Elections without democracy

Dictator General Prayut has dissolved parliament and announced that there will be a General Election in Thailand. But there will not be a restoration of democracy.

Prayut starts off the “race” with his 250 appointed senators in his pocket. They are mainly soldiers and policemen or junta-friendly government officials. Together with the 500 elected members of Parliament, the 250 senators will choose the next Prime Minister. That means that Prayut only needs 126 out of the 500 elected MPs to carry on as Prime Minister.

The complicated rules for calculating the number of MPs each political party will have in parliament, are designed to be biased against Pua Thai and Move Forward Parties which oppose the military.

In the last General Election, the anti-military parties won more popular votes than the pro-military parties, but that had little effect on Prayut’s “victory”. During and after that election, two opposition parties were dissolved by the military appointed judges on weak pretexts. The same could happen this time round. ( bit.ly/3LMRrHz )

Pig-face Prawit

What is perhaps different with this election is that Generalissimo Prayut and General “Pig-Face” Prawit have fallen out over the spoils of the dictatorship. So Prayut has moved from Palang Pracharut Party to a new military party: Ruam Thai Sarng Chart Party (United Thai Nation Party). It is equally reactionary as Palang Pracharut Party and has been joined by a bunch of extreme royalists who persecute pro-democracy activists. It is likely to be Prayut’s vehicle to become Prime Minister again, although he is restricted by the Constitution to only holding the position for another 2 years. At the same time, “Pig-Face” Prawit’s health is not in good shape.

The votes for the military party last time round were not all due to ant-democratic manoeuvres. A significant number of middles class and small business people opted for the military. These are the people who were mobilised by the Yellow Shirts royalists to wreck the last democratic elections and help install the two military juntas that have held power since 2006.

In the coming election, none of the main political parties are proposing the basic democratic step of abolishing the draconian lèse-majesté law. This law is used by the military to defend its authoritarian policies, with the excuse that the military junta defends the monarchy and enjoys the support of the monarchy. So, to criticise the military or the monarchy is against the law. Many pro-democracy activists face numerous court cases and have been locked up using this law. Yet, it is not a symptom of the so-called “power” of the idiot King Wachiralongkorn. He enjoys the wealth and status of being King, but has absolutely no interest or understanding of politics and social issues, preferring to spend much time with his harem in Germany.

The use of the lèse-majesté law in Thailand is similar to the use of blasphemy laws in countries where governments claim legitimacy from a non-existent God. The main purpose is to defend authoritarianism and the elites from any criticism. Neither God, nor Wachiralongkorn have any real power in themselves.

There are many young activists in Thailand who are political prisoners, either in jail or awaiting trial on bail. Their only “crime” has been to criticise the military and the monarchy. Yet none of the mainstream parties propose their immediate release and the quashing of all charges.

The coming election will not result in a fairer, more equal society. Despite claims to by many mainstream parties to support a “Welfare State”, in practice they only support some government welfare; hardly the same thing. None propose a universal Welfare State funded through progressive taxation on the rich and the corporations. They are all in favour of neoliberal free-market policies. None of the mainstream parties are in favour of abolishing private hospitals and creating a new National Health Service, either.

The coming election will do nothing to solve the crisis of pollution and dust, which puts the lives of millions of Thai citizens at risk. This is discussed by the political parties, yet none are seriously considering a drastic reduction in private vehicles with substitution by electric public transport, or the strict control of construction. Serious measures aimed at reducing forest fires are not being proposed either. This would involve support for small farmers to stop burning and investment in fire-fighting in forest areas.

The issue of dust and pollution is linked to Climate Change. But none of the mainstream parties are proposing a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and a massive investment in renewables, especially solar power.

The money for these measures could come from drastically reducing the military budget and abolishing the lavish budget for the monarchy. Move Forward Party has mentioned reducing the military budget, but this does not go far enough.

Other serious issues which make the lives of millions of Thais a misery, such as low wages, long working hours, poor trade union rights, the unequal influence of large corporations over land use, poverty in rural areas, women’s abortion rights, the rights of migrants and the Thai State’s war and repression against Malay Muslims in Patani, will not be hot topics during the election campaign.

Added to all this is the depressing fact that the mass movement for democracy which exploded on to the streets in 2020 has now either been defeated, with the prosecution of hundreds of political prisoners, or the energy from that movement has been channelled into parliament and elections under the junta’s rules. ( bit.ly/4063O5P )

The only way to throw off the shackles of military rule is to rebuild of a pro-democracy mass-movement involving young people and the organised working class. In the past, young people have been very militant, but they never really focused on the working class and often they preferred small individualistic and symbolic actions over mass social movements. There are a small number of socialists in Thailand who understand this, but they are still too small in number to build a mass movement to bring about change.

Temporary Defeat

The youth movement for democracy against Generalissimo Prayut’s dictatorship in Thailand has been defeated and key leaders and activists are facing draconian charges which have long prison sentences attached to them.

