rulers. "It's a dangerous trend," Thitinan said. "I'm not a fan of the PPP," he said of the governing party, "but you have an elected government, and you have 10,000 people taking to the streets who want to overthrow it."