Questions on Pending Thai Election: Bloomberg

On 27th June I emailed responses to three questions from Bloomberg News about the pending election.

1. What's at stake for the military/monarchy in this election?

This is the election in which fundamental decisions about Thailand's future will have to be made. I do not mean by that the electoral choices of the Thai people which have long been subverted even before the 2006 coup, but how the incumbent royalist and militarist elite will react to the electorate's choice and, conversely, what strategies the pro-Thaksin counter elite will employ.

The key question should the Democrat Party not have sufficient numbers to form a coalition government, is whether its backers in the anti-Thaksin establishment will remain in denial about the recurrent rejection they face at the ballot box. This is a possibility. Should they choose that path, no doubt with splits along the way, they know that more violence will follow. The military-on-military and militia violence witnessed during April-May last year may return with greater intensity. So, it's a high cost strategy, so high its protagonists may not win over the less hawkish elements.

Undoubtedly, there will be some brinkmanship, as those most committed to the 2006 coup hold to the hope their long denied objectives of breaking Thaksin forces can still be executed. But the last five years prove otherwise, and they now confront a mobilised movement with depth well beyond anyone imagined. My guess is that even though there are elements willing to go for broke, the exhausting toll of the last five years weighs very heavily on those who rode with the coupsters, but who are dismayed by the securitisation of Thailand's politics and the repositioning of hardline military and royalist elements. The highly corrupt and repressive nature of elements of the current Thai regime, by which I different forces that are articulated to the state apparatuses not just the government, is not what they wished for when they tacitly supported the coup. They really did envisage an elite liberal outcome. But they bought into a logic of decisionist politics which meant embracing highly repressive politics rather than abiding by constitutional niceties, in order to to defeat a perceived enemy. But that repressiveness has almost become a norm, not the exception. These fellow travellers of the 2006 coup might be eating humble pie and make a conditional deal. Thaksin for his part will be happy to oblige. Bringing some kind of settlement together in the form of a smooth transition will be extremely difficult. At the same time, there might be an alliance of convenience among the authoritarians in both camps. Thus, think of the future as one of further mutations and splits.

2. What would a win for Pheu Thai mean for the establishment that backed the coup? What is the likelihood that Pheu Thai will be able to govern?

There is certainly a chance that Pheu Thai may have the numbers to form government in coalition. Such a prospect, for the anti Thaksin forces will be a loss of face, and will threaten their existing position. For some of them it will mean permanent marginalisation from the centres of political life. Thaksin is an astute coalition builder and one can expect that in the event of a Pheu Thai government being formed, the chairs will quickly be rearranged and space made available to everyone who plays the new game. But some soft payback can be expected; it will also be a time for the upper echelons to consider retirement. The other option facing the incumbent forces - to fight a Pheu Thai victory - would mean buying into a genuine rewriting of Thailand's constitutional settlement well beyond the electoral democracy it still adheres to (notwithstanding recent retreats). The charade of the Peoples Alliance for Democracy's "new politics" , of limiting the number of elected MPS and moving towards a form of selectocracy might be one outcome. Even though it has looked like a fanatical reactionary fringe stoking up war and hatred for the last year, the seemingly anti-political agenda of "new politics" has powerful backers, who are waiting for an opportune moment.

So, oddly, Thailand may face a situation in which the western-oriented royalist establishment, by refusing to accept a Pheu Thai victory, faces up to its failure to win in the game of elite liberal democracy by abandoning the facade of democracy and move towards a more transparently authoritarian politics.

Alternatively, should Thaksin finally emerge triumphant (and I see this as the long term scenario) you would have a government claiming a democratic mandate pursuing a look East and South policy, and merging populist rhetoric with authoritarian structures. Either prospect looks disturbing if your interest is in genuine democracy.

As for the movement of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, the redshirts, will it be able to hold any new pro-Thaksin government to democratic standards? The sad fact is that for all its shedding light on double standards and political hypocrisy, it has only done so selectively. When will the UDD publicly be honest about the authoritarian nature of the Thaksin years?

That said, we can not discount the possibility that a Pheu Thai victory will reluctantly be accepted, and new energies will be put into using constitutional avenues (sanctioned by the 2007 military sponsored constitution) and political strategies to fight Thaksin at the next election. Such an extraordinary outcome would mean a public return of democracy, while various machinations take place behind the scenes. That is what most democracies amount to these days.

3. What are the prospects of a power-sharing arrangement between Thaksin and his opponents?

Apart from hardline elements who mistakenly view Thaksin as the nadir of monarchist Thailand, my guess is the economic and political costs of protracted conflict is now weighing heavily on some of the incumbents who still want to steer Thailand to a prosperous and modern future. There must be considerable distress felt in royalist circles at the anti-royalist feeling that is emerging among rank and file redshirts and frankly the only genuine way to stop this growing is by bringing Thaksin back into the fold. Thaksin has time and time again shown his willingness to abide by most public protocols in relation to the monarchy. The inane propaganda efforts of the various security agencies are a lesson in blowback and the stupidity of force feeding people with "correct ideas". The more men in khaki wax lyrical about the royal family the more their standing is diminished. Thaksin has always signalled his willingness to do a deal and moreover is happy to deploy royalist imagery. This is what he offers and no one else can play this card. This will be the basis of any power-sharing arrangement.

In some senses the stark choice facing the rival camps is continued conflict at the cost of mutual destruction and seeing Thailand meltdown, or some step back from this and working out a formula for power sharing or at the very least a situation in which a "loyal opposition" has a credible chance of electoral victory at the following election. And should something be "agreed" this raises another question, how would such a historic anti-climax be received among those mobilised yellow and red -shirted citizens. This takes us to the final of the many unknowns of the post election period: the potential of a rising democratic mass in the face of this intra-elite bargaining and game-playing. Of all the possible game changers, this seems the least unlikely on the balance of probabilities. I'd like to be proven wrong.

Thai Style Democracy and Democracy with the King as Head of State

Thai Style Democracy and the King as Head of State

In these excerpts from Democracy and National Identity in Thailand (Routledge 2003; revised edition NIAS 2007) I look at Thai style democracy and the ideology of democracy with the king as head of state. I claim that these are distinct ideas and reflect changing circumstances. In subsequent chapters I go on to look at how these ideas work their way through liberal and communitarian movements from the 1970-2000s. Here however, the three excerpts look at:

Thai style democracy in its orginal formulation
Neo-Thai style democracy during Prem
The formation of the ideology of democracy with the king as head of state in the 1970s-1980.

These ideas continue to influence Thai politics.



Citations are in the original

From Chapter 3.

