Thailand's Hollow Elections

By Yvan Cohen

As Thais prepare to go to the polls, political observers are fretting over what the outcome may be and, perhaps more importantly, what the result will mean for the future of this nation.

Making sense of the complex, ever shifting and sometimes downright bizarre forces of Thai politics is an unenviable task.

In all probability, Thailand’s next Prime Minister will be Yingluck Shinawatra, the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, the populist telecoms tycoon who won two consecutive mandates but was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and subsequently found guilty of corruption.

Just 44 years old, with youthful energy, a telegenic smile and a CV that includes precisely no political experience, Yingluck’s most convincing political argument is that she will serve as the dutiful ‘clone’ of her elder brother.

Yingluck’s nemesis is incumbent Prime Minister Aphisit Vejajiva, 46, who leads the Democrat party. Smooth-faced, smooth-talking and Oxford-educated Aphisit also has a telegenic smile but unlike Yingluck he is a career politician who, on paper at least, should make mincemeat of such a seemingly lightweight opponent.

At times the campaign has veered close to farce. One candidate, Chuwit Kamolvisit, had himself photographed clutching a baby while declaring that politics is like diapers: the more changes the better! Chuwit, a kind of super pimp-turned-politician who built his fortune running massage parlours, created his own party called Love Thailand. His political aspirations have undoubtedly been funded by a lot of ‘loving’.

Neither in their speeches nor on the thousands of party placards that line streets throughout the country has any politician spoken of his or her vision for the nation.

There have been promises of tax cuts, of higher economic growth, of new roads and even a high-speed train. And there has been much finger pointing as the Democrats in particular heap blame on Pheua Thai, Thaksin and the Red Shirt movement he spawned for the violence that saw Bangkok and other parts of the country descend into deadly anarchy in April and May last year.

Somewhat incredibly, and with tears in their eyes, Democrat leaders claimed that government troops didn’t kill any of the 91 people who perished in the fighting last year. Arguments that will do little to foster the reconciliation the Democrat party says the country so desperately needs.

With so much recent bloodshed and such deep polarization within the country, the stakes at this election seem particularly high. The future form of Thailand’s democratic landscape may depend on the actions and respective visions of the politicians standing for office.

Yet not a single politician has explained how they hope to restore the institutions – an independent judiciary, a free press and a neutral bureaucracy - that should serve as the pillars of Thailand’s democracy but which have been all but demolished in the past decade.

The demolition work began in earnest in 2001 when Thaksin Shinawatra became Prime Minister after being cleared of a charge he had illegally concealed assets. That ruling, despite convincing evidence of Thaksin’s guilt, was seen by many as a political decision, reflecting establishment support for Thaksin’s unprecedented popular mandate.

It was a first and crucial blow to the credibility of Thailand’s judiciary.

In the ensuing years, the judiciary has been used repeatedly, more or less blatantly, as a political tool, with the only significant difference being that since 2006 when the establishment turned against Thaksin, none of the judiciary’s rulings have been in his favour.

In May 2007, Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party was found guilty by a Constitutional Tribunal of electoral fraud and disbanded. The Democrat party, by contrast, was cleared of all charges. A total of 110 Thai Rak Thai politicians were banned from politics for 5 years.

In December of that year, the People’s Power Party (PPP), which was sponsored by Thaksin, won a convincing victory at the polls. Samak Sundaravej became Prime Minister but was considered a nominee for his political master, Thaksin.

Less than a year after coming to power, however, in September 2008, the judiciary struck again; bringing charges against Samak that he was in a conflict of interest because he received money for appearing in a televised cooking show. Samak was found guilty and forced to resign.

Political bias within the judiciary became even more evident in the wake of the October riots by yellow shirt supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and their subsequent occupation and closure of both Thailand’s main airports in December 2008.

Despite the violence and flagrant violation of multiple laws, none of the PAD’s leaders have been brought to justice or imprisoned. Indeed, one of their supporters who got up to address the crowds at the airport, Kasit Piromya, went on to become Foreign Minister in Aphisit’s government.

By contrast, in the wake of the Red Shirt demonstrations and their violent suppression hundreds of Red Shirt sympathisers and their leaders have been imprisoned - a policy that has poured oil on the fire of Red Shirt claims of ‘double standards’.

Disregard for basic democratic institutions seems almost to have become an item of faith across the entire political spectrum in Thailand.

During his time in office, Thaksin famously used his popular mandate to establish what has been described as an illiberal democracy. The press was muzzled, opposition was quietly suppressed and the independence of key institutions was undermined.

Thaksin’s mandate though blessed by the support of a democratic majority became an opportunity to dismantle many of the safeguards put in place by a reformist constitution promulgated in 1997.

It is ironic that, ostensibly in defense of democracy, the erosion of Thailand’s democratic institutions was accelerated by the military with the drafting of a new, more conservative, constitution a year after the coup of 2006.

Today, the very factions who evicted Thaksin from office, charging he had become a virtual dictator, are wielding State power to suppress dissent, manipulate judicial decisions and stifle the media.

In this context to assume the colour, vibrancy and diversity of Thai politics is the expression of a true democratic system would be a fundamental mistake.

