Rival camps on deadly collision course  Bangkok Post May 15th, 2014

This is a pre-edited version of the piece that appeared in Bangkok Post May 15th - reposted because Bangkok Post takes material off after 60 days). If the PDRC has now been swept aside, the victory, politically, has been theirs in many ways, with the new military dictatorship bent on "eradication" of the Thaksin network and criminalizing political expression, especially of red-shirted elements and dissidents on 112.

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For a Constituent Assembly - my title.


For the last few days I’ve visited the protest sites of the rival camps in Thailand’s ongoing crisis. At both, protestors have told me they are willing to die for their cause. On Sunday, at the United Front for Democracy Against Democracy (UDD) site in the Phuttamonthon district some 30 kilometres from central Bangkok, Bu (not her real name) cautiously switches from Thai to English to tell me that the protest sought royal protection through the Crown Prince [following a long tradition of decorating protests with royal imagery as a form of protection]. Indeed, the red-shirt rally is positioned close to the Crown Prince’s palace.  Bu is one of many farmers from the Northeast of the country – the heartland of the current care-taker government – who have joined the protest to protect the pro-Thaksin care-taker government, after Yingluck Shinawatra was removed from office last week by the Constitutional Court, along with a third of her Cabinet.  

The affinity the protestors have for the Crown Prince is hardly a secret, with T’shirts proclaiming “we love the Crown Prince” “or we love 904” a reference to the Crown Prince’s radio signature.  Bu and others have joined the protest on rotation, expecting to stay for a week – to be replaced by others she knows who are already on standby from her province. During the hot long days before big-name speakers take to the stage at night, refuge is sought under a bridge and in makeshift tents that dot the protest site.  Hundreds of stalls selling or distributing  t’shirts, rice-cookers, satellite disks and newspapers provide some shade and reminders of past battles fought. CDs of fiery speeches and red-shirt confrontations with security forces are on sale or constantly replayed on old televisions. They await the evening crowds who will fill the long empty Aksa Road that has been closed to traffic by red-shirt guards at either end.  

On Monday evening from the protest stage a former lecturer from Chulalongkorn university, said to have lost her job due to her political activities, reads a poem by recently assassinated  ‘people’s poet’  “Nai Neung”.  An advocate of reform of Section 112 of the Criminal Code, which severely punishes lese majeste, his death was rumoured to be at the hands of an underground movement to wipe out those disloyal to the “Institution” as the monarchy is colloquially  known. He was said to be the first victim of the ominously named Organization to Remove Rubbish, which announced a witchhunt against those disloyal to the monarchy.  Then rumours swirled that it was not so simple. That the poet was part of an underground armed element of the redshirts and his death was “more complicated”. The death sums up the difficulty of being certain about anything in this crisis.

The protest will stay put as long as the care-taker government faces the threat of forced removal. Should a challenger interim government emerge out of initiatives by informal meetings of the Senate that commenced on Monday, it can be expected that the protestors ranks will swell into the hundreds of thousands and move en-masse into central Bangkok to protect the care-taker government. Should this occur Thailand will possess two governments claiming  legitimacy and demanding loyalty from state agencies.  

At the People’s Democratic Reform Committee and related group protest sites I came across a sentiment that I can only describe as smug expectation that victory will be theirs.  On Sunday the protest leader Suthep Thaungsuban, former Secretary General of  the Democrat Party which boycotted the February election, was allowed to set up office in government house, being politely flanked by soldiers. The ease of occupation bloated an already swelling smugness. On stage he declared – “all are welcome to come and see me, I am ready now. I said I wouldn’t talk to you, but I am ready now. Come!”, to admiring cheers and whistles of the crowd. On Monday evening Suthep met with Acting Senate President in a polite exchange  and expressed his desire for remaining legitimate agencies of the state to appoint an interim government. Far away, at the red-shirt rally the cry is to stop Suthep’s rebellion and push forward to a new election.