Before the doctrine
From constitutional democracy to Thai-style democracy:




When Sarit came to power in the late 1950s, in line with the ideological recovery of the monarchy pushed for by royalists he rehabilitated the monarchy, but dumped their apparent liberal aspirations. Few protested. Sarit’s assumed purpose in doing this was to use the monarchy as part of a strategy to provide the regime with traditional legitimacy. As described by Thak Chaloemtiarana, Sarit promoted the idea that democratic rule did not require elections, and principally involved government in the people’s interest. Questions of institutional form were relegated to matters of historical and cultural specificity. The focus was on order and development. We might see the Saritian formulation on democracy as a passing attempt to end elite conflict, buckle down on the growth of working-class and intellectual dissidence in the 1950s, and also to initiate an ideological catharsis, a purging of the Western liberalism that had informed constitutional governance in the post-1932 era (excluding the war years). In terms of the resurgence of monarchical mythology, this may have been partly motivated by Sarit’s own attempt to chew fat from the substantial bone of that institution’s charisma (barami), by projecting himself in the image of a grand fatherly figure (pho khun). However, as Thak notes, it would be wrong to see this as merely a retrogressive ideological step, for in harnessing royalist themes and rearticulating democracy in authoritarian terms, Sarit was seeking a more stable path to modernization.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, then, notions of Thai-style democracy (prachathipatai baep thai) emerged as a basic component of Thai military and bureaucratic ideology. Under Sarit a deliberate shift away from a ‘Western’ ideology of democratic government occurred, making redundant the use of the citizens’ manuals. Sarit’s international spokesperson, Thanet Khoman, explained:
the fundamental cause of our political instability in the past lies in the sudden transplantation of alien institutions on to our soil without careful preparation, and if we look at our national history, we can very well see that this country works better and prospers under an authority, not a tyrannical authority, but a unifying authority.


It was with this thinking in mind that Sarit’s government, having overthrown an elected government in 1958, announced:

The Revolutionary Council wishes to make the country a democracy…[which]…would be appropriate to the special characteristics and realities of the Thai. It will build a democracy, a Thai way of democracy.


In line with this thinking, parliament was abolished and an appointed assembly came into being. Despite Sarit’s death in 1963, his successors continued to describe the regime as working within the confines of Thai-style democracy. The book Thai-style Democracy and Ideas about the Constitution, containing radio broadcast transcripts, may be considered representative of this stream of thought.


While pre-Sarit [democracy] manuals had described democracy in terms familiar to the structure of Western democracies, these broadcasts reflect the transformation of political thinking associated with the Saritian regime. The broadcasts were essentially an attempt to cohere the legacy of Sarit. In the opening broadcast listeners are informed of the need for the new constitution, then being drafted, to be appropriate to Thailand: ‘The constitution that we need must be a democratic one and one that is appropriate to the condition of the Thai people.’ The broadcaster goes on to attack intellectuals who think democracy must have English or American characteristics. Attacking an emphasis on the institutional forms of democracy, it is argued that ‘Thailand at this moment does not have elections and no permanent constitution, but we are a democracy’. This claim is justified by arguing that a system that maintains the people’s interests and responds to their needs and which is able to ‘gather and use the people’s opinions’ is the true essence of ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’. Depending on the circumstances, it is said, there are many forms that can fit this essential meaning of democracy. Drawing on royalist discourse, significant claims are made for the Thai past that includes identifying the king’s abidance by the ten virtues as an implicit social contract to serve the people. Readers are also informed that King Prachatipok (1923–35) had always intended to grant a constitution, but the premature actions of the People’s Party overtook him. However, the text goes on to bemoan that this promising start to democracy was wasted for two reasons. First, Pridi’s ‘ultra-left’ economic plans generated great conflict. Second, because some leaders of the People’s Party had been educated in Western Europe they tried to use a Western constitution which did not match Thai realities.


Interestingly, the common argument that the difficulty of establishing democracy in Thailand lies in low levels of education is rejected. Thais are seen as having great democratic potential because ‘their generosity and love of freedom coupled with Buddhist training in disposition [obrombom nisai nai praphutsatsana]…becomes a sure basis for democracy’.


Furthermore, the broadcasts note that the Revolutionary Council proclaimed as one of its tasks building a Thai-style democracy, an important element of which would be the reform of relationship between parliament and the Cabinet, following Charles de Gaulle’s reforms in France. Strangely, then, this exposition of Thai-style democracy identifies a continuity with Gaullist practice; that is, a Western referent underlies and justifies the ‘unique’ nature of Thai democracy. In later broadcasts Thai-style democracy is seen as part of a legitimate international trend in underdeveloped countries which reject excessive parliamentary democracy and place restrictions on political parties. The rationale for strong executive rule and limits on freedoms and rights in countries with fragile social and economic roots proceeds:


if we allow unlimited political struggle it will become a struggle without order and discipline [mai mi rabiapwinai], and when anarchy [anathipatai] emerges it will present dictators with an opportunity to seize power.


Thus, for the sake of political stability, the parliamentary system is disavowed, although with qualifications:


it is not yet possible to use parliamentary democracy or Western European democracy. In the future, once the country has developed and has economic and social stability, it is possible that parliamentary democracy be used; the evolution of world democracy has been thus.

Conclusion
The propagation of Thai-style democracy was an attempt to end perennial questions of political legitimacy by tapping into traditional rationalities of rule, but which left open the road to the development of a democratic people, once economic questions had been addressed and a middle class had come into being.
By suppressing the institutional elements of ‘Western’ democracy and then salvaging Thainess as a resource for a distinctive form of democracy facilitative of political stability and economic growth, Sarit’s regime was in a position to bring to centre-stage the discourse of development as its source of legitimacy. Economic development and its prerequisites were elevated as regime requirements and outcomes.
Sarit’s suppression of elements of liberal democracy had its ideological antecedents not simply in royalist myth but also in the notion of ‘public opinion’ deployed by Phibun. As Thailand shifted to a new consolidated state form—emergent in its relationship with the US—which brought security to the state and a degree of market openness to the economy, the tensions of Thai-style democracy as a basis for government were soon to be felt. Within a few short years the regime would begin embracing political developmental notions of democracy and fusing them with elements of Thai-style democracy. The shift back to the requirement for rational citizens, not dependent subjects of benevolent regimes that Thai-style democracy implied, would be gradual and contradictory, but it formed the only basis on which the modern state of Thailand was able to discursively interact with and mobilize its subjects as active participants.

