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.