As the various anti-Thaksin forces gather to pressure for the removal of yet another pro-Thaksin government), the language on the PDRC stage is both demagogic and technical. Suthep appears tired on stage, constantly wiping his forehead and swaying gently from side to side. He speaks of himself as the “medium” of the people (emulating Thaksin’s egotism), but at times his stage presence reminds of a lawyer explaining the various mitigations of a transgression. His constant reference to Article-this and Article-that of the 2007 constitution on why an appointed government is constitutional are breathtakingly ingenious. It is constitutional white-noise meant to cover a brazen attempt to fell the current care-taker government by any means possible. The crowd is lured to quiet with such legalities, stirred only by talk of the “evil family”,  eradicating corruption and the Thaksin regime, and folksy idioms I cannot fully grasp.

The 2007 constitution which is used by both sides to argue their respective cases, is one birthed by the anti-Thaksin 2006 coup. Despite this, it has not been able to stop the electoral preference of a majority expressing support for the side the coup was meant to eradicate. The constitutional upper hand is with the anti-Thaksin side, for the coup enabled strong anti-Thaksin elements to occupy key offices in the so-called independent agencies of the state and in the appointed parts of the Senate. Despite the PDRC’s reactionary rantings, the anti-Thaksin side is not a marginal minority waiting for history-as-justice to sweep it aside (even if the PDRC may be). It is a substantial force that must also be accommodated in any settlement to this conflict. But it needs to compromise too, and it must recognise the mandate given to successive pro-Thaksin governments since the 2006 coup d’etat (2007, 2011 and probably 2014 had the poll proceeded properly).

Thailand now faces an enormous challenge of political transition. It can push through with either side prevailing – and it is not clear which side would prevail just now - but at enormous cost to peace and life. Or it can be a transition that recognizes the validity of some elements of each camp’s claim. To do that would raise the possibility of a peaceful resolution and to begin the hard work of democratizing the conflict into a new social contract.

Both sides have a responsibility to seek a resolution that does not cause further loss of life to their respective rank and files – it is they who have paid the highest cost already  -  as rival elites go for broke.

Somehow Thailand has to retreat from the brink. This would entail a recognition of the electoral mandate of the current care-taker government. Under its administration with an agreement on extraordinary powers,   a constituent assembly could be formed that accommodates a range of interests and political persuasions to establish new rules that, being fairly agreed upon, all must be subject to, and which then are ruthlessly applied without prejudice. The 2007 Constitution lacks this founding legitimacy and resolving the conflict under its auspices will lead to further violence and protest or a repressive military coup.

Michael Connors.

Of Rights Lost and Democracy to Come.

Of Rights Lost and Democracy to Come.

In early May of this year the Thai Constitutional Court dismissed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for a single transfer of office that allowed Thaksin Shinawatra’s former brother in law to become the nation’s top cop. Since the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin from office, Yingluck’s dismissal was the third time courts had removed from office  pro-Thaksin prime ministers. Two weeks later the self-proclaimed National Council for Peace and Order seized power, claiming that rival political camps were on the brink of political violence and it was time to restore national happiness.

Then followed the “Big Shift” as the junta purged officials and moved their people into place. From those outraged at Thaksin and Yingluck’s political nepotism no sound was heard against the military’s self-regarding and non-transparent  appointments.

The junta cemented its power by a series of extra-ordinary decrees including those enabling the forcible detention (for the purposes of attitude adjustment) of hundreds of politicians, activists, academics and potential dissidents. And from those who had taken to the streets citing the liberal rights of the minority (the protestors) in the face of the tyranny of the majority (the Yingluck government) no opposition was raised against arbitrary detention.  

The silence is symptomatic of authoritarian liberals’ belief that Thailand is now in abnormal times and requires drastic measures. And so it still remains, as each day brings new abnormalities under coup law and the country drifts towards an unimaginable future.  

Inevitably, whispers of physical  human rights abuse leaked from some detainees, but none so spectacularly as that of red shirt activist Kritsuda Khunasem, who endured three weeks of detention and emerged “more happy than I can say”, only to seek refuge in Europe  with claims of torture.  More of such reports can be expected, for a coup licenses such abuse. Until the rule of law is established, the onus should be on the alleged guilty party in such cases to prove that it did not engage in torture, since that party acts without  due process and transparency.

More allegations of coercion, harm and torture are likely to emerge, despite the conditional release of some detainees with statements that they were well-treated and would work with the military for reconciliation.  Images in the Thai press of forced meetings between yellow and red-shirt activists underline the grim-faced submission to the coup. That the military believed its Return Happiness and reconciliation campaigns would work is not farcical, it is terrifying.  We cannot know what else the military dictatorship believes it can get away with, or what it will do to stay in power.   

