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2 ASIA
HAND The politics of revenge in
Thailand By Shawn W Crispin
(The following is excerpted from a
longer presentation made this week in Bangkok to a
visiting group of foreign exchange and bond
traders led by US investment bank JP Morgan.)
BANGKOK - During a recent trip upcountry,
I met with a low-ranking government official, who,
despite the country's protracted political
problems and its coup-plagued history, tried to
convince me that Thailand's political development
had finally surpassed that of the West's liberal
democracies.
How so, I asked? Simple math,
he replied: while the US and Europe are led by a
mere prime minister or president, Thailand
effectively now has three leaders - with elected
Prime Minister
Samak
Sundaravej, proxy premier and former prime
minister himself, Thaksin Shinawatra. and
opposition leader and shadow prime minister
Abhisit Vejjajiva.
For those who don't
closely track Thai politics, the official was
referring to the mounting confusion over who is
really in political control of the country these
days.
But while Samak, Thaksin and Abhisit
are to varying degrees all important players,
there are several other behind-the-scenes actors,
including the military, the monarchy and the
monarch's Privy Council, which are just as, if not
more, important in determining stability and
perhaps even the longevity of the new coalition
government.
Diffuse
opposition Political power in Thailand
today is diffuse - and not necessarily held by
those in political office. Already Samak has said
that an invisible and dirty "third hand" - thought
to mean the military - is working to undermine the
People's Power Party (PPP), which dominates the
ruling coalition..
Yet the opposition to
the PPP and Thaksin's return to the political
scene after months of self-exile is not
represented by a cohesive or even necessarily
coherent political force.
It has been
widely reported that the restoration of democracy
has returned Thailand to the fractious and
unstable coalition politics witnessed throughout
the 1990s, when at least two governments collapsed
under the weight of factional defections. Many of
the same controversial politicians - who
contributed to that unstable era - are back in
power today under the PPP's banner.
But
the situation now is considerably more
complicated, and with much higher stakes as two
main power networks compete for supremacy. One is
represented by ousted premier and billionaire
Thaksin, the other by an entrenched aristocratic
elite, dubbed famously by one academic as a
"monarchic network", which draws its power and
influence from its association with the monarchy,
.
The cut-and-thrust between these two
groups was in the main hidden from public view
until the runup to the 2006 coup, but has become
more apparent and pressing in the coup's aftermath
and with the restoration of democracy under the
Thaksin-affiliated PPP party. (By Thai law, the
monarchy itself is above Thai politics.)
The new PPP-led coalition government's
cabinet is populated by various proxy and family
members of prominent politicians, many of whom
were banned from politics for five years in a
Constitution Tribune decision last May, which
disbanded Thaksin's former Thai Rak Thai (TRT)
party. Many have since speculated that prime
minister and veteran politician Samak is acting as
the deep-pocketed Thaksin's political proxy - a
claim the newly installed premier has
alternatively supported and denied.
I
believe that that is an overly simplistic
analysis, particularly in light of the ambitious
Samak's strong royalist credentials, apparent
personality clashes with Thaksin and well-known
desire to eventually become a member of the the
Privy Council, perhaps even one day replacing his
personal nemesis, Prem Tinsulanonda, the august
body's current president.
In many ways,
Samak represents the ideal compromise candidate to
mediate between Thaksin and the monarchy, as he
first suggested in a mid-November interview with
Asia Times Online in which he said he was one of
few people in the country who could speak the
royal family's language and explain that the
military's charge that Thaksin was disloyal to the
crown was unfounded. The bottom line: Samak is no
limp puppet and is seen in some royalist circles
as a potential hero for their cause.
On
the other side of the parliamentary divide is the
opposition Democrat Party, which has formed a
shadow government of cabinet ministers to check
and balance the ruling coalition and make its case
to voters that if given the democratic chance it
could more efficiently and competently run the
country's affairs. Historically, the Democrats
have thrived in the opposition, chipping away at
successive ruling governments' legitimacy and
questioning their competence.