From Chapter 5
Delayed liberalism, the general will
The doctrine entrenched


Freedom with chains: military responses to communism and parliamentary democracy


By the late 1970s and early 1980s the military began to respond creatively to both communist insurgency and the rise of parliamentary democracy. In response to the increasing liberalization of the 1980s, military leaders asserted the role of the military as guiding Thailand towards a democracy answerable to people’s economic, social and political needs. Throughout the 1980s the idea of military leadership in the political affairs of the nation was a potent one, influencing also LAD’s democratic practice. Essentially, the military argued that the only effective response to communism was the establishment of a democracy. They envisaged not a capitalist democracy—and indeed they were critical of Thai political parties as being the embodiment of this—but rather what might be called a neo-Thai-style democracy.

Chalermkiat Phiu-nuan, in a scholarly study on the general approach to democracy taken by military democrats, provides an insightful analysis. Chalermkiat concludes, unsurprisingly, that Thai-style democracy discourse is an attempt to create political legitimacy for the military by the harnessing of tradition. What makes his argument compelling is the similarities he notes between Thai-style democracy and the cosmological worldview laid down in the fourteenth-century Thai Buddhist tract The Three Worlds Cosmology of Phra Ruang. This theme is also explored by Peter Jackson, who argues for the relevance of this work in contemporary Thai Buddhist discourse. The Three Worlds, according to Jackson, presents ‘a hierarchical view of the cosmic order which provided a model for the socio-political hierarchy of medieval ‘Thai society’. In this model, just as gods and deities were hierarchically ordered in the heavens because of their relative merit, so too, on earth, were humans. Hierarchy was divinely sanctioned. For Chalermkiat, the significant point is that monarchical rule, in The Three Worlds, was seen as bringing order to this hierarchicized, but chaotic karmic whole; it is this theme, he argues, that entirely informs Thai-style democracy discourse. For Chalermkiat, the nationalism of Thai democratic discourse, the inculcation of Thainess as a series of moral values conducive to social stability, and the construction of reverence around the monarchy, are all part of the religious belief in the reciprocity of individuals and their circumstances. In Buddhist mythology, a powerful, charismatic leader forebodes well for each individual’s karmic wellbeing. The stability and wellbeing of the social order was seen as an outcome of the great merit of the king. It is as if in modern times, Chalermkiat suggests, this sacred function has shifted from the monarch to the nation itself which, in statist discourse, is identified with the state. The state now assumes the function of its people’s spiritual and material well-being. In this worldview, Chalermkiat notes, politics is more than just a game of interests—the mundane regulations of the liberal political market; politics, as ownership of the state, is a way of reaching the sacred which, in the contemporary period, is translated as the wellbeing of the nation-state and its security. This sacredness is embodied in concrete rituals of nationalism which give this sacredness tangible meaning. Officially, all military actions, he suggests, are publicly related to the sacred mission of ensuring the wellbeing of the realm: the foundation of a good state for the military must be security. On this, he notes that the conflation of state and nation leads to greater value being given to nation-state security over people and their own rights and freedoms. The state becomes an end in itself: a ‘security state’.

In this frame, military intellectuals argue that a democracy appropriate to Thai circumstances will benefit the wellbeing of the nation. Thai-style democracy, then, for Chalermkiat, provides a rationale for the state (its military-bureaucratic aspect); it serves the function of connecting the discourse of security with the necessary political structures of an illiberal democracy seemingly appropriate to the people and their culture. Its unconscious cosmological structure is that which gives it cultural and historical continuity. Sections of the military would mobilize this cosmological structure in order to combat communism, and to counteract the emergence of parliamentary democracy. In what follows below, we look at the manner in which the military sought to emerge as leaders of a national democracy in the 1980s.

Part of the military’s response to the civil war with the CPT was also to publicly recognize the genuine nature of the insurgency. While previously communists had been characterized as ‘un-Thai’ and as having only external support, it was now recognized that they gained support because of economic, social and political injustices. Asa Meksawan, a state official, summed up the new thinking somewhat ineloquently: ‘I think in the struggle against communists we should not think of killing them, because they are also Thai, rather let them come back and be Thai people.’ In their joint study, Chai-Anan Samudavanija, Kusama Snitwongse and Suchit Bunbongkarn argue that the failure to win militarily against the CPT led to the formation of a political strategy to defeat communism, among a grouping known as the ‘Democratic Soldiers’. This grouping was centred around the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC—the anti-communist military intelligence unit) and under the influence of Prasert Sapsunthun, an ex-member of the CPT who had been an influential statist intellectual during the 1960s and had been active within Thai psychological warfare and counter-insurgency circles. Disillusioned with military counter-insurgency, the Democratic Soldiers had been anonymously publishing a series of declarations for some time before the Prem government took up their approach of waging a political struggle against communism

In one announcement, the Democratic Soldiers attacked the constitutionalism of all previous regimes as pointless: ‘If we wish to have a democratic regime we must create democracy and then a democratic constitution can follow.’ They argued that cooperation between the military and the people in developing the economic and social systems would provide the basis of democracy. In April 1980, when the Prem government announced its new strategy to fight communism, tensions heightened in the conflicted Thai establishment; the strategy pointed to a long-term expansionary role for the military in economic, social and political development at a time when liberal forces were seeking a containment of the military.
In Order 66/1980 (66/2523) the government stated its determination to protect the three pillars and ‘the democratic form of government with the king as head of state’. By using political means to defeat communism, the order stated that it would be possible to preserve Thai national identity, uphold the principle of seeking just and peaceful resolutions to economic and political problems, and to ‘inculcate all Thais to uphold the above ideology, especially regarding the sacrifice of private interest for the common interest’. The authors argued that a political offensive was necessary in order to defeat the communists; a political offensive was defined as ‘any action that results in the people recognizing that this land is theirs to protect and preserve’.

In a further announcement in March 1981, a ‘political offensive’ is defined as ‘destroying or eliminating military or political conditions which benefit the CPT’. Moreover, a political offensive involved
destroying dictatorial power and local and national level [dark] influence, to make sovereignty truly the people’s, to give people individual freedom, that is true Thai-style democracy, which is democracy with the king as head of state.
In a later announcement on a ‘Plan for a Political Offensive’, the role of state officials in developing democracy is made clear:

The personnel who will be the main instrument in creating democracy in the first period will be government officials, and people with democratic ideology, who will join together to create a democracy which will be an example for the further development of democracy in our country.

In effect, this was the idea of developing and extending existing local defence units as mass political organizations led by the military. Efforts were made to mobilize Border Defence Volunteers for such a purpose.