Indeed, what are we to make of the Thai coup makers' dispiriting use of martial law and censorship, and its growing political ambition evidenced by appointing an effective military majority to the just established National Legislative Assembly?  This is a level of khaki ambition unseen since the Cold War 1970s. And it finds diplomatic support in Chinese and Burmese quarters. On display is a gritted-tooth spit in the face of history-as-freedom as the junta tries to convince itself of its legitimacy, as much as others, by double speak - hence the arrest of those  at  downtown Paragon Mall caught reading Orwell's 1984. This is not so much a case of an emperor with no clothes as commoners with mirrors.

While conspiracy theorists view the military return to power as a plot, the decision to assume sovereign power by might, lies not in some original sin of the will to power, but in political circumstances surrounding the failure of competing political leaderships from 2005 onwards to settle the terms of their elite contest amidst emergent mass movements. When given a conditional constitutional terrain on which to contest their respective ideologies they each, at different times, failed to submit to a general constitutional law, providing the emotional, political or legal fuel to sustain a deadlocked politics .

For the latest crisis, responsibility at its gravest lies with the reactionary anti –Thaksin People’s Democratic Reform Committee that led months’ long protests before the coup,  and the opposition Democrat Party from which the committee was spawned. From late 2013, Thailand’s political opposition transformed itself into an outfit set on vandalizing Thailand’s relatively open electoral system by unashamedly courting partisan legal agencies and paving the way for military intervention. As egregious as Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party may have been to its opponents, smart oppositional strategy may have eroded the substantial electoral power that has delivered Thaksin-sponsored parties to power in 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2011.

Instead, the opposition effectively cheered for a military coup knowing that it would not be a “soft coup” like 2006.  It now supinely allows the military to stamp its full authority on post-coup institutions , underlining the desperation  of those wanting to eliminate the “Thaksin regime”, of which the Yingluck government was considered a proxy. That regime was considered by royalist liberals and conservatives a threat to monarchy, democracy, clean government and liberty. The only thing now supposedly secured by the coup is the monarchy. Democracy and liberty are being redefined along conservative guardianship lines, echoing military dogma from the 1960s. As for clean government, elements in the military are just as corrupt as some politicians evidenced by a number of procurement scandals.   

Some in the military believe in the justice of redesigning democracy, and as far as they can see most Thai citizens are smiling in agreement, as required by coup-law. They will do well to remember the events of 1973 and 1992 when hundreds of thousands of democracy protestors forced dictators to exit in shame. Hubris always has an expiry date. 
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Piece written last week but was unable to place it.

Letter opposing the coup from academics outside of Thailand

23 May 2014

General Prayuth Chan-ocha

Commander-in-Chief, Royal Thai Army

Dear General Prayuth:

As scholars of Thailand based outside the country, we are writing to express our grave concern at the coup launched on 22 May 2014 by the National Order Maintenance Council. This is the twelfth coup successfully carried out in Thailand since the end of the absolute monarchy on 24 June 1932. In every instance, it failed to achieve its objectives while it has damaged the development of the rule of law, democracy, and human rights.  Citizens, particularly those with dissident views, have been placed in danger and political freedom has been curtailed.  

In the National Order Maintenance Council’s first statement, you requested that citizens “carry out their lives and occupation as usual,” but nothing could be normal about the political and social conditions put in place by the coup. The coup cannot be a measure for peace because the coup itself is the use of violence. During the two days from 20 to 22 May 2014 in which martial law was in force, there was curtailment of human rights, particularly with respect to freedom of expression and political freedom. The situation has been worse since the coup, with extensive fear and unknown safety of many leaders and supporters of all political camps. The rapid speed and severity with which these restrictions were put in place makes Thailand notorious worldwide for the unjust actions by the coup group. The international community cannot tolerate such actions. 

We urge the National Order Maintenance Council to immediately return to constitutional rule by a civilian government.  In the absence of such an action, we call on the Council to provide a concrete timeline for return to constitutional rule, which should be done as rapidly as possible. We further call on the National Order Maintenance Council to assure that no further violence or suppression in any form will be used against the people. Constitutional rule by a civilian government, including both elections and the full participation of all citizens in rule, is the only path forward for the continued development of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Thailand.

