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Thailand

Thai voters set to vote on new military-backed constitution

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Prayuth Chan-Ocha has served as the 'interim' prime minister of Thailand since the military took power in May 2014.
Prayuth Chan-Ocha has served as the ‘interim’ prime minister of Thailand since the military took power in May 2014.

Anyone who cheered on the failed coup in Turkey need only turn to Thailand to understand just what it means to have a democracy ‘guaranteed’ by the military.thailand

On Sunday, August 7, voters across the country will take part in a referendum that will decide whether Thailand adopts a new constitution — one that would place significant political powers in the hands of the Thai military, in essence making permanent the role of the armed forces, which have governed the country since a May 2014 coup. For instance, the draft constitution includes a new provision that would allow the military junta’s executive council — the euphemistically named National Council for Peace and Order (คณะรักษาความสงบแห่งชาติ) — to appoint all 250 members of the Senate in a newly reconstituted bicameral national assembly. Among other things, that would give the Thai military veto power over any future prime minister, future elected governments, their policy agenda, the Thai bureaucracy and the country’s judiciary.

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RELATED: Why you should believe the worst about Thailand’s coup

RELATED: How Yingluck’s rice subsidy backfired in Thailand

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Under the new constitution, all 500 members of the lower house, the House of Representatives, are to be determined by a proportional representation voting system that makes it almost impossible for a single party or movement to win an absolute majority. Most observers believe that this is a direct ploy to disenfranchise a majority of Thai voters who have supported populists over the last two decades who have promised to redistribute wealth away from wealthy elites.

The referendum follows an atypical campaign, which is to say that there hasn’t exactly been a true campaign. Opponents of the new constitution face severe restrictions against speaking out for a ‘No’ vote, and some have received lengthy prison sentences for doing so. That’s standard course for the ruling junta, which has sentenced Thai citizens to prison for comments — even on Facebook or other social media — for speech deemed ‘offensive to the royal family.’

In a sense, the military government, headed for over two years now by a retired army officer, Prayuth Chan-Ocha, is in a ‘heads-I-win-tails-you-lose’ situation.

With no true ability to mobilize, opponents of the draft constitution are at a disadvantage. With no outside election monitors or real checks on ballot integrity, we might never know the true result if the official result is not tallied transparently. Even if the military government allows the ‘No’ camp a victory, Prayuth has made it clear that the government will simply submit a new constitution en route to fresh elections that are set to take place sometime in 2017. Notably, if voters reject the constitution on Sunday, it will be the second failed effort, after the military jettisoned a first draft last September.

In broad strokes, Thailand is no stranger to military coups or to newly promulgated constitutions. But from 2001 through 2014, a single family came to dominate Thai politics, ably capturing the hearts of a majority of Thai voters, especially among the rural poor and especially in the country’s relatively less developed north. Continue reading Thai voters set to vote on new military-backed constitution →

Thailand

Why you should believe the worst about Thailand’s coup

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Everyone in Bangkok awoke Tuesday morning to the news that the  Royal Thai Army had declared martial law, including the censorship of certain news outlets. thailand

It’s not a coup, however, according to the claims of commander-in-chief Prayuth Chan-ocha (pictured above), who ordered the move, and who called for calm in a public announcement later in the day:

The army is determined to restore peace and order in our beloved country as quickly as possible. I request that people from all sides stop their movements so that all can quickly enter the process that will bring about a sustainable solution to the problems the nation is currently facing. Announcements will be made later on to provide details for the rules and regulations under martial law. I urge the public to stay calm and continue their daily activities and work normally. The army is determined to quickly ease the situation.

No one really knows what is happening right now in Thailand, but it’s a country with a history of coups and coup attempts. So the latest efforts of the creepily-named Peace and Order Maintaining Command (POMC) that Prayuth leads, on the basis of laws that undermine the rule of law and democracy in the name of military-imposed order, is ominous — even if Thai soldiers have so far taken a light footprint on the ground. 