In 1983 the Internal Security Operations Command, under Prasert’s influence, issued a blueprint for national reform which was strongly resisted by some military factions for its apparent extremism relating to foreign policy and its neutralist stance on Cambodia and Afghanistan, and for its corporatist suggestion of ‘democratization’ by appointing people’s occupational representatives to the legislature. The blueprint was withdrawn, but not before an accompanying educational text had been widely distributed among soldiers and the bureaucracy. In that text, a chapter dealing with democracy clearly aligned the Democratic Soldiers with Sarit. However, in their presentation of democracy the concept of a social contract (sanya prachakhom) is used to define a relationship between people and representatives, thus moving them beyond Sarit’s ‘despotic paternalism’. Returning to a standard reference of democratic definitions in Thailand, the author (widely believed to be Prasert himself) notes that a government for the people is one in which the will of the people is paramount. However, it is explained that democracy is a system in which the people do not rule directly, but through representatives; the people’s will takes the form of a social contract to govern in the interests of the people.

In speaking of government ‘by’ the people, participation of the people is seen as occurring through either elected or appointed representatives. Indeed, the reader is informed that the king is one of the people’s representatives. Another instrument by which the people express themselves is through the military. In a contorted formula, actions by the military were seen as actions by the people:

When the military is the people’s it can do the people’s duty because the military, which has power, can use that power in place of the people. This means the people’s power is with the military itself.

Finally, government ‘for’ the people is simply explained as one in the interests of the majority of the people: ‘Democracyness must encompass “of” “by” and “for” the people if it is to be “perfect”.’

Following a criticism of the existing state of politics as a state of ‘parliamentary dictatorship’ (phetjakan ratthasupha), a Rousseauian argument for non-elective democracy according to the general will (jetthanarum thua pai) appears. But first, genuflections are made in the direction of freedom, equality of opportunity and the rule of law. The Rousseauian turn is the key to understanding the whole edifice of the democracy proposed; it provides the logic of ‘by the military’ described above. Following Rousseau’s argument about the state of nature being a free condition, the author argues that once people enter into society they then live under the general will of society. As he explains: ‘The general will is not the collection of individual wills, but is, rather, the will of people relating to their collective desires and interests. These collective wishes are sovereign.’ Should someone have a will that opposes the general will then that will is wrong:

society has the compelling power to make humans accept the general will and through this method society will make that person free. Therefore, freedom according to Rousseau is behaving according to the will of society and this is the basic principle of democracy.


In the light of this, an interpretation on the role of elections in democracy is offered: in short, it is stated that elections do not necessarily equal democracy: ‘If there is no election but there is the maintenance of the people’s interest…then this is a democratic government.’ While elections are seen as one element of democracy, it is explained that they are the least important, since they may be used democratically or dictatorially. Thai-style democracy, then, as a government in the collective interest, founds itself on the Western philosophy of a mythic social contract instantiated by the moral authority of those in power able to define the will of the people. However, if we follow Chalermkiat’s analysis, this was mediated at the deepest level by ‘unconscious’ efforts to reproduce the stabilizing role of a sacred centre at the heart of a chaotic whole, operationalized by the military, symbolized by the monarchy.

In neo-Thai-style democracy, a mixture of Western philosophy and Thai traditionalism provides a solution to the tension between rights and duties by conflating freedom with actions in accordance with the general will, as expressed in the institutions of monarchy and military. Almost Hegelian, these institutions are seen as containing the most advanced and collective ethos of the people.
In supporting the policies relating to a political struggle against communism, Prem was not necessarily buying into the Prasert position so described. More pragmatically, he was giving shape to an already existing current of thought and practice which provided a united framework in which to focus anti-communist efforts and with which to expand the military’s role in developmental terms. Nevertheless, some active military cadres were advocates of Prasert. Prem at times spoke as if he was a supporter of this line of thinking, stressing military leadership over other government bodies. However, his political pragmatism, and his balancing of interests between the bureaucracy and the capitalist parties, belied any principled stand in this regard.

The prime ministerial orders also provided the means by which to coordinate military psychological, security and development operations through the coordination of existing and new mass organizations, and intervention/infiltration in existing organizations. One such mass organization was the Reservists for National Security, which by 1988 was estimated to have had some 600,000 members. Many of these reservists were given training in democracy propagation, and were expected to provide assistance to villagers as well as to participate in other mass organizations and ensure that they were genuinely ‘democratic’ in terms of carrying out government policy. One project of the reservists was the Democracy Pavilions (sala prachathipatai) established in 1983. By 1990 they had spread to 600 subdistricts. Reservists were encouraged to spend time discussing politics with locals at the local community centre or gathering place, and were also encouraged to enter local government and propagate democratic ideology along development lines. The democracy pavilions were partly seen as a response to the crisis of human resource development in Thailand. As Chaiyasit Tanthayakun notes, the government thought reservists to be disciplined and loyal and thus attempted to mobilize them.
Despite the communist threat subsiding by the mid-1980s, Order 66/1980, and related orders, remained key documents in military thinking. Indeed, as Thailand entered its period of ‘full’ parliamentary democracy in 1988, the military announced on radio, on a number of occasions, the ongoing relevance of the orders:

The military must uphold Prime Ministers Office’s orders 66/2523 and 65/2525 which are correct policy. These policies are not just policies to defeat communists only but can be used as a policy to struggle against all incorrectnesses in the country, for helping the country develop and go towards democracy with the king as head of the nation…the struggle against incorrectness and social injustice, that is a struggle for the success of democracy itself.

Furthermore, as an influential figure behind the adoption of the order, General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh remained associated with the thinking of the Democratic Soldiers during his rise through the military ranks. Most famously in 1987 and 1988 he propagated Prasert’s idea of ‘democratic revolution’; although similar in effect to the orders we have looked at, this had a more sinister connotation because of the use of the word ‘revolution’. The speeches he made at this time were related to criticisms of political parties and their capitalist backers. Chavalit’s ideas were a confused mixture of economic and social reforms that would provide for the wellbeing of the people, and a democracy led by the military. Encouraged by Chavalit’s rhetorical imitation, in 1988 Prasert and followers held a meeting of their recently formed Revolutionary Council, calling on parliament to delegate all authority to it. Amidst a tense atmosphere of state enterprise industrial disputation, military attacks on capitalist politicians and coup rumours, Prasert explained that as his Revolutionary Council had representatives from all the regions and occupations, it was the only representative body in the nation and should be allowed to rule. Its policies were effectively a repeat of the Democratic Soldiers’ ideas. While attacked by Chavalit’s rivals in the military as seeking a presidential form of rule, and implicitly suggesting the desire to overthrow the monarchy, others saw the grouping as benign. Prasong Sunsuri, head of the National Security Council, for example, couldn’t quite understand the fuss about the call for revolution: ‘It’s like when a father or mother tells their child to “revolutionize the house” and clean it up. This is not using any force.’