Sincerely,

1.      Dr. Andrew Brown, Lecturer, University of New England

2.      Dr. Pongphisoot Busbarat, Research Affiliate, University of Sydney

3.      Dr. Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Associate Professor, Kyoto University

4.      Dr. Nick Cheesman, Lecturer, Australian National University

5.      Dr. Michael Connors, Associate Professor, University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus

6.      Dr. Eli Elinoff, Postdoctoral Fellow, National University of Singapore

7.      Dr. Jane M, Ferguson, Research Fellow, University of Sydney

8.      Dr. Jim Glassman, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia

9.      Dr. Tyrell Haberkorn, Fellow, Australian National University

10.  Dr. Kevin Hewison, Sir Walter Murdoch Professor, Murdoch University

11.  Dr. Philip Hirsch, Professor, University of Sydney

12.  Dr. Adadol Ingawanij, Senior Research Fellow, University of Westminster

13.  Dr. Soren Ivarsson, Assistant Professor, University of Copenhagen

14.  Dr. Peter Jackson, Professor, Australian National University

15.  Dr. Andrew Johnson, Assistant Professor, Yale-NUS College

16.  Dr. Samson Lim, Singapore University of Technology and Design

17.  Dr. Tamara Loos, Associate Professor, Cornell University

18.  Dr. Mary Beth Mills, Professor, Colby College

19.  Dr. Michael Montesano, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

20.  Dr. Claudio Sopranzetti, Postdoctoral Fellow, Oxford University

21.  Dr. Ben Tausig, Associate Professor, Stony Brook University

22.  Dr. James L. Taylor, Adjunct Associate Professor, The University of Adelaide,

23.  Dr. Tubtim Tubtim, University of Sydney

24.  Dr. Peter Vandergeest, Associate Professor, York University

25.  Dr. Andrew Walker, Professor and Deputy Dean, Australian National University

26.  Dr. Thongchai Winichakul, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Coup comments

Some comments (unused)  to the media last week reproduced below.


May 27th to media

On use of court martial:

similar announcements on trials in military courts  were made in Thailand's most repressive coups d'etat, 1958 and 1976, and these were times of massive repression. There is no doubt that this coup is going for absolute victory. But this is not just about eradicating red shirts and the Thaksin network, it is also about the breakdown of political order on both sides and the unprecedented mobilization of street protests as mechanisms of political change. In response  the military's sense of itself as guardian of national security, the monarchy and social order is now on full display. It has declared itself sovereign, and it has the repressive apparatus to back up that claim, hence we see people with little choice but to report to the military when summoned despite the fact that a coup d'etat is by definition unconstitutional.

May 23rd to media

On business and the economy:

Business associations welcomed martial law. They now have to take sides since it is clear that martial law was no longer about brokering talks but about preparing the conditions for a decisive coup against potential opposition. Business has traditionally been subservient in these circumstances and apart from those highly integral to new capitalist class around Thaksin, most will wear the condition if it promises stability in the near future.

Options for the coup group:

They have two options. They can try and force a compromise among the rival elites and demobilise the mass movements of both sides,  which is the least bloody scenario. Or,  more likely,  they can decide not to repeat the "soft coup" of 2006 and they put in place the most draconian coup apparatus since 1976 and accept that there will be unprecedented repression and violence to subdue the opposition. The 1976 coup fueled a mass exodus into the ranks of communist insurgent zones by liberal and left-wing students. Today, repression will vindicate the hardline of the red-shirt movement who have argued for stronger forms of civil disobedience, and also perhaps  add weight to the armed elements that were present in 2010

I am law - Thailand's repetitive decisionist moment

I am law - Thailand's repetitive decisionist moment







In early May Thais  witnessed  a prime minister felled for a single transfer of office (rightly in normal circumstances), and then two weeks later a coup-group, acting as  self-anointed national saviors in the decisionist fashion of all coups de'etat, declared themselves as law itself and then proceeded to  remake the state by a series of non-constitutional decrees, some of which forcibly detain for the purposes of "adjustment" those who would question on what law stands the coup.




