Travelers leave behind a Thailand still in crisis

Meanwhile, the return of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s former wife - who faces a three-year jail term on a tax evasion conviction - threatened to deepen Thailand’s political crisis. Thai media speculated she might rally the ex-leader’s supporters following a court’s dissolution of the ruling political party made up of his allies.

On Saturday, the reopened airport continued to move out passengers, but more than 300,000 visitors had been stranded during the shutdown and clearing the backlog is expected to take days. The weeklong airport siege by the People’s Alliance for Democracy protest group caused the cancellation of all flights and dealt a heavy blow to the country’s tourism-dependent economy.

The airport was operating about 50 percent capacity Friday. Many airlines were unwilling to say when they would restart operations with foreign carriers concerned about security and safety.

“I’m pretty unhappy and sad,” said Antoine Six, a 25-year-old ski instructor from France, as he drank from a half-empty bottle of vodka Friday after learning his flight had been canceled.

Friday night’s gala celebrations of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s birthday - marked by fireworks and crowds of people holding candles - were dampened by the news of his illness. The Royal Palace said in a statement that the king, the world’s longest-serving head of state, was suffering from fever and was being given liquid food.

The king’s traditional birthday remarks had been eagerly anticipated this year because of sharpening social and regional divisions fostered by a militant campaign to purge the country of the influence of Thaksin, who was deposed by a 2006 military coup and fled to exile.

The monarch has historically been the country’s sole unifying figure in times of crisis. The protesters - who charge that the current elected government is a front for Thaksin - have repeatedly claimed defense of the throne as one of their motivations.

Although street protests ceased - at least temporarily - with the end of the occupations of the airports and the prime minister’s office by the protesters, the political situation remains extremely unsettled.

The alliance had been seeking to oust Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from office because he is an ally of Thaksin, whom they accuse of corruption, abuse of power and disrespect to the monarchy.

A court ruling Tuesday that Somchai’s People’s Power Party was guilty of fraud in last December’s general election forced his immediate removal from office and the party’s dissolution. But if they regroup in a new party they retain the right to name a new prime minister within 30 days, with the prospect that another Thaksin ally unacceptable to the protest alliance will be chosen.

Adding another complicating element, Thaksin’s former wife, Pojaman, arrived in Bangkok on Friday night from exile. The couple’s November divorce is widely regarded as a ploy to reduce each party’s legal liability and preserve the family fortune, made in telecommunications.

There was speculation in the Thai press that Pojaman had returned to help rally Thaksin’s allies in their effort to form a new government. She did not speak publicly on her return.

Thaksin is hated by many of the country’s elite, who charge that he was trying to usurp royal authority.

But the country’s poor and rural majority supports him because of the generous social welfare programs he instituted during his six years as prime minister.

Tens of thousands of Thais gathered Friday night for a candlelight vigil in a field outside the ornate, walled Grand Palace to convey their best wishes to their ailing king.

“I wish the king to get well soon. He is the only one that Thais can depend on right now,” said Chod Channum, a tour guide in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Thais have long looked to the monarch to guide the country through times of trouble, even though he is a constitutional monarch with moral authority rather than legal powers. Talk of his mortality has long been avoided in public.

Thitinan Pongsidhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said the event “should force Thais to rethink and come to terms with their own conflict because the king will not be around forever.”

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