Chapter 6 Citizen King

Towards national ideology once more
Besides the military and the Local Administration Department (LAD), other elements in the universities, security apparatuses and government ministries were part of an attempt to re-ideologize Thai society after the trauma of 1973–6. Statists aimed to formulate elements of past national ideology into a coherent democratic ideology that could effectively respond to both the challenge of the popular movement and the rise of money-politics and parliamentary democracy in the centre. As they cautioned against communism and corruption, state agents deployed the motif of developing a genuine liberal democracy, appropriate to Thailand, and positioned themselves as guardians of the process. However, unlike LAD , whose democratic ideology was limited to disciplining its rural constituency while being increasingly truculent towards the urban political classes, the collection of intellectual forces gathered together in committees located in the Prime Minister’s Office were in a position to elaborate a comprehensive and historical ideology of ‘democracy with the king as head of state’, buffered by religious undertones and moral selfhood. Out of this collaboration between civilian, military and academics came the ideology of ‘democracy with the king as head of state’ in its fullest sense.

After the political crisis of 1976, a sustained effort at re-articulating Thai democracy emerged among the security apparatuses and culminated in the formation of the National Identity Board, within the Prime Minister’s Office. Like Order 66/1980, this development had its roots in the conflict with communism and the desperate need to re-hegemonize the social field, as well as restore state influence in the cultural field. As Craig Reynolds notes, attempts to promote culture and identity were rooted in the loss of prestige the state had suffered in the preceding years, thus ‘the concept of Thai identity, with its disarming ring of transcendence and permanence, has a specific history and conditions of existence’.

Indeed, the history of Thainess was continuous and consistent in the sense that Thai nationalism had begun as a modern enterprise well before the 1932 revolution. After the 1932 revolution, it was a constant theme of militaristic state propaganda, mixed with themes of Thai culture and race. Within these discourses, implicit notions of identity (ekkalak) lurked, and sometimes were overtly expressed. Increasingly, since the 1930s, national ideology has been put to work as a beguiling force aiming to moralize the social field, and dehistoricize the social conditions of life. The hope was that a hegemonic effect of moral unity and a perceived community of fate could be created. It was to the production of this effect that state ideologues aspired in the 1970s.

It was under the ‘specific history and conditions of existence’ of the post-1976 period that state actors collaborated to revive national ideology by a melding of Thai identity, the triad of nation, religion and monarchy, and adding democracy. While what resulted might appear as a cacophony of identity claims and reckless conflation of ideology/identity, state actors succeeded in constructing an elastic complex of Thai ideology/identity. This complex was attentive to both the strains inherent in developmental needs relating to change, and to the hegemonic needs for stabilizing the social field around Thainess. Responding to this task, the National Security Council (NSC), an inter-agency body within the Prime Minister’s Office, composed of senior military figures, high-ranking public servants and university officials, met to consider options. Their aim was ideological planning.

A study of documents circulating within the NSC confirms that the NIB was the outcome of long deliberations on the need for ideological rearticulation after the experience of rising communist insurgency. In 1976 an initial step was taken by setting up the Project to Promote Identity. As one university text in cultural studies puts it, the Thanin regime knew that defeating communism was not simply a military matter, but involved ideological measures to ‘create unity between the people in the nation…so that the people are of one heart’. Towards this end a new magazine was published from within the Prime Minister’s Office, called Thai Identity. In the editorial of the first issue, notice was made of the contaminating foreign influence in Thai culture. A call to arms was issued: ‘we must help each other to promote the strength of Thai identity to be greater and secure’. The magazine declared its fear that Thai culture was being eroded, and compared its own work to that of a dam: ‘developing the mind or culture is like building a dam, because our culture is being washed away’. The dam metaphor is a fitting one; it provided the magazine with its brief of control and containment of the foreign stormwaters deemed inappropriate.

Concerns such as these were not the property of minor official magazines. In 1976 the NSC was circulating a document on the development of national ideology. That document defines national ideology as ‘a system of thought that all people in the nation uphold in order to preserve and build the nation, and which each person aims to act towards together’. The discussion paper notes that ideology is something that can be created, changed and inculcated. Furthermore, it creates morale to fight against obstacles and enemies in pursuit of its realization. National ideology, the argument develops, should be broadened to encompass the dimensions of politics, economics and social psychology. The rationale for this was that existing ideology (nation, religion, king) is too distant from people (hangklai tua koen pai) and no longer ‘stimulates’ (raojai) the people. Fearing the consequences of rapid social change and the subsequent instability, the NSC foresaw continuing threats to national security as long as the people were ‘confused, anxious, and without a common standpoint’. In this state, the people were seen as vulnerable targets to an ‘opposition that has a rigid and stimulating ideology, which will hegemonize [kropngam lae nam khwamkhithen] the thinking of the people, before our side’.
In order to develop national ideology, the NSC argued that both negative and positive salient Thai values needed to be taken into account. These were listed as: love of freedom; loyalty towards the monarchy; respect of religion; dislike of violence; assimilation; coordination of interests; elevation of money, power and knowledge, seniority, generosity, forgiving, fun and risk-taking; belief in the supernatural; doing whatever one pleases; upholding of tradition and custom; a Buddhist contentedness; and an attitude supportive of non-interference in other people’s affairs.

Furthermore, any ideology to be effective needed to take account of the people’s needs. Thus a discussion of different occupational groupings follows. It is argued that a discussion of ‘occupational group’ needs will present clearer objectives as ‘Thai society does not have clear class divisions’. The groups discussed are farmers, merchants, entrepreneurs and bankers, workers, civil servants including the police and the military, and finally students.

What follows is a calculating picture of the conditions and aspirations of major socio-groupings in Thailand, and how these conditions are to be tied to the construction of an ideology enunciated by the watchful security state. Let this be clear: ideology was to be constructed as a response to people’s protests that had been monitored by the security state. To demonstrate this point, the following focuses on how the NSC considered ‘ideology’ needed to be responsive to the needs of various occupational groups, including farmers, who are said to compose 80 per cent of the population. The NSC sums up its understanding of farmers’ grievances and needs from recent protests, grouped into three categories: land and wellbeing, fair prices, and exploitation by capitalists.


Farmers have the following needs and interests:
Economic dimension
• a reasonable income
• a fair price for produce
• to possess their own land
• adjust methods of production to be more efficient
• cheaper basic consumer goods
• do not want exploitative capitalists, merchants or intermediaries
Social dimension
• safety in life and property
• better and equal social welfare from the state such as public health, public infrastructure and education
• uphold religion and the monarchy
• dislike violent and rapid social change
Political dimension
• do not wish to be involved in politics
• they need officials to appropriately give justice and care
• they need a political system which protects their economic and social interests and which preserves religious and monarchical institutions.