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RELATED: What protesters in Ukraine and Thailand are getting wrong

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Prayuth, since assuming the commander-in-chief post in 2010, has generally been unenthusiastic about intervening in Thailand’s politics — he has previously relented from intervention, even during the tense days leading to February’s elections. Like most military officers, however, he’s no fan of the regime of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra who, until her court-ordered removal earlier this month, enjoyed a democratic mandate for government. Moreover, Prayuth is known as a hardliner within the military elite, and there’s no indication that he’s as neutral as he claims to be.

With the imposition of martial law, Thailand’s politics could quickly deteriorate. That’s because the Thai armed forces have a long reputation of favoring the opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์).

Earlier this month, it seemed as if Thai affairs were back on track after February elections, boycotted by the opposition, delivered a hollow victory to Yingluck. Her administration had agreed with Thailand’s electoral commission for a new round of elections to be held on July 20, and the Democrats were even considering contesting them.  Continue reading Why you should believe the worst about Thailand’s coup →

Thailand

New Thai elections scheduled for July 20

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In a deal designed to reduce political tension in Thailand and clear the way for a legitimate, democratically elected government, the country’s electoral commission and the current government of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra have agreed to hold a new vote on July 20, following the invalidated February 2 elections that were boycotted by the Thai opposition.thailand

That doesn’t change the ultimate dynamic of Thai politics:

  • Yingluck (and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, until his resignation and exile) and the ruling Pheu Thai Party (PTP, ‘For Thais’ Party, พรรคเพื่อไทย) seems remains so popular, especially among the relatively poorer north, that it holds a virtual electoral lock on winning reelection. So when Yingluck introduced an amnesty bill late last year, and her opponents launched anti-government protests, she called snap elections for February.
  • The opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์) haven’t effectively broadened their appeal to win power on purely electoral terms, which explains in large part why the DP’s leadership so quickly boycotted the February vote.
  • That boycott was thinly veiled attempt at induce military intervention to topple Yingluck and install a ‘technocratic’ government much friendlier to Democrat policies and that would likely include Democrat leaders. Though it’s happened in the past, (most recently in 2006 and, arguably in 2008), Thai military leaders are increasingly unenthusiastic about staging coups, much to their credit.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrat Party leader and a former prime minister, hasn’t ruled out boycotting the elections again this summer. He’s called for a national political reform conversation as a means of guiding Thailand out of its decade-long political impasse. 

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RELATED: What protesters in Ukraine and Thailand are getting wrong

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Taken together, these three factors are responsible for the political stalemate that has existed in Thailand since 2001. Yingluck and her ‘red shirt’ supporters can count on winning any free and fair elections for the foreseeable future, but they’re limited by the recalcitrance of the Democrats and their ‘yellow shirt’ supporters, whose refusal to engage in normalized democratic politics has left military intervention as a real (if shrinking) possibility.

That doesn’t bode well for Thailand’s economy or for the income prospects of its nearly 67 million citizens.

If the July elections proceed in an orderly fashion, however, they will determine all 500 members of the  House of Representatives, the lower house of the Ratthasapha (National Assembly of Thailand, รัฐสภา), the lower house of Thailand’s parliament.

Thailand

How Yingluck’s rice subsidy backfired in Thailand

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The outcome of the parliamentary elections in Thailand’s February 2 vote is almost certain, with the opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์) boycotting the election, thereby handing an artificially inflated landslide victorythailand to prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her allies.

Anti-government protests, which began in November over a proposed amnesty bill, and which resulted in Yingluck’s decision in December to call snap elections, continue to rage on, and Yingluck’s government, having already called a state of emergency, has indicated it will start cleaning government buildings in Bangkok of occupying protesters on Monday, February 3.

Though the protests have long eclipsed their immediate cause, an amnesty bill that both Yingluck’s supporters and opponents jeered, the ensuing ignition of political tension (and political violence) between the pro-government ‘red shirts’ and the opposition ‘yellow shirts’ has threatened to endanger the fragile stability that Yingluck, the sister of former, now exiled, prime minister Thaksin Shinwatra, tried to establish since her initial election in 2011.

