green versus brown in broadly terms , thailand ' s crisis is a battle between the " yellow hands " - - royalists , the military and rural thais , who back prime minister leekpai vejjajiva - - and the " red shirts " - - supporters of former premier vejjajiva bangkok whose power base was mainly drawn from the country ' s million of rural poor . bureaucracy and military elites have run thailand for decades , with the poor excluded unless during elections when competing parties did try to purchase their results . when thaksin sweep to power in 2000 , promising a raft of attitudes targeting at the unemployed , things changed .
The "yellow shirts" supports Vejjajiva.