Similar mappings are made of the remaining social groups, marking their different interests, needs and capacities. As with farmers, the demands of workers, gleaned from over 973 protests, are categorized. The NSC notes that workers, 6 per cent of the population, have developed into groups and are conscious of their own interests. Workers’ needs and interests are listed as: fair wages and a reduction in wealth disparities between workers and employees; socially, welfare from employers, good working conditions, good relations with management and an ability to express their opinion, equal access to social welfare opportunity and equality, and the need to be accepted as an important class. Politically, workers were seen as needing a role in protecting their own interests, and, more generally, as wanting a political voice.
As for capitalists (merchants/bankers/businesspeople), 9 per cent of the population, it is noted that they pursue their economic interests, and require security and a stable political system to safeguard their interests. The civil service, comprising 5 per cent of the population, is treated as having its own specific interests:
This interest group…has power and an important role in leading and building society because the civil service is important in doing the work of the state and it is well educated. Its needs and interests are summarized as follows: an income appropriate to status, it seeks honor and support from society, and prefers gradual change.
Politically, they are said to need a government that follows ‘the democratic line’. Students are described as wanting to be the leaders in the struggle for economic and social equality. Furthermore they seek rapid change.

Although unstated, these readings of occupational groupings are informed not just by spying on demonstrations and recording grievances, but also by a typology of political culture. From descriptions of farmers purportedly with little interest in politics who seek comfort under the wings of a benevolent state, to politically conscious students, the research of political scientists was producing a comprehensive picture of the people-body so that it could be managed. This document served as the basis for discussions on the formation of a national ideology that could creatively respond to social group needs, but which could also unite these groups around a common national interest by expanding the existing contours of national ideology expressed in the triad. The conundrum was how to do this; with remarkable self-consciousness, state ideologists went to work on the problem.
By 1979 the NSC and Cabinet had accepted as a basic statement of national ideology a document submitted by the screening committee of the NSC, written in 1979 by Professors Kramol Thongthammachart and Sippamon Ketutat. This document follows closely the argument made in 1976 on the need to develop relevant national ideology which could be a reference point for action and common unity. The authors acknowledge that ideology can emerge ‘naturally’ by letting social institutions and forces influence members of society. However, they argue a case for setting down supervised measures for socio-political institutions to convey effectively, and in unity, ideology. The experience of modern political ideologies such as fascism and communism are cited as demonstrating the need to have unity, comprehensiveness and organizational capacity in order to successfully convey ideology.

The authors note that the NSC, in coordination with government agencies, had elaborated national ideology as follows:

Preserve the nation, defend independence and democracy, protect religion, treasure and preserve the monarchy, eliminate socio-economic disparities, eliminate suffering and nourish wellbeing, assimilate interests, maintain rights and freedoms, create unity and integrity, uphold the identity of and promote the decent culture of the Thai people.

The authors then note that the above ideology can be divided into two levels: national political ideology, and a practical approach to its realization. Political ideology is described as an approach to the political aspirations of the Thai people, which has the compelling power to defeat ideological currents that ‘do not correspond with the identity and disposition of the Thai people’.

Such a political ideology is described as:

Protection and preservation of the nation, symbolized by the monarchy, religion and Thai culture…a political, economic and social democracy that affirms the important principle that the interests of the community comes before any other, and the cooperation of all groups.

Addressing how this ideology might be realized meant using the methods of democracy, ‘consisting of rights and freedoms under the law which protects the interests of the majority’, to address social inequalities on the basis of ‘the cooperation of all classes that make up society’.

The paper goes on to argue the need to address the concrete grievances of the people and for national ideology to reflect such concerns. In closing, a series of recommendations is presented for the successful propagation of national ideology. These include setting up an organization of language and psychological experts who could simplify ideology into slogans, controlling the media to ensure it does not go against the principles of neutrality and service to the people, and nurturing ideologues to convey national ideology in all occupations, and the setting-up of a consultative committee to propose measures on the promotion of national ideology. Many of these recommendations were acted upon. Of particular note were workshops for radio broadcasters so that they could be effective communicators of ideology. In one such workshop the importance of national ideology was explained:

Ideology is an instrument of the national leaders, or a doctrine, to use with the masses in order to produce change in the required direction. National ideology should come from the national leaders so that it can be accepted in general.


These vigorous recommendations gestured to the past, when more strenuous effort was given to cultural and ideological propagation. Since the Sarit era, Yukthi Mukdawijit observes, such efforts had become lax and lacked organizational backup. The NSC was effectively recommending a return to more conscious and creative cultural propagation. It was time, some apparently thought, to move beyond the monotonous replaying of nationalist and royalist songs on the radio. Indeed, there was a feeling that the people remained untouched by official ideology, with one NIB notable suggesting that the real ideological triad in Thailand was the ‘ideology of three Ss’, saduak, sabai and sanuk (convenience, comfort and fun). The two documents discussed so far are fairly directive, and the intellectual framework behind them, while apparent, is not expounded.

Important in the formation of post-1976 national ideology is the political thought of Kramol Thongthammachart. Reputedly associated with the Praphat and Thanom regime in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kramol is a leading intellectual of modern statist democracy. His influence was consolidated in the 1980s when he became Minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office under Prem. In this position he was able to influence the ideological work of the regime through the National Identity Board, sitting as an executive member. In an article that sets the major themes for the 1980s, Kramol reveals his modernist development outlook and reveals the underlying frame to statist democratic thought. Kramol was a conscious ideologue, who saw his task in terms of conscious ideological production directed towards people having ideology on the ‘tip of the tongue’.

Working with a notion of ideology as the basis for a normative integration of national society, Kramol argues for a governing party to support ‘national ideology’ and to harness social and political institutions towards ideological ends. Citing as examples Indonesia, Burma and Malaysia, Kramol argues that in conflicted societies it is necessary to take different ideological strands and attempt to construct a national ideology. However, it is to the experience of China that Kramol looks: ‘China was able to use communism as an instrument in leading and mobilizing the people to work for society.’ The conditions for this success lay in the fact that the Chinese Communist Party was a mass party with members who persuaded the people to learn and act in accordance with the ideology. More generally, Kramol lays down six conditions for the effective functioning of a national ideology:

1 It must be a system of thought supported by the main social institutions, or which can be moulded into social philosophy.
2 It must be a system of thought that can explain the good things that society should preserve and the bad things that should be eliminated for the purpose of social justice and the common good.
3 It must be based on reason and science that is empirically provable.
4 It must be a system of thought that can point to the methods which people should uphold in order to lead society to an excellent condition.
5 It must be a system of thought which the leader practises continuously and which has good results for society, including being able to resist other ideologies.
6 It must be a system of thought which corresponds with the consciousness and needs of the majority.