The  Thai coup makers' dispiriting humvee -and-trample  use of martial law and the  2014 May coup are a product of a gritted-tooth spit in the face of  history-as-freedom;  brazen and contrarian, the coup leadership must  convince now themselves of  their own legitimacy by double speak - hence their sensitivity about protestors reading Orwell's 1984.






Thailand's return to its  repetitive decisionism (how many coups d'eat now?) , which is to say  this latest  assumption of sovereignty by the law of might not right, has its origins not in some original sin of the military will to power,  but in the failure of the political leaderships to settle the terms of their elite contest amidst emergent mass movements.


When given a constitutional terrain on which to contest their respective ideologies they each, at different times,  failed to submit to a higher law. In this round the weight of  failure obviously goes to the PDRC and the Democrat Party. As egregious as the Pheu Thai party may have been to its opponents, it was still a possibility that smart oppositional politics and strategy could have whittled away its electoral power.




Now, with Democrat Party complicity and an establishment fearful of the emergence of new politics across the political divide -  of mass mobilization and a democracy of doing - the military has truncated the crisis (that might have been an episode of democratization)  not so much with a full stop as with an exclamation mark screaming unity and Thainess! Its partisan round-ups, censorship and exhortations builds a fortress of hyperbole backed by guns.

Comments to media on 20th May on the declaration of martial law

Impact of martial law?

It dampens expectations of an impending breakdown into chaotic violence but it will heighten tensions the moment the military is seen to take sides.  It has stopped the People's Democratic Reform Committee from its wandering street protests and occupations and the impending strike action by supportive state enterprise unions,  but it has also disbanded the Centre for the Administration of Peace and Order which  was starting to look like the care-taker government command centre. In essence it has bled the rival sides of key resources and strategies to push competing claims of legitimacy and what was looking like the possible emergence of two entities claiming government status. So tensions are down, only because repressed.

Resolution?

A lot depends on whether the Senate proceeds with discussions on appointing  interim PM and government, and if this is supported by the military.  Acting Senate  President Surachai has confirmed the Senate will still seek a way out, despite caretaker PM Niwatthamrong not quitting yesterday.

Possibility of an appointed government?

If an appointed government emerges from whatever process, and it  incorporates people from the care-taker cabinet and oppositional elements, this may enable a compromise to emerge.  Such a move would recognise the care-taker government's historic mandate and also fit some calls for a government of national unity. If  an anti-Thaksin interim government is installed I expect the redshirt movement will  and try and deliver on its promised response of mass resistance.

Chinese language Translation of Bangkok Post article "Real Democratic Voices Need to be Heard"

 Many thanks to Mr Ng for translating this Bangkok Post article which first appeared 14th of May.