But lurking behind the protests and the tension is a parallel controversy over the most consequential policy decision of Yingluck’s government — a well-intentioned rice subsidy scheme designed to stabilize the price of the rice crop for Thai farmers not only ran out of money, leaving farmers dissatisfied and angry, but knocked Thailand from its perch as the world’s top rice exporter and now threatens to plunge Thai’s credit rating to junk status. Continue reading How Yingluck’s rice subsidy backfired in Thailand →

Thailand, Ukraine

What protesters in Ukraine and Thailand are getting wrong

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The political crises in both Ukraine and Thailand took a turn for the severe last week, as government police forces clashed with protesters with even greater violence.  But what do the protesters want in each country — and can the protests, even if successful, bring stability?  Ukraine Flag Iconthailand

Amnesty: the root cause of the Thai protests

In Thailand, a country of 66.8 million people, anti-government protesters took to the streets in November (pictured above, top) after Thai president Yingluck Shinawatra tried to introduce an amnesty bill that would absolve both her supporters and opposition leaders from the worst charges, including murder, that spring from the political violence that’s engulfed Thailand sporadically throughout the last decade.  The bill died in the Ratthasapha (National Assembly of Thailand, รัฐสภา) after all sides turned against it.  Yingluck’s party, the dominant Pheu Thai Party (PTP, ‘For Thais’ Party, พรรคเพื่อไทย), the third iteration of the party Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, founded in 2001 when he came to power, didn’t want to absolve the sins of their adversaries.  The opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์) opposed the amnesty bill because they feared it would mean the return of Thaksin from seven years in self-exile.

Though Yingluck won the July 2011 parliamentary elections on a promise to de-escalate tensions in Thailand, the amnesty has brought the country back to the familiar standoff between the pro-Thaksin ‘red shirts’ and the anti-Thaksin ‘yellow shirts.’ 

EU relations: the root cause of the Ukrainian ‘Euromaidan’ protests

In Ukraine, a country of 45.5 million people, pro-European protesters also took their grievances to the streets in late November (pictured above, bottom) after president Viktor Yanukovych pulled out of an association agreement that would have engendered closer cooperation between the European Union and Ukraine.  Initially, the protests, centered on Maidan Square in the capital city of Kiev, assumed the form of the familiar political struggle between the Europe-oriented, Ukrainian-speaking west and the Russia-oriented, Russian-speaking east, which featured prominently in the 2004 ‘orange revolution’ against fraudulent elections that powered Viktor Yushchenko to power.

Yushchenko ended his presidential term massively unpopular, with his pro-Western allies fracturing into various camps, and in the February 2010 presidential race, the pendulum swung back to the pro-Russian Yanukovych, who defeated the EU-friendly former prime minister Yuila Tymoshenko (by 2010, a Yushchenko ally-turned-foe).  For much, much more background, here’s Max Fisher’s explainer today at The Washington Post.

In both cases, the protests have transcended their original rationales, and they now threaten to topple governments in both Kiev and Bangkok. What’s more, Yingluck and Yanukovych haven’t responded incredibly well to the protests. Continue reading What protesters in Ukraine and Thailand are getting wrong →

Bangladesh, Thailand

How Bangladesh could influence next month’s Thai election

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They’re both located in south/southeastern Asia, they share female prime ministers, and they share the dubious distinction of being the two troubled elections that kick off 2014’s global election season. thailandbangladesh flag icon

Though there’s little reason otherwise to link Bangladesh’s January 5 general election with Thailand’s February 2 vote, there are uncanny similarities.  In both countries, the main opposition parties are boycotting (or have boycotted) the election, the governing party is set to win the election, leaving each country in a political crisis with no easy apparent solution.  In both cases, the electoral crisis has its roots in a struggle that dates back over a decade, and in both cases, the military hasn’t been shy about intervening in the past.