Kramol goes on to argue that should a national ideology be successfully established the people would be united. This would help the people perceive their relationship to each other, a necessary process in the creation of common objectives. Such a state of normative integration would inspire action towards a more just society, as well as help members of society to see through the existing societal decadence. An ideologically motivated people could help a sluggish society develop, lead to rationally justified behaviour, and would assist the process of peaceful change. While Kramol follows the general argument that the triad has had a role in uniting the people, he expresses some disquiet because ‘the weak point of this ideology is its emphasis on only three institutions of Thai society’. He thus seeks to expand the ideological compass. For him, the problem was not simply that existing ideological propagation was unclear, it also failed to specify how solidarity with the three pillars could be expressed. Also, Kramol argues that the triad provides no incentive in terms of guaranteeing a better life, thus it is necessary
to expand the three pillars to have wide scope and to encompass approaches and methods to solve various problems of Thai society, even so far that the way of life can be thought of as expressing loyalty to the Nation, Religion and the Monarchy.
This is an important statement, for it provides a link between the three pillars and the ordinariness of everyday life and problems.

Rejecting currents in academia for a form of liberal socialism (seen as being unacceptable to Thai conservatives), Kramol sought to develop an ideology ‘that fits with the consciousness of the majority of Thais’. Extrapolating from the findings of an ISOC security-related research project, Kramol reports the people’s needs as fivefold:

• Treasure and preserve the nation, religion, the monarchy and the identity of Thainess.
• Develop and build political institutions for a secure democracy.
• Adjust the economic system towards a mixed economy which is just, efficient, and lets the people have a good life, and security of property and life.
• Elevate society and culture of the country so that the people have a simple life, are thrifty, diligent and have a high level of responsibility to society.
• Adjust the administration of the country so that it is a democracy that is clean, pure, just and truly serves the people.
In an attempt to simplify this fivefold schema, Kramol argues for the first point to be known as the ‘ideology of the tri-allegiance’ (udomkan trai pak) and the remaining four points to be named ‘the ideology of the four paths’ (udomkan jatumrak). The four paths were ways of ensuring the maintenance of the three pillars.


What is significant about Kramol’s article is the manner in which ideology is seen to be a matter of eloquently composing a formula that connects the lives and wellbeing of the people to the three pillars—such that the conduct of those lives is seen as contributing to the security of the triad, and the security of the triad contributes to the wellbeing of the people. This ideological reformation of people’s needs into state ideology would be a constant and aggrandizing practice of the state.

In 1978 General Kriengsak Chomanand, then Prime Minister, established a secret Committee to Promote National Security to respond to attacks on the ‘highest institutions’ of the land. This committee later took public shape as a Committee to Promote National Identity before being established as a formal office in 1980 when the many currents of thought among statist intellectuals had coalesced into a practical outcome, the establishment of the National Identity Board. The NIB was charged with considering policy, planning and the promotion of national identity, and the promotion of ‘knowledge and correct understanding of national institutions’.
Following its establishment, discussion continued on the question of what constituted national identity and ideology. Following Kramol, others argued the case for social justice, income distribution, economic reform and the need to address the shortfalls of the free market.

Thailand: Coup by Stealth or Something Else?

A pre-edit copy of piece that appears in Asia Sentinel (11 January, 2008).

Coup by stealth or something else
Michael Connors

Last week the international media was awash with stories of a ‘Thai stealth coup’. They portrayed the Council for National Security, the military grouping that deposed the care-taker government of Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006, as thwarting the formation of a government by the People’s Power Party (PPP) which won a plurality in the December 23 elections.

In news coverage and commentary, the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) was presented as a stooge of the Council of National Security (CNS). The Thaksin PR machine could not have hoped for more.

Various commentators, and the PPP itself, have claimed that the investigation of 83 cases of potential electoral irregularity, 65 by the PPP, is nothing more than an attempt to disenfranchise the Thai electorate by disqualifying PPP winners, thereby allowing an anti Thaksin Democrat Party-led coalition to be formed. They also point to the various cases that are currently working their way through the courts that may see PPP dissolved, just as its predecessor Thai Rak Thai (TRT) was in 2007. All of this, they claim, is in line with a ‘secret’ CNS four-step plan to eliminate Thaksin

The capitalist and political forces in PPP that showed little regard for the rule of law during the Thaksin period (2001-2006), now find themselves at the end of a very unpleasant stick; it is understandable that they should seek the very real protections offered by the rule of law.

Is the ECT a stooge?

The ECT is most likely being pressured to act in the interests of the coup group and its allies. It is also likely that it is being pushed to act in the interests of PPP. ECT Commissioner Sodsri Sattayatham said as much on Thai national television on 6 January, when she spoke of “being caught between two poles of power”. The ECT also has officials, as do most Thai state agencies, who will be trying to discharge their duties without fear or favour.

People with a short memory assume the current ECT commissioners were chosen by the CNS. The current commissioners were actually appointed to the ECT while Thaksin was acting as care-taker prime minister. In early September 2006, pro-Thaksin members of the care-taker Senate voted as a bloc to select the five commissioners from ten forwarded by the judiciary. The bloc-vote ensured that anti-Thaksin nominations for the ECT were eliminated.

For reasons that remain unclear, a day after the 19 September 2006 Coup d’etat the military endorsed the Senate selection of the ECT commissioners. One might surmise, rather generously, that the coup group acted thus because the ten nominees forwarded to the Senate by the judiciary were chosen in the shadow of the king’s appeal to judicial integrity, and thus they could be expected to act with caution and impartiality. Of course, in the conditions of post-coup Thailand such integrity is entirely contingent on a range of threats, beliefs, and professionalism.

Now, given this history, and the fact that the ECT is a conflicted organization in which there remain many Thaksin supporters, one might ask whether it is accurate to claim that it is an instrument of a ‘stealth coup’.

It may be preferable to see the situation in different terms. The coup remains a work in progress inasmuch as those who launched it still wield power. Its objectives are transparent (elimination of Thaksin) and are hardly advanced in a secretive mode. Consider for example that Samak Sundaravej, leader of the PPP, sought to pre-empt CNS machinations by declaring himself ready for government on the last day of 2007, claiming 254 seats. Yet the CNS remains in place as does its appointed government, and Samak has gone to ground. Whatever one thinks of the PPP and its spurious claim to represent the democrat will of the people, its claims of a plot against it surely have some substance.

But why should it be otherwise? In a war, one force uses the instruments open to its influence. From this perspective, it is indeed surprising that not more has been done to eliminate the Thaksin threat. In these circumstances it is obvious that the Council for National Security (CNS) might seek to influence the ECT. However, whether the CNS succeeds is a matter for empirical investigation.


Democracy?

