ASIA
HAND Toward a less democratic
Thailand By Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK - The consensus is that Thailand's
new military-drafted constitution will likely pass
a highly anticipated national referendum on August
19. New political parties are fast forming to
contest the democratic polls scheduled for the end
of this year. And the military seems sincere in
its stated intention to hand power over to a new
elected government.
In the transition,
however, it's apparent that Thailand's democracy
will
be compromised in significant ways and will open
the way to future military interventions in
politics. With the expected passage next month of
the new charter, Thailand will be set to enter a
new period of military-democracy, where elected
politicians are checked and potentially toppled by
military proxies in the half-appointed Senate.
How the balance between military and
elected politicians is calibrated in a new
coalition government will be crucial for future
political stability and economic policymaking.
Throughout the 1990s, ruling coalitions frequently
dissolved because of factional infighting, where
on average joint governments failed to serve even
two of their four-year terms.
With the
recent court-ordered dissolution of former prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra's dominant Thai Rak
Thai party (TRT) , and in light of measures
including the new proposed charter aimed at
simultaneously weakening and multiplying the
number of political parties, Thailand is also
likely headed toward a new political era of wobbly
coalition governments - only this time with heavy
military oversight.
To be sure, the
proposed draft charter is not as illiberal as many
expected and includes progressive measures
empowering voters to petition for new laws or
launch impeachment motions against wayward elected
officials. Notably, military-appointed drafters
backed away from several anti-democratic measures
after public outcry and press criticism of the
proposals.
Those trial balloons included
the establishment of an emergency council with
discretionary powers to dismiss the prime minister
and a provision that would have allowed for an
appointed rather than democratically elected prime
minister. Still, the new charter includes several
significant democratic losses vis-a-vis the now
abrogated 1997 constitution and institutionalizes
a significant future role for the military in
politics.
Chief among the democratic
losses is a previously fully elected 200-member
Senate. The new charter will trim to 150 the total
number of senators, 74 of whom will be appointed
rather than elected by a panel composed of the
Constitution Court, the Supreme Court, the
Administrative Court, the Election Commission, the
National Counter Corruption Commission and the
Parliamentary Ombudsman, and other high-level
appointees.
The provision threatens to
politicize the courts and other nominally
independent agencies and leaves a wide opening for
the military to influence the selections.
Moreover, the Senate will be empowered to appoint
many of the members of the agencies included on
the panel. At the same time, the Senate will have
extraordinary powers to censure and impeach
elected politicians, including the prime minister,
with only a three-fifths majority vote. The new
charter also includes a controversial amnesty from
future legal prosecution for the leaders of last
year's coup and their appointed committees and
government.
Thailand's major existing
parties, including the conservative Democrats and
Chat Thai, have publicly endorsed the less
democratic charter, while the political remnants
of Thaksin's populist TRT have expressed their
opposition. Meanwhile, the ruling Council for
National Security (CNS) has campaigned
aggressively to sell the new charter to the voting
population, dispensing pro-charter messages
through its monopoly control of the state
broadcast media, over which surveys show that
about 80% of the population receives its news.
Royal symbolism Significantly,
the military has again deployed yellow-cloaked
royal symbolism in some of its pro-charter
television advertisements, insinuating to the
rural population that the palace endorses their
new charter. Thailand's royal family is highly
revered among the Thai population and by law is
above politics and media criticism. Historically,
it has usually been an open question whether His
Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej has supported or
disapproved of the several different charters
promulgated during his 60-year reign.
Some
political analysts interpreted the highly
respected monarch's symbolic first vote during the
inaugural democratic Senate elections in 2000 as a
royal endorsement of the 1997 charter. In certain
ways, the previous charter called for the
establishment of new checking and balancing
democratic institutions, which in preparation for
the eventual royal succession from King Bhumibol
to Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn were designed
to attenuate the country's heavy reliance on
Bhumibol's role as national arbiter and ever
present pillar of political stability.
The
military's proposed new charter aims to uphold the
monarchy strongly and simultaneously to prepare
the country for a smooth royal succession - only
this time through fortifying the military rather
than the establishment of new democratic
institutions. King Bhumibol turns 80 on December
5, and the new charter requires the next elected
government to implement the monarch's
inward-looking "sufficiency economy" concept and
provide enough military force, weapons and modern
technology to protect the monarchy, national
security and interests, and democracy.
Many royalists feared that while in office
a politically ambitious Thaksin could have moved
to complicate the royal succession, explaining
perhaps many of the new charter's provisions
giving appointed officials discretionary censure
and impeachment power over elected politicians,
including the prime minister. Among the military's
initial justifications for launching last
September's coup were charges that Thaksin was
disloyal to the throne - an explosive accusation
that protest leaders had articulated during their
anti-government rallies. A Thai court this year
dropped the military's lese majeste charges
against the deposed premier for lack of evidence.
Those concerns could also help to explain
some of the illiberal measures in the
military-appointed government's proposed
national-security legislation, which if enacted
would give the army commander more power than the
prime minister during - undefined in the bill -
times of national crisis. Opposition politicians
and pro-democracy groups have protested the bill
as a major step backward for democracy and have
said it should not be passed until a new
democratically elected government is in place.
Thailand's military leaders mobilized
royal symbolism when launching last year's
bloodless coup, and former TRT politicians are now
complaining that the CNS is employing the same
tactic in the run-up to the upcoming national
referendum on the new charter. Some political
analysts believe the CNS would likely interpret a
majority "yes" vote at the referendum as a
democratic endorsement of both their coup and
their 11-month term in power. In turn, they say,
the interim government may try to ram through the
controversial national-security bill this year,
perhaps at a time when the population and news
media is distracted by the election campaigns of
the new political parties expected to contest the
next polls.
The unspoken subtext to all
this is that the military is first and foremost
loyal to the Thai crown and that the impending
royal succession has important implications for
political stability, national security and social
cohesion. The new draft constitution and the
proposed national-security legislation, although
not overtly, speak to those concerns. And so long
as the generational passing of the crown is still
on the horizon, the Thai military will remain
visible and highly influential in managing
Thailand's new era of less democratic politics.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times
Online's Southeast Asia editor. He may be reached
at swcrispin@atimes.com.
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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