The
conservative party also has considerably stronger
technocratic credentials than the PPP, which
struggled - some say failed - to fill the top
economic and finance portfolios with competent
ministers. Meanwhile, the new constitution, unlike
the previous one which allowed Thaksin to avoid
parliamentary scrutiny, makes it considerably
easier for the opposition to call a no-confidence
motion, with only one-sixth of members of
Parliament required to censure a minister, and
one-fifth of them to bring a similar motion
against the prime minister.
Yet it is the
military, and arguably by association the Privy
Council, which has come under strong accusations
for playing a behind-the-scenes role in
orchestrating the 2006 coup, which will represent
the stronger opposition check on the new PPP-led
government. Although army commander-in-chief
Anupong Paochinda, a member of the outgoing ruling
junta, has publicly promised to keep the brass out
of politics, the military notably vested in itself
sweeping new legal powers through the passage of a
new internal security act, which in ill-defined
times of national crisis will potentially allow
the military to supersede the prime minister.
What the military might in the future deem
a security crisis big enough to warrant such an
intervention is wholly unknown. What is clear is
that the legal way is open for future military
interventions in politics, which unlike the 2006
putsch won't necessarily be extra-constitutional
in their implementation. Meanwhile, there are
several potential points of conflict between the
PPP-led government and the military lying ahead.
For instance, its uncertain how the
military might react if the new government looked
to curb the army's new discretionary powers; or
through constitutional amendment repealed the
amnesty for last year's putsch the coup-makers
wrote into the new charter for themselves; or, as
Samak promised on the campaign trail but has since
cooled to the idea, moved to overturn last year's
Constitution Tribune decision which banned 111 TRT
party members from politics for five years, paving
the way for Thaksin's eventual return to politics.
The military has built in new legislative
circuit breakers to guard against just such moves,
including its sway over the recent appointment of
half of the 150-member Senate, who were recently
selected from a list of nominees by a high-level
committee of judges and heads of independent
agencies, which, of course, the military had a
hand in appointing. Any constitutional amendments
must go through the Senate, which if the changes
represent a threat to the military's privilege and
standing, will likely not pass while heating up
the political environment.
Revenge
politics Hopes that last December's
elections - which on the surface restored
democracy and at least symbolically sent the
military back to the barracks - would restore
political stability and usher in a new era of
national reconciliation have already yielded to
new worries of a sustained and potentially more
violent political conflict.
One sign of
possible turmoil surrounds the new government's
aggressive removal or sidelining of permanent
government officials who during the
military-appointed government's tenure willingly
carried out what were often politicized orders,
including investigations into the alleged
corruption of Thaksin's coup-ousted government.
Many media outlets, as well as the
People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the protest
group which through mass street demonstrations was
instrumental in bringing down Thaksin's
government, have stated their opposition to the
government's moves, arguing the PPP has already
broken its campaign promise to pursue national
reconciliation rather than revenge. The PAD has
vowed to restart its street protests, which this
time around will likely be met more forcefully by
the PPP-led government.
The bureaucratic
demotions have so far included the removal of the
top official in the police's Special Department of
Investigations, which has gathered evidence
related to corruption charges filed against
Thaksin and his wife Pojaman. Meanwhile, a top
Public Health Ministry official who had challenged
the US on intellectual property issues related to
pharmaceutical medicines, and in the process
jeopardized negotiations for a bilateral free
trade agreement - a once prized policy objective
under Thaksin - has been unceremoniously relieved
of his ministry duties.
Samak, in his
simultaneous role as defense minister, is also
reportedly bidding to move to inactive posts
military officers who are known to be close allies
to now retired coup leader and army commander
General Sonthi Boonyaratklin. Thaksin's past
interventions in annual military reshuffles, where
he promoted his pre-Cadet Class 10 allies and even
his own cousin into top positions beyond their
experience and rank, sowed dissension in
particular among the army rank and file.
The military last year moved to insulate
reshuffles from political interference through the
passage of new legislation, which gives a
committee of assumedly allied senior ranking
officers, judges, bureaucrats, as well as the
government-appointed defense minister, the final
say over reshuffle lists. Samak has publicly
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