Although the struggle between strategically relevant opposing forces in Thailand is presented through the idiom of democracy, the opposing forces are actually an inter-sectoral mix of business, bureaucracy, police, military and royalists who care little for genuine democracy. As these inter-sectoral forces fight for state control they do so in a partial “state of exception” whereby, for the most part, force determines outcomes rather than law, persuasion or a democratic mandate. This is actually the same situation that held in the later Thaksin years, although the balance of forces has reversed.

The acute state of Thai politics at this present time has little to do with democracy. An elite struggle that goes back at least a decade is manifest: a new brand of capitalism that seeks to break from the quasi-feudalistic hold of monarchy is in motion, but it is a force that dares not declare its name. Enlightened Thaksin forces want a bourgeois revolution against the current way the monarchy and networks surrounding it work, but they dare not declare their mission. These forces – a mix of the old left, old right, capitalists and technocrats - mobilise forces under a banner of right wing populism, including Buddhist chauvinism, but they have yet to elaborate any genuinely ideological position to challenge the force that thwarts their emergence. They are also hostile to liberal forms of democracy.


So where is the ‘left’ in all of this? Some serve the stealth bourgeois revolution of the pro-Thaksin forces. They are beholden to a version of objective history that pits “progressive capitalism” against quasi-feudalistic monarchy and aristocracy. They have been unrelenting in their claim of Thaksin’s democratic mandate, willing to ignore that democracy means so much more than a mark on a ballot paper. Such belief in the march of objective history has led to many historical calamities and it is not hard to see Thaksin as one of them. The killings of Tak Bai and the War on Drugs surely count as modern equivalents of the descent into governmental barbarism.


Others on the left and a range of political liberals have sought to use the monarchy as a buffer against the political authoritarianism represented by Thaksin. In doing so they have found comfort in myths about the monarchy, tradition and elite democratization. They have supported the use of extra-constitutional power to overthrow the Thaksin regime. Beholden to a subjectivist view of history (good versus evil), such forces are willing to turn a blind eye to the palace’s history, and its privileged economic position. They seek the return of ‘royal liberalism’, in which the monarchy stands as the supreme ombudsman, supporting the emergence of constitutional rule.


At this moment in time it appears that the contending fractions of the Thai elite are about to enter the final round of a long struggle. It remains to be seen if they will step back from the brink and instead embrace compromise. One thing, however, is certain: as long as contending elites fail to agree to any rules of the game and instead wage open political warfare for complete victory, Thailand’s chance of returning to some form of liberal democracy are slim.

Thailand: When the Dogs Howl

Dictatorship threatens to bury Thai democracy
Michael Connors
Canberra Times
May 4, 2007


IT'S NOT the kind of Thailand you will see in travel brochures advertising "Amazing Thailand", but even casual observers can sense the nation is on the edge of a political meltdown.
Last year, the world's longest serving monarch, 79-year-old King Bhumipol Adulyadej called it "the worst crisis in the world", referring to the political crisis that wracked Thailand. The then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was fighting for his political survival amid mass demonstrations, military machinations, charges of lese majeste, corruption, and abuses of human rights.

He lost.

In September Thaksin was overthrown in a coup and by year's end a military appointed government was in place.

A Constitutional Drafting Assembly was formed to draft Thailand's 18th constitution since 1932.

No one has great hopes the new constitution currently being drafted under the shadow of the military will solve the country's woes.

The fragility of constitutional rule in Thailand has as much to do with vested and conflicting interests between old and new wealth as it does with flawed constitutional design.

And this is why it is possible to speak of meltdown.

During Thaksin's five years in office the government was charged with policy corruption that benefited his private business interests at the expense of rivals. While prime minister, his family firm invested heavily in AirAsia to compete against the national carrier, Thai Airways. He won tax concessions on his media activities, and the Export-Import Bank of Thailand provided soft loans to the Burmese regime to contract Thaksin's satellite and telecommunications firms.

As Thaksin's cronyism intensified, different groupings of business interests began to mobilise against him. They rallied under the convenient, though not completely inaccurate, cry that Thaksin was challenging the power of the king.

The current military-backed Government is now moving against Thaksin's wealth, and thus his political power. Last week, Thaksin's children were ordered to return half a billion dollars to the tax office. As more cases of corruption come before the courts, pro-Thaksin forces in Thailand are mobilising protests against the Government while Thaksin, in exile, claims disinterest in politics.

Whether the crisis will end in compromise, or will be fought to the end, is unclear.

So what of the prospects of democracy in Thailand? The Government promises an election will be held at year's end under the newly-drafted constitution. But pro-democratic and some pro-Thaksin forces are calling for the constitution to be rejected.

A rejection could be interpreted as condemnation of the coup and support for Thaksin paving the way for his political comeback in some form. Others fear that should an election be held pro-Thaksin forces will win anyway.

That's why some people have given up on democracy all together, saying the rural masses in Thailand are not ready for it. Instead a mixed system that incorporates the people, the aristocracy, and the king should be devised until the masses are ready to act like democratic citizens.

Such criticism of the electoral process betrays aristocratic disdain for the masses; and it might suggest that one of South-East Asia's most liberal of democracies (from the 1980s-1990s) might be headed down the road of Singaporean guided-democracy.

The principal charge against the masses is that they sell their votes to opportunist and corrupt politicians for less than 1000 baht ($A40) and have no regard for public interest. They elect corrupt governments that plunder the public purse, so what's the point of democracy?

Thais have dubbed pre-election nights "the night the dogs howl" because vote-canvassers make late-night visits to those they have paid to ensure they vote appropriately. Their nocturnal meanderings stir sleeping dogs and whole villages wake up to the howling: an apt sound for an aching democracy.

The question of succession is another potential site of meltdown. There is no doubt that without the presence of the current king, who has immense moral power in Thailand, political order in the interests of the old elite will be hard to guarantee. And this is where the political divide on regime form among the Thai elites opens up as they decide on a form of right wing electoral populism as exercised by Thaksin or someone like him, or a guided-democracy under the tutelage of the old establishment. Between both, the promise of Thai liberalism appears to be diminished.

The third significant site of meltdown centres on the continuing insurgency in the Muslim-majority provinces in the south of Thailand. Thaksin's demise was supposed to bring an end to the daily killings by insurgents and para-military state apparatuses. It was believed his insensitive incompetence had fuelled the insurgency. Instead, the killings have intensified, and taken on a more sectarian nature between Buddhist and Muslim.

The current Government appears no more competent than Thaksin's in dealing with the crisis. The three thousand lives lost in the last three years of the insurgency may be small compared with what may soon come.

Looking at the bleak prospect of Thai politics in the coming year it is hard not to conclude that it is more than just the dogs who will be howling.