This defeat has been clear for some time, and given the length of time that has passed since the last significant protest, we can say this with certainty. There are still small symbolic signs of resistance and recently there was a Red Shirt gathering to remember the massacre by soldiers under the command of Prayut and Abhisit in 2010, but this Red Shirt gathering was more commemorative than an aggressive protest against the state crimes. This does not, however, mean that the fight against the dictatorship cannot be revived in the future, but meanwhile we need to assess the reasons for this failure.

Firstly, we need to take a historical look at the present crisis of democracy in Thailand.

The political crisis and unrest which we have seen in Thailand since the 19^th September 2006 military coup against the elected Taksin Government, represents a class war between, on the one hand, the rich elites and the military, along with the conservative middle classes, and, on the other hand, the urban working class and rural poor, joined more recently by the new generation of young and progressive-minded youth. This class war has turned Thailand upside down and raised important political questions about the roles of many institutions.  

However, it is not a pure class war and those taking part have different aims and different concepts of Democracy. The class lines are not clear cut either. Twenty years ago, due to a vacuum on the Left since the collapse of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), millionaire and populist politician, Taksin Shinawat and his Thai Rak Thai Party, managed to inspire millions of ordinary Thais with many pro-poor policies. Later, after the 2006 coup, he provided leadership to the Red Shirt movement, Thailand’s largest pro-democracy social movement. More recently, ever since Generalissimo Prayut’s military coup against Yingluck’s elected government in 2014, other actors have appeared. Pro-business liberal tycoon Tanatorn Juangroongruangkit and his Future Forward Party, inspired many who saw Taksin as being too domineering and also making too many compromises with the elites. Later, the Future Forward Party was forced to metamorphose into the Move Forward Party after conservative judges dissolved the party.

In the last couple of years, a radical youth movement, independent of both Taksin and Tanatorn, emerged onto the streets and at its peak managed to mobilise tens of thousands of people against the dictatorship. This movement also “normalised” criticism of the Wachiralongkorn monarchy. [See my article “Youth-led movement challenges the junta and the monarchy” https://bit.ly/3OwebKy ]. But Prayut’s military government hit back with severe repression and the youth movement became isolated and eventually defeated.

For an overall historical view of the crisis, see my book “Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy” (2010).  http://bit.ly/1TdKKYs .

Since 2006 it has taken the military, and the other conservative elites, 13 years of manoeuvring between bloody repression, the use of military controlled courts, and fixed elections, in order to stabilise the present system of “Guided Democracy”, which we now see in Thailand. [For further reading see my article “Guided Democracy after the flawed 2019 Election: Continuing Junta, Elite Politics, Myths about Wachiralongkorn and the Need to Build Social Movements”  https://bit.ly/2Wm6bzI ]. 

One of the most significant weaknesses of the pro-democracy movement was the refusal to spread the struggle into the organised working class, which would have raised the potential for crippling political strikes against the dictatorship. This was the case with both the Red Shirts and the youth-led movement. Instead, the struggle merely alternated between street protests and parliamentary strategies, with any emphasis on parliament acting to demobilise the street protests. The parliamentary strategy was flawed from the start, given that the military was prepared to stage coups, and in later years, drew up an authoritarian constitution and electoral rules which guaranteed its power through fixed elections and the use of military appointed senators and judges. [For further reading see my articles “Rubber Ducks cannot defeat the military” https://bit.ly/3p3LlnI, “Warning signs for the Democracy Movement”  https://bit.ly/3KcwHEq and “Parliamentary manoeuvres cannot bring about democracy” https://bit.ly/3MmdpOw  ].

Another significant weakness for both the Red Shirts and the youth-led movement was the lack of a radical political party, dedicated to the building of a genuine grass-roots pro-democracy social movement. When looking at the entrenched power of the military and the elites, it is clear that some kind of political revolution is required to bring about democracy. Furthermore, a social revolution would be required to end the gross class exploitation and inequalities experienced by most ordinary Thais. Any mainstream liberal political party will not be up to this task.

Instead of building a revolutionary party, the Red Shirts were too dominated by the politics of Taksin’s political parties, the latest version being the Pua Thai Party. This brand of politics looked to make compromises with the elites and to tone down the level of struggle, channelling people towards elections.

When it came to the youth-led movement, they rejected the idea of political leadership, pretending that they were participating in a spontaneous movement. The “we are all leaders” strategy meant that it was difficult to have serious and democratic discussions about the way forward because no democratic structures existed within the movement which could encourage participation in decision making. The top protest leaders become de facto unelected leaders. This was not because they wished to be authoritarian, but it was an unintended result of the “we are all leaders” strategy. Instead, there could have been mass discussion meetings and elections of a united front leadership committee. The Thai movement was not unique here. The same problem occurred with Podemos in the Spanish State.

Initially the youth protests grew out of isolated symbolic protest groups. Experience forced these groups to start working together. But they were not interested in building a revolutionary party. While turning their backs on the likes of Taksin, in practice, they unconsciously appointed themselves as leaders with no sustainable structures for the movement. This autonomist model of organising meant that when the military-controlled state hit back with repression against the top leaders, the movement collapsed. There was no strategy for responding to state repression.

Naturally, and quite rightly, there were political debates within the youth movement. But there was no mechanism for forging these debates into a clear policy backed by the majority of activists. Tokenistