SPEAKING
FREELY Thailand in crisis: An academic
debate By Danny Unger
BANGKOK - Last night I walked by a Bangkok
restaurant when the familiar jut of my old friend
Professor Somchai's pipe caught my eye. He was
seated at a table with three people I took to be
his students, foreigners I guessed. I slipped in
unobserved and listened in.
"So what do
you think of our shiny new constitution and the
opposition's commitment to electoral democracy?"
Somchai asked.
"I think this [opposition]
boycott [of April elections] is outrageous. They
know they cannot defeat him [Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra] at the polls, so
they turn to treachery. It's the kind of trick of
which they accuse the prime minister himself. The
opposition doesn't trust rural voters," one young
man answered right away
Then,
shifting into oratorical mode, he said, "The
American political philosopher Thomas Jefferson
argued that the people are the safest bulwark
against tyranny. If they cannot be trusted, the
solution is education, not to deny them a voice.
"Remember, [Thai academic] Anek
[Laothamatas] wrote over 10 years ago about the
two Thailands. His solution to vote-buying and all
that was to make the rural poor rich, to make them
modern. That's Thaksin's way. And that seems to be
what the rural poor want. They support him.
Thaksin does not try to deny them a voice. He
wants to make them rich. He wants them to go into
business, to go into debt, to be entrepreneurial.
He wants to shrink the gap between the urban and
rural economies. I can respect that. But this
boycott looks to me really cowardly and
dishonest."
"Well, Kazuo," said Tunren,
another student, "he did get them to go into debt,
but I'm not sure that was doing them a big favor.
But I must admit that I, too, am uncomfortable
with this boycott. I believe that Thailand needs
strong institutions that do not depend on the
leadership of exceptional individuals. It needs
rule of law. And I think that the opposition in
Thailand must be honest that they are resorting to
a boycott because they cannot beat the [ruling]
Thai Rak Thai at the polls.
"But then we
must ask ourselves, why do they have no hope of
contesting these elections? It isn't only the
early date set by the Election Commission, or even
all the money that the prime minister has ready to
spend, especially now that he has sold Shin
Corporation [Thaksin's family sold the business
for US$1.85 billion]."
"You mean all the
money that his kids now have to spend, don't you
Tunren?" interjected Somchai, to the group's
merriment.
Tunren continued, "The real
point, I think, is the government's control over
the broadcast media. The opposition is shut out
from communicating with voters. Should we condemn
a boycott of elections when free and fair
political competition is impossible? So, I feel,
what choice does the opposition really have? But
then again, even if elections really were
completely free and fair, I suspect Thaksin's Thai
Rak Thai party might win.
"And yet, to
argue the other side again, we have to admit that
if there was any kind of independent check on
executive power, Thaksin would long since have
been driven from power."
"But Tunren, I
thought you were a great admirer of our
constitution," Somchai noted.
"I was,
professor. And I am, but the point is that the
constitution was the culmination, or so I thought,
of a process that had started five or six years
earlier. Today, the prime minister is undermining
the intent of the charter, of the entire process
over those years. He has destroyed, or is
threatening to destroy, the progress that was
made."
"But if the constitution was
intended," Somchai broke in, "to bring about
party-based political competition, can you really
be so critical of what Mr Thaksin has
accomplished?"
"Is this really party-based
politics, or is it personality-based politics?
Thaksin is no Lee Kwan Yew [former Singaporean
leader]," replied Tunren, "or even a [Malaysian]
Mahathir Mohamad. The PAP [People's Action Party]
is still strong after Lee has left, and UMNO
[United Malays National Organization] survived
Mahathir's retirement, but when Thaksin goes, Thai
Rak Thai's 18 million [members] will disappear
overnight."
"I'm sure the prime minister
would be flattered by the comparisons," Somchai
said.
"But I mean to emphasize the
differences," said Tunren. "Lee and Mahathir had
long-term national goals, but can we say that
about Thaksin? His leadership concepts are all
about management and business, mostly his own it
seems. Does he have any social or political
vision? Does he even know his country's history?
When those people he disdains were opposing
dictatorship in Thailand in 1973 and 1992, where
was he?"
Somchai turned to the third
student, "And Ingrid, what do you think? Are you
with the prime minister or his opponents?"
"Neither," she quickly replied. "I am
happy the prime minister talks about the poor, but
what brought me here was all the talk in Thailand
of local wisdom and community culture. The prime
minister seems not very familiar with these
concepts. Instead, the prime minister wants the
poor to go into debt, to embrace globalization.
But are his opponents any better? I don't know
what they stand for, other than getting rid of
Thaksin."
"Well," Somchai said, "let me
turn to another question. What do you think of the
quality of our recent political debate?"
Tunren spoke up. "I've been impressed with
the weekly [anti-Thaksin] demonstrations. People
generally seem so earnest and everything has been
orderly. The police seem to be quite disciplined.
The decision to boycott the elections seems to
have been made reluctantly, with some appreciation
of its gravity."
"All good, then?" asked
the professor.
"I don't much care for the
way the Thaksin haters adopt the pose of 'My
enemy's enemy is my friend'. They are ready to
embrace [media mogul] Sondhi [Limthongkul] now,
though he does not seem to be particularly
democratic," offered Kazuo.
"Professor,
what do you think?" Ingrid asked.
"Ah, I
must confess to being confused. As a veteran of
many battles for the right to vote in elections,
I'm not happy with this boycott decision. And I
worry that we Thais are not being as honest with
ourselves as we should be. I wonder if we need to
reflect on our problems more deeply instead of
personalizing them entirely, assuming that Thaksin
is the beginning and the end of our troubles."
"Well, professor," Ingrid asked again,
"what will you do? What should good Thai people
with experience and wisdom be doing today?"
"I'm afraid that question is too difficult
for me," the professor sighed. "The [opposition]
Democrats and others should recognize that they
gave the prime minister his opportunities by
failing to engage rural voters. No amount of
tinkering with the constitution will be enough to
address our problems if the political challenge is
not faced, if we don't have more than one man who
is successful in talking with the majority of our
citizens.
"We should show the prime
minister the door. But we also should thank him
for this one valuable lesson: that we must shape
our political community to embrace all of us.
Through policy and through rhetoric, he has
convinced the rural poor that he is their
champion. If we don't all convince the poor that
the system, not just Thaksin, will work for them,
well, then, why should we stop with Article 107?
[A clause that requires all parliamentary
candidates to belong to a political party for at
least 90 days prior to a general election.]
"We might just as well require that people
have a university degree to vote, not only to run
for parliament. We cannot have a healthy political
system if the good guys do not believe they have
the means of winning the support of the majority
among us."
Danny Unger is a
professor of political science specializing in
Thai Studies at Northern Illinois University. He
is currently on sabbatical as a visiting professor
at Bangkok's Thammasat University.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
(Copyright 2006 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
