Thailand: Thaksin: Hero of the Poor?

Hero of the poor became a corrupter of democracy
The Age, Melbourne
April 6, 2006

Michael Connors

Two years ago, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra noted, "A company is a country. A country is a company, the management is the same." The Opposition's boycott of last Sunday's snap election has delivered what may be Thaksin's last political lesson: a company and a country are different, and chief executives don't always get what they want.

Thaksin's party, Thai Rak Thai, might have won the most votes in last Sunday's poll, but his hopes of a third term in office are now gone. In the face of a 10 million-strong protest vote against abuse of power, and facing immense pressure from key figures, Thaksin has renounced claims to the prime ministership. Democracy is better for it.

Thaksin will be remembered for stacking independent institutions such as the Electoral Commission of Thailand with preferred candidates. He allegedly bought influence in the Senate. He gobbled up minor parties to ensure absolute parliamentary dominance. He bought media organisations that criticised him.

But Thaksin won't fully depart the political scene voluntarily unless a backroom deal provides him with a guarantee of immunity. Without power he will be vulnerable to the law.

When Thaksin came to power in 2001, he was appealing against a National Counter Corruption Commission verdict that he had deliberately concealed assets (he admitted to parking millions of dollars in the accounts of a maid and a driver). The Constitution Court narrowly overruled the verdict, allowing him to remain in office. Since then, Thaksin's wealth has more than trebled. Now, opponents want the Constitution Court's decision revisited, for Thaksin's dealings to be investigated. Some have called for his assets to be seized.

Thaksin's violent "war on drugs" in 2003 left 2000 people dead. The Government claimed the violence was gang-related. Human rights activists believed state-sponsored extra-judicial death squads were running wild. Thaksin reportedly told officials at the beginning of the war: "We have to shoot to kill and confiscate their assets as well, so their sinful inheritance will not be passed on." Many innocent people on police blacklists were killed. The Human Rights Commission of Thailand may reopen this issue if Thaksin falls completely from power.

In response to what appears to be separatist violence in the Muslim-majority southern provinces, Thaksin backed a military response that caused many deaths. Scores of Muslim youths, reportedly on blacklists, have disappeared. In October 2004, close to 80 unarmed demonstrators died as they were transported from a protest site to a military camp. These incidents await proper investigation. Without the protection of political office, Thaksin may be called to testify.

Clearly, Thaksin needs to hold on to power, even if indirectly, unless he strikes a deal on post-office criminal immunity. Those sympathetic to Thaksin argue that his is the first Thai Government not only to announce pro-poor policies but to implement them. These include debt moratoriums for farmers and cheap universal health care. Thaksin has talked to the poor in a way no other politician has. This, they say, is why he won office and remains popular in the rural provinces.

There is a lesson in all of this for the liberal Democrat Party, which led the election boycott. In the late 1990s, a Democrat-led government implemented an IMF program centred on liberalising the economy. They oversaw the sale of many Thai firms, bankrupted by the 1997 currency crisis, to foreign companies at bargain prices. The Democrats ignored mass protests by the rural poor who travelled to Bangkok and encamped outside government house. They then lost office.

The Democrats are now considering how they can ensure that Thailand's poor have a stake in democracy so that they do not fall victim to demagoguery. They will have to work on making democracy mean something more than the rule of law and economic liberalisation. That will mean entertaining some of the policies that made Thaksin so popular.

It seems unlikely that a parliament will be convened from last Sunday's election. The future of Thai Rak Thai, which is a holding company of many factions, is also uncertain. Already the Opposition is claiming the outcome is illegitimate and that the Electoral Commission acted unconstitutionally.

One thing is clear. The move for political reform in Thailand has gained renewed impetus. As political liberals move to amend the constitution and remove clauses that allowed Thaksin to centralise power, they will also need to attend to the problems that led to a populist alliance between the rural poor and the billionaire Prime Minister.

As for Thaksin, he may have time to reflect on his own observation that "people who are in power for a long time may acquire a self-delusion that they're the best".