泰国需要听到真正的民主声音

不出所料，反政府运动背后的知识份子，人民民主改革委员会宣布，尼瓦探隆不能成

为看守首相，而只能是副首相代理看守首相一职。这个有争议性的论点意思是要表

明存在一个政治真空，允许建立一个过度时期的政府，也就是所谓的人民议会。这

很可能是反达信阵营又一次唱女皇合唱团的歌词：〝嘿，我也会抓到你。又一个被干

掉。〞

泰国宪法法庭撒除英叻首相职位，被政府的支持者视为是一个阴谋。其实不然。她明

知或罔顾调走国家安全理事会的首长，让政府能够将时任的警察总长调任这个职位，

然后允许达信的前任小舅子担任这个空置的国家警察总长的职位。星期二国家反贪污

委员会就失败的稻米津贴计划而对英叻的失职的弹劾也不能说是一个阴谋，因为关於

这个计划早已有很多警告的迹象。彈劾可能被证明是错误的，但它不是一个阴谋。

在这些判决上没有阴谋；它们完全遵循2007年宪法，目的在於牽制达信集团。它也是

因应后2006年复兴的军人官僚机构与混合自由保守民主党的政治阶级之间的结盟以反

对达信而建立的。它并没有成功。在2007年宪法下，达信支持的政党赢了两次大选

〔2007年及2011年〕，然后在2014年2月又被宪法法庭宣判大选无效。这个判决是有道

理的，因为这次的选举受到人民民主改革委员会的破坏与阻挠。

这其中没有阴谋，因为国家的独立机构，包括宪法法庭和选举局及其他，完全根据

2007年宪法计划而运作。这包括加强独立机构与参议院在司法与官僚制度上的运作，

并安排反达信力量的人士在这些机构里。希望这些手段能够控制那些倾向达信的政治

阶级及其选举的基层。没必要给予没有阴谋这个词一个真正的含意，因为这些机构都

是照章行事的。

这并不是说这些判决一定是合法的。2007年宪法赢得的准合法性，是在军人政府有限

制的条件之下举行的全民公投中以勉强的多数票通过的。它真正产生的原因是基於

2006年的非法政变：一个刑事法上被禁止的行为，但这个行为却被军人政府利用临时

宪法，以由来已久的姿态概括承受了。基於他们这种动辄对政变的依靠，法律话语的

规则在泰国，被反政府的精英当作反看守政府的一个主要的动力，这是有一点虚伪的

味道。

它也是一种绝望的氛围。在1990年代时期，当一个自由保守的集团组成与制定了

1997年宪法，民主党与公民社团大体上都没尽力去赢得新政治秩序与规范之下的国家

治理权，这些新政治秩序与规范原本将可保护他们，以对抗2000年代前半期达信的威

权选举体制。达信以政党的机器和有效的政策与行动，以及一些金钱上的滑润剂，赢

得了选举。但由於走专制捷径与那些反对他的人的操纵，他现在在很多人的眼里，如

果不是一个民主人物，至少是一个选举达人。

有人希望通过适当的基层工作，达信可能从流亡返国。因此，当英叻政府在去年年底

尝试宪法改革之际，非常刻意地在改革的更高目标上，配搭了一个大赦，让达信可以

返国。这带出了捣蛋的精灵 - 让她在位前两年政治上的相安无事分崩离析。

民主党前任秘书长素贴，与其他高调的民主党人士，辞去党要职位，走上街头斗争，

接着在去年十二月，民主党的议员集体退出国会。木已成舟。泰国最老的政党，在

某个时候，有着反独裁的光荣历史，鼓吹民主自由的形式，现在却一变而成为街头

斗爭的形象，剥夺了国家政治妥协的机会，因为它选择不当一个强大的反对党。因此

2007年这个透明的政治改革计划〔不是一个阴谋〕还在持续中。

如果没有阴谋，那么在执行各各法庭的案件以及它们达致的判决，肯定会有〝双重标

准〞。但对於这些〝双重标准〞的控诉，横跨政治分歧的两个阵营之间，因为它们都

有这种倾向，这由它们各自控制的机构采取的手段可见一斑。

双重标准无论谁执政都在玩。这反映出一个明显的棘手问题的两个层面：第一个，在

想要政权的敌对双方的精英之间；第二个，在他们吸引广大群众所奉行的政治愿景之

上。这个棘手问题，本身已是一件坏事，却因环绕在王室继承问题上的担忧而更纠结

不清。

这个周末，双方的大批人马将走上街头。人民民主改革委员会寻求政府官员的倒戈，

并成立一个过度时期的政府。他们占领电视台就是要向群众广播他们的这个意图。反

独裁民主联盟将推动七月的大选，与继续留任看守政府。

前者完全没有希望，后者可能有一些希望。

反独裁民主联盟会说宪法法庭本身是不合宪法的。他们辩说它的功能没有组织法。

2007年宪法必须在一年之内颁布一个组织法。没有组织法的存在，宪法法庭的合法性

是基於2006政变而制定的一个临时条款上。反独裁民主联盟的一个问题是，宪法法庭

的判決是最后的判决，不得上诉。因此，它现在只好走上街头保卫政府。

自从2006年政变，泰国就缺乏一个可行的政治解决办法，双方都在爭取对自己有利

的，因此暴力与仇恨加剧。内战之说以往常被当作无稽之谈，现在却是大有可能。双

方的武装冲突迫在眉头，很可能孤注一掷，邀来军队的干预。

但是，双方的建议并没有针对冲突的棘手性质。选举的权力现在看来，似乎只会导致

灾难。选举并不是解决双方对权力基本矛盾的一个办法。为泰党的看守政府寻求另一

次的民主委任权是没有意义的。真的，在泰国，每赢得一次选举，就好像经济学上说

的〝报酬递减〞。

较好的意见是开始一个全民政治改革的程序。但这只能基於尊重现行看守政府在几次

的选举中赢得的历史性民主意愿。无视这点也将导致灾难。改革的程序不能夺去大多

数人的意愿。但这也不是照比例原则的。

泰国需要的是以非政党、民主的决心，组成一个真正的制定或修改宪法的国民代表大

会。这就必须摈弃人民民主改革委员会中的极端份子，和死抓政权不放的旧体制力

量，以便让路给制定1997年宪法所包涵的意愿。但支持达信的阵营也必须作出一个真

正的选择 - 通过一个拥抱民主改革的步骤，厘清它真正的利害关系，并承诺遵守大家

必须服从的新的政治模式与问责制。它不能一方面把自己打扮成民主的力量，而另一

方面又不承认军人政变前达信政权往独裁漂移的现象。

原文刊载於14.05.2014的《曼谷邮报》

作者：麦可康纳斯〔Michael Connors〕任教於诺丁汉大学马来西亚学府，著有《泰国

的民主与国家认同》〔Democracy and National Identity in Thailand〕。

译者：苏杭

For a new constitutional law


The piece below argues for the continuing mandate of the Pheu Thai care-taker government and for a constituent assembly to be formed that democratically establishes new political rules of the game. The 2007 constitution was a coup-born document and its problems and biases are emerging in ways that make any election under its terms problematic. Some have interpreted this as support for PDRC - not sure if they read the article. It seems when you criticize both sides - you are either red or yellow depending on the accuser.

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Real Democratic Voices Need to be Heard

Michael Connors (Bangkok Post 12 May)

