AS ARMED police moved in to clear an opposition protest site in central Bangkok on February 18th, it appeared that the gridlock that has paralysed the city for three months might be reaching a dénouement. Four protesters and one policemen were killed and dozens injured in the clashes that followed. But carnage did not lead to catharsis. Just a day later, a civil court ruled that police could not break up any more demonstrations.

On the same day the election commission cancelled polls that had been rescheduled for April after a widespread opposition boycott of a general election on February 2nd. Although Yingluck Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party won that election by a landslide, she cannot form a government. The boycott, and the opposition’s disruption of the voting in Bangkok and the south, meant that the election failed to return the 475 members of the 500-seat parliament that the constitution says is needed to form a government.

Ms Yingluck had hoped to fill the lower house’s vacant seats through by-elections. But the election commission’s decision to cancel them now makes that look improbable. Even if they were to go ahead, they might not return enough MPs to make a quorum: the south is a stronghold of the opposition Democrats, who could easily disrupt voting again. That leaves Ms Yingluck, who is also under threat of impeachment for alleged corruption in relation to a notorious rice-subsidy scheme, in limbo.

Yet the revolution is also stagnating, although hardline opposition protesters are still energised. A handwritten notice fixed to a gate at Government House reads: “Get out (of) this land.” Sandbags and a barricade of rubber tyres fortified with razor wire protect the protesters who, bucket by bucket, are raising a cement wall (see picture). They are sealing off Ms Yingluck’s office so that she cannot return “in this life or the next”. A constant supply of food and energy drinks, and the presence of young men in bulletproof vests, suggests they are serious. From a makeshift stage Suthep Thaugsuban, the movement’s leader, is holding court. His loyal followers do not need convincing that the cement wall is a really good idea.

But for the majority of the population the political deadlock in Bangkok is of minor importance. Their main concerns are economic, and the economy is starting to stumble. Support may be flagging for the protesters’ demand that Ms Yingluck’s government should step down simply because they do not like her and her brother—Thaksin Shinawatra, a former leader now in exile. And their claim that an unelected people’s council working for the “good of the nation” will fix Thailand’s politics looks increasingly divorced from reality.

In the past the Thai army would have stepped in by now at the behest of the monarch. But the king is old and frail; and the Crown Prince is seen as close to the Shinawatras. Once installed on the throne, he is thought likely to push for continued democratic rule by the elected majority rather than by self-appointed councils.

This is one reason why large sections of Thai society—representing the old establishment of the civil service, the army, the judiciary and the monarchy—continue to back Mr Suthep. They see this as their last chance to secure their privileges against the great unwashed in the red-shirt camp supporting Ms Yingluck. Their hopes of power could well die with the current king. And so the saga goes on.