In Bangladesh over the weekend, prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s governing Bangladesh Awami League (বাংলাদেশ আওয়ামী লীগ) won 232 of the 300 seats in the country’s Jatiyo Sangshad (national parliament).  The opposition, more Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP, বাংলাদেশ জাতীয়তাবাদী দল) refused to participate in the vote, and it lost all of its seats.  Ostensibly, the BNP and its leader, former prime minister Khaleda Zia refused to take part in the vote due to Hasina’s refusal to appoint a caretaker government to oversee the elections.  But the reality is much more difficult — the BNP has carried out a campaign of attrition through general economic strikes, protests and sometimes violence to protest Hasina’s government.  Hasina (pictured above, top) has responded with an increasingly authoritarian tone, and Zia and other third party leaders have been detained or put under house arrest.  The political violence comes against the backdrop of the controversial execution of Islamist leader Abdul Quader Mollah for war crimes relating to the country’s 1971 war for independence, and unresolved matters from the 1971 war tribunal (including the previous life imprisonment sentence for Quader Mollah) led to massive protests in Dhaka’s Shabagh Square in early 2013.  Violence related to the election has already cost hundreds of lives and unknown damage to the Bangladeshi economy and the garment industry that dominates the country’s exports.

In Thailand, prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has called snap elections in response to protests against her government that initially sprang from opposition to a proposed amnesty bill that would have pardoned top political leaders from both major parties for political violence over the past decade.  Yingluck’s populist Pheu Thai Party (PTP, ‘For Thais’ Party, พรรคเพื่อไทย), however, holds a nearly unbreakable lock on Thai politics, due to the popularity of Yingluck and her exiled brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, in northern and northeastern Thailand.  The opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์) refused to take part in the elections and is instead calling for an unelected council to govern.

In both cases, the opposition parties are actively banking on military intervention — an outcome that would undermine the fragile democratic institutions and rule of law in both countries, which have each made gains in reducing poverty over the past decade.  The Thai Democrats and its leaders, former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban, knew they had no chance to win the February election and believe that under a military government, they will have more influence.   Zia, who has been Hasina’s chief political rival since the 1980s, has never much trusted Hasina.  Game theory might teach you that three decades of ‘repeated games’ between the BNP and the Awami League would make a negotiated settlement easier.  But the BNP no longer has any faith in Hasina’s government to carry out fair elections, so the longtime animosity between Zia and Hasina may actually raise the costs of a deal.  So the BNP may actually prefer the military to the Awami League at this point.

What’s next?

The international community is already pressing Hasina hard to call new elections, and there’s even a precedent for how Bangladesh can walk out of the current impasse.  When Zia was prime minister in February 1996, she called snap elections that the Awami League boycotted — voter turnout barely exceeded 20% and the BNP on all 300 seats.  After a period of negotiation between the two parties, however, fresh elections were held in June 1996, the BNP lost power and the Awami League won a minority government.  The Bangladeshi tradition of appointing a caretaker government prior to elections, in fact, comes from the 1996 political settlement between the BNP and the Awami League.  Continue reading How Bangladesh could influence next month’s Thai election →

Thailand

Thailand’s Democrats boycott election in cynical ploy

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With the February 2 general election approaching, Thailand’s opposition has decided that it won’t contest the vote and will instead boycott the elections — a strategy that seems like a bet that the Thai military will intervene on its behalf against current prime minister prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.thailand

You might assume that an opposition party that boycotts an election is automatically sympathetic — that it’s doing so because the polls will be so rigged against it that it can make a bolder statement by avoiding the polls altogether.  But it’s never really quite that simple.  In the most recent 2011 general elections, Yingluck’s party, the  Pheu Thai Party (PTP, ‘For Thais’ Party, พรรคเพื่อไทย) won an overwhelming victory with 48.41% of the vote and 265 seats in the Thai House of Representatives, the 500-member Ratthasapha (National Assembly of Thailand, รัฐสภา), the lower house of Thailand’s parliament.  By contrast, the opposition Phak Prachathipat (Democrat Party, พรรคประชาธิปัตย์) won just 35.15% and 173 seats.