Another one bites the dust, so the great Queen song goes. With Yingluck Shinawatra’s dismissal from the care-taker prime ministership on Wednesday by the Constitutional Court, Thailand has witnessed three pro-Thaksin prime ministers dust-bitten in six years, courtesy of judicial interventions. The very moment she was dismissed her party, Pheu Thai, quickly promoted to the care-taker prime-ministership Niwatthamrong Bunsongphaisan -  a close associate of Thaksin Shinawatra -  almost as if to line him up for the firing squad.

On cue, intellectuals behind the anti-government movement, the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), announced that Niwatthamrong could not be care-taker prime-minister but only a deputy prime minister acting as a care-taker prime minister. This tendentious argument was meant to demonstrate that a political vacuum existed  allowing for  the creation of an interim  government and a so-called People’s Council. May well the anti-Thaksin camp be singing Queen’s chorus line, “Hey I’m gonna get you too, Another one bites the dust”.

The dismissal of Yingluck by the Constitutional Court is part of a conspiracy according to pro- government supporters. It is not.  She knowingly transferred the head of the National Security Council, enabling her government to then transfer the sitting national police chief into the post, which then allowed Thaksin’s former brother-in-law to occupy the vacant post of national police chief. Nor is it right to call a conspiracy the indictment of Yingluck on Thursday by the National Anti-Corruption Commission for negligence in regard to the failed rice subsidy scheme, about which warning signs were plenty. The indictment might prove to be wrong, but it is not a conspiracy.

There is no conspiracy in these judgments; they are faithful to the 2007 constitution that aimed  to keep at bay the Shinawatra clan. It also buttressed a reactive alliance between the post-2006 revived military-bureaucratic establishment and the political class around the hybrid liberal-conservative Democrat Party against Thaksin. It didn’t work. Under the 2007 constitution pro-Thaksin parties won two elections (2007, 2011) only to be robbed of the 2014 February election by the Constitutional Court nullifying the election. That ruling made sense in the face of the PDRC’s vandalizing blockades of the ballot.

There is no conspiracy because the independent agencies of state, including the Constitutional Court, the Election Commission and others function according to the 2007 constitution project. This included strengthening the hand of the judiciary and bureaucracy in the functioning of the independent agencies and the Senate, and peopling them with anti-Thaksin forces. With such instrumentalities the hope was that the demands of the Thaksin-aligned political class and its electoral base could be controlled . That being so, no conspiracy in the real meaning of the word is required, because these agencies  are functioning to script.

This is not to say that the judgments are necessarily legitimate. The 2007 Constitution won quasi-legitimacy by a bare majority in a national referendum under the restrictive conditions of a military junta. Its real birth lay in the illegal seizure of power in the 2006 coup: An act forbidden in the criminal code and an act which was absolved, in time-honored fashion, by the military junta in its interim constitution following the coup. Given their coup-dependency, the rule of law discourse in Thailand claimed by the anti-government elites as a primary motivator against the care-taker government has a whiff of hypocrisy.

