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2 ASIA
HAND Turn of the
political screw in Thailand By
Shawn W Crispin
provision which
would give the privy council sole discretion in
selecting the next monarch if the royal succession
is not decided before His Majesty King Bhumibol
Adulyadej passes and that the advisory body would
with no specific delineated time limit hold
authority over the throne until its decision was
handed down.
The Thaksin advisor told Asia
Times Online that he was “consulted” in both
videos’ production, but that certain claims made
in the clips were not based on fact. The polemical clips
cleave closely to the
accusations and allegations leveled against Prem
by the anti-junta and pro-Thaksin protest group
the United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship
(UDD), whose senior members were temporarily
imprisoned in late August for their role in
staging a raucous demonstration in front of Prem’s
private residence.
They also bid, as the
UDD has attempted through its protests, to drive a
wedge between the palace and Prem and to establish
Thaksin as the true defender of the crown, and
play in particular on his known close and cordial
ties to the Crown Prince. Through a personal
spokesman, Prem denied the various allegations
specific to the video clips and has said
repeatedly said that allegations that he was
behind last year’s coup were “repetitive, baseless
and provocative”.
The ministry of justice
is now in the process of obtaining a court order
which for reasons of national security would allow
officials to censor or block access to the on-line
material. However more than a month after the
clips were first posted on the video-sharing
website Youtube, as of today, they were still
uncensored. “The timing of the videos is a red
light warning,” said the political analyst with
ties to the military. “The CNS is not speaking
with one voice and the political situation is
going to get messier before it gets better.”
Elite settlement Against this
tumultuous backdrop, some political analysts
detect signs that after a disastrous year in
office, in which various policies have attracted
international criticism of the country, that the
coup makers may be falling out of palatial favor.
One strong signal that some sort of
compromise with Thaksin may indeed be in the
offing was the recent abrupt and unexplained halt
to the strongest corruption case against Thaksin,
involving his wife’s purchase of a government
disposed plot of land in Bangkok. Others in
Thaksin’s camp point to the government’s apparent
refusal to allow anti-Thaksin protest leader
Sondhi Limthongkul to return to the country after
he gave a controversial speech which touched on
the monarchy in California last month.
The
senior Thaksin advisor says that if the PPP wins
and is allowed to form the next government, it
would immediately move to amend the new
constitution, including removing the amnesty
clause for the coup-makers and their associates,
and drive to prosecute top coup makers for
extra-constitutionally toppling Thaksin’s
government.
He also said they would aim to
legally diminish the power of the privy council,
particularly by making the body’s president,
currently Prem, but in the future likely to be
Surayud, a more ceremonial and less powerful
position.
The privy council only achieved
its prominence in recent years, after Prem
resigned the premiership and joined the monarch’s
advisory body in 1988 and as King Bhumibol became
more reclusive. The coup-makers appear to be on
guard against just such a move. Earlier this week
the NLA tabled a bill which aimed to extend the
country’s already strict lese majeste laws, which
bar media criticism of the royal family and
include jail terms for transgressions, to protect
privy council members from criticism. The bill was
suddenly dropped for unclear reasons.
The
creeping notion that Thaksin’s political proxies
represented in the PPP are on the verge of a
comeback and with apparent vengeance on their
minds is no doubt stoking concerns among senior
military officers directly involved in staging
last year’s coup. Military hardliners who feel
strongly that the interim government has not done
enough to purge Thaksin’s influence lost a march
last month when the more moderate Gen Anupong
Paochinda was recently appointed army commander
over the more fervently anti-Thaksin Gen Saprang
Kalayanamitr.
Disappointment over that
hotly contested appointment could explain the
mysterious bomb blast in front of army
headquarters in Bangkok on October 1, coinciding
with the first day Anupong assumed the post. And
hardliner fears of a Thaksin comeback almost
certainly explain this week’s strong censure of
Surayud and his interim administration by those
who until very recently were considered to be his
political allies.
Yet if military minds
believe that they can manufacture the fall of
Surayud’s interim government and use the
subsequent political fallout as a pretext to
indefinitely delay promised elections, unlike the
widespread popular support they enjoyed directly
after toppling Thaksin they will likely face
strong popular resistance to their refusal to step
down and restore democracy.
Note [i] The ruling Council for
National Security sent out an official version of
history surrounding the coup, including the firm
assertion that the palace and Prem had no
foreknowledge of the September 19, 2006, military
intervention, which was sent to selected foreign
journalists based in Bangkok with a request that
they sign and return mail a document acknowledging
they had read and understood the “truth” about
their putsch.
Shawn W Crispin is
Asia Times Online’s Southeast Asia Editor. He may
be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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