An aborted attempt by Yingluck’s government to introduce an amnesty bill earlier this autumn backfired severely, leading to protests against her government that have threatened to exacerbate the long-simmering tension between the ‘red shirts’ who support Yingluck and her brother, the self-exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the ‘yellow shirts’ who oppose them.

Yingluck’s response was to call early elections in February.  But top Democrat leader Suthep Thaugsuban, himself a former deputy prime minister, has demanded that Yingluck also resign as prime minister, a step that Yingluck has refused to do, and earlier this week, Suthep announced that the Democrats would boycott the vote:

“Thai politics is at a failed stage,” party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, a former prime minister, told reporters in announcing the decision not to run. “The Thai people have lost their faith in the democratic system.”

If Thai politics is at a failed stage, though, it’s as much the fault of the Democrats as anyone else.  They might not like the politics of Thaksin and Yingluck, which have involved massive handouts to the poorest Thais to improve health care and social welfare.  Some of those handouts, most notably rice subsidies, have backfired in ways that hurt the economy in Thailand, which is a top global exporter of rice.  But it’s more honest to say that the Thai people have lost their faith more in the Democrat Party than in the democratic system.

Suthep’s gambit is more a cynical ploy than a legitimate grievance about the election’s fairness.  The Democrats have done nothing since 2011 to expand their appeal to voters outside their stronghold in Bangkok and southern Thailand.  The success of Thaksin and Yingluck lie largely in their hold over voters in the largely rural Thai heartland in the north and in Isan, Thailand’s discrete northeastern region.  That’s one of the reasons that Suthep and the yellow shirts are so insistent that Yingluck be removed from Thai politics — her appeal to northern Thais is so great that the Democrats haven’t been able to break the lock that she and her brother have over northern voters. By calling elections, Yingluck invited Suthep and the Democrats to unseat her at the ballot through politics, not mob rule.  By boycotting those elections, Suthep is admitting that the Democrats don’t have the tools to win an election in Thailand.

It’s even more cynical in that the boycott is essentially a plea to the Thai military for assistance.  The last time that the Democrats boycotted the vote in the 2006 general elections, Thailand’s monarch and the constitutional court declared the results unconstitutional, which only depended fighting between Thailand’s two largest parties and led to a military-led coup to reintroduce order.  But Thaksin’s allies ultimately won the 2007 elections that the military transitional government intro conducted, just like Yingluck won the 2011 elections after a period of military-backed rule under Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva from 2008 to 2011.

So what’s the end game? A military intervention in 2014 that postpones Yingluck’s electoral victory until 2015?

While the military has never been particularly enamored of Thaksin and Yingluck, there are a lot of good reasons why the military might not come to the Democrat Party’s rescue a third time in eight years. Continue reading Thailand’s Democrats boycott election in cynical ploy →

Thailand

Amid anti-government protests, Yingluck calls early February snap elections

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In response to the culmination of a series of protests against her government , Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra dissolved the Thai national assembly and called snap elections yesterday, leaving her opponents flummoxed.thailand

It’s been a difficult month in Thailand, where Yingluck’s opponents started protesting in November over an amnesty bill with roots in the long-term political crisis that began with the election of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, in January 2001.  The background to today’s political protests in Thailand is long and not always easy to understand — but bear with me, because it establishes the necessary context to understand what’s happening today.

Thaksin’s long shadow

Thaksin, a wealthy mobile phone tycoon, came to power as the founder of the Thai Rak Thai Party (‘Thais Love Thais’ Party, พรรคไทยรักไทย) on a largely populist program of social welfare policies that included the first universal health care program in Thailand.  Thaksin was reelected with an even larger mandate in the February 2005 election, on the strength of poor rural northern Thais who supported Thaksin in massive numbers.  Continue reading Amid anti-government protests, Yingluck calls early February snap elections →