It also has an air of desperation. During the 1990s when a liberal conservative pact was formed and found expression in the  1997 constitution,  the Democrat Party and civil society broadly did little to win the nation to new norms of political order that would have protected them against Thaksin’s electoral authoritarianism during the first half of the 2000s. Thaksin won the electoral argument by action and effective policy and party machine, and some monetary lubrication.  But as a result of dictatorial shortcuts and manipulations by those who oppose him he has now emerged in many people’s eyes as at least an electocrat, if not a democrat.  

There was hope that with appropriate groundwork Thaksin could return from exile. And so very deliberately, when the Yingluck government attempted constitutional reform late last year, it twinned-in-time that higher purpose of reform with a general amnesty that would have enabled a Thaksin return. And this brought out the gremlins – the political peace of her first two years of office fell apart. Former Secretary General of the Democrat Party, Suthep Thaugsuban and other high profile  Democrats quit as party notables to take the fight to the streets and were then followed  by Democrat Party MPs resigning en-masse from parliament in December last year.  The die was cast. Thailand’s oldest party with a sometimes honorable history of fighting dictatorship and promoting liberal forms of democracy, transformed  itself into a street fighting outfit robbing the country of a chance of political compromise  because it chose not to be a strong parliamentary opposition.  And so the 2007 transparent political project, not a conspiracy, continues.

If there is no conspiracy there are certainly “double standards” in the various court cases pursued, and in the outcomes achieved. However, the charge of double-standards stands across the political divide because this is a tendency in both camps, evidenced by the way the instrumentalities under their respective control function. 

The double standards – in play no matter who is in office - reflect an apparent intractability at two levels: first, between the rival elites who want to hold power, and the secondly the  political visions they espouse, and upon which they have attracted a mass base. The intractability, bad as it is, is also entangled in anxieties surrounding the issue of royal succession.  

This weekend significant numbers of protestors from both sides are on the streets. The PDRC is seeking defection by state officials to its side and an interim government. Its occupation of television stations seeks to broadcast this intent.  The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) will be pushing for a July election and for the care-taker government to remain in office.

There is no chance of the former, some for the latter.

The UDD will say that the Constitutional Court is itself unconstitutional – arguing that it functions without any Organic Law. The 2007 Constitution required that an Organic Law be promulgated within a year  of its promulgation. No Organic Law exists and the Court has been functioning under transitory provisions that reference its legitimacy to the coup constitution of 2006. One problem the UDD faces: there is no appeal against a Constitutional Court decision. So, it now takes to the streets to defend the government.  

Since the 2006 coup Thailand has lacked a workable political settlement and as each side has maneuvered for advantage, violence and hate have intensified. Talk of civil war used to be rhetoric, it is now a possibility. The strategic arms in both sides’ armory is narrowing – and it may come down to going for broke, inviting military intervention.

However, the proposals from both sides do not address the intractable nature of the conflict. An election right now seems like an invitation to hell. An election is not a forum to decide fundamental antagonisms on the nature of power.  There is no point in the Pheu Thai caretaker administration seeking another democratic mandate.  Indeed, winning elections in Thailand appears to be a case of diminishing returns.

The better option is to begin a national political reform process. But this can only begin on the basis of respecting the electoral will of the current care-taker government’s constituency, across several elections. To ignore this is also an invitation to hell. Reform processes cannot disenfranchise a majority or eradication of a political force.  But this is not about proportionality.

A genuine constituent assembly, for that is what is needed, should form a democratic will, not a partisan one.  This would require that extremist elements of the PDRC be abandoned, and the clinging to power of the old establishment should give way to the aspirations that were embedded in the 1997 constitution.  But it also requires of the pro-Thaksin camp a real choice – to embrace democratic reform through a process that it has genuine stakes in and to commit to new modes of politics and accountability that all must be subject to. It cannot seek to present itself as a democratic force and fail to  acknowledge the authoritarian drift of the pre-coup Thaksin administrations.  

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Michael Connors teaches at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus. He is the author of Democracy and National Identity in Thailand (NIAS Press, 2007).