In the preceding decade Thailand’s political elite have hollowed out this nation’s democracy leaving the shell of democratic process – elections – but none of democracy’s flesh and blood – a system of independent checks, balances and ethics - that give the empty form credible life.

The sad reality is that whoever wins Thailand’s elections will garner an affirmation of support that is more an expression of the deep rifts within Thai society than a transition towards a more mature, more honest, more ethical and more reliable democracy. Instead, we are left with the anxiety of trying to guess what elite shenanigans will be triggered by a popular mandate.

America's Love Affair with the Gun Feeds its Fear

The debate over America’s gun laws chimes like a recurring refrain.

The aftermath of yet another shooting spree has become the grisly closing act of an all-too-familiar drama.

Same story different people.

We know the plot too well. An individual who should never have been able to purchase a gun opens fire on unsuspecting innocent people. The killing seems random. Children often lie among the dead.

America and the world is shocked. There are outpourings of grief. Opinion columns are penned. Candles are lit. Tears roll down the cheeks of uncomprehending mourners. The politicians don black and wear appropriately somber expressions.

How could this have happened?

And, like a familiar chorus, the old debate is trotted out. Should Americans be as free as they are to purchase and carry guns?

A few timid intellectuals proffer sensible arguments explaining that if people are allowed to carry guns then other people are likely to end up getting shot.

Cause and effect.

Across the philosophical aisle voluble, power-wielding gun lobbyists point to the Second Amendment, which enshrines an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.

Little matter the second amendment was drawn up in 1751 when America was surely (one would hope) a far less sophisticated, far less modern, far less crowded society than it is today.

Little matter that in nations where guns are strictly controlled such tragedies are few and far between. Little matter it stands to simple reason that a nation without guns is likely to see far less shootings (even if violent crime remains).

Looking in from the outside, America often seems like a bizarre and confusing place, a place of stark paradox living in direct contradiction of its own ideals.

In the post 9-11 era America has been at war with Terror. It has been on a mission to bring freedom to those who don’t have it; an obligatory ‘gift’ handed over at gunpoint.

America’s war against Terror has taken its troops into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan: wars being fought, ostensibly, to protect America’s national security, to make Americans feel safer at home.

Yet Americans seem to feel less and less safe, its enemies are multiplying and victory, however it may be defined, seems as elusive as ever.

In the years since 9-11 Americans have learned that fighting Terror means being alert. It means living in fear of an armed enemy, foreign and most probably Muslim, who may strike at any time.

Yet, as America has also learned, more often than not Terror doesn’t come from a dusty village in Iraq or Afghanistan. It lives next door. He or she carries a gun concealed in a glove compartment or snuggled under their jacket, loaded and within easy reach.

Terror lives at home and is very likely American.

As Michael J Moore so poignantly illustrated in his documentary ‘Bowling for Columbine,’ America’s is a society built on fear, a society whose very momentum, fuelled by the media, is driven by fear. Fear and Terror live side by side.

The statistics speak for themselves.

In 2009 more than 9,000 Americans were murdered in crimes involving firearms. Extrapolate that number out over the past ten years and we can estimate that close to 100,000 Americans may have been murdered with a gun. Even if the exact number were 50% of this figure, the magnitude of gun related violence in such a modern nation is astounding and shocking.

There are those who would argue that for all its guns America is still far from being the most violent nation on the planet. El Salvador and Mexico are way ahead in the homicide charts. But for a nation of such wealth, with such ambition and whose politics are often infused with such moral fervour, America’s sea of firearms and its dramatic homicide statistics can only be a source of shame.

In the end, what separates the gun toting American from the gun toting Afghan? Law? Wealth? Morality? Religion?

While the positive language of freedom, progress and democracy is the brand America would sell to the world, the reality is that its own society has proved unable to move beyond an amendment drawn up in 1751.

For all America’s sophistication, for all its laws, for all its political rhetoric, for all the safety norms that are imposed in every facet of American life, you can still be shot tomorrow on the street, or in your school, by a guy with a gun.

And no it’s not about freedom, its not about principles or rights as gun advocates claim. It’s not about feeling comfortable and safe with a gun on your hip.

Peel away those spurious claims and you are left with the raw reality that guns are designed to kill and maim. To carry a gun is to empower yourself with the immediate click-of-a-trigger power to destroy life.

Almost exactly 100 years before the Second Amendment was penned, it was the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes who pointed out the need for individuals to yield up a part of their freedom to the State without which society would return to what he called ‘a state of nature’ which in turn would lead to a ‘war of all against all’.

His ideas formed the based of the social contract whereby civil society is based on the rule of law.

His point, an obvious one today, was that freedom in and of itself is not a good thing. There needs to be balance and there needs to be some areas where the individual agrees to yield up a part of his or her freedom to the State and the rule of law.

The right to bear arms in America is a clear example of excessive freedom, the bloody side effects of which are there for all to see. Without controls on gun ownership, America slides towards Hobbes’ ‘state of nature’, cloaking its society in fear.

The Freedom America so loves cannot exist in a nation condemned to live in fear.

If Americans believe in their own State, if they wish to build a truly civil society as an example to the rest of the world then they must impose laws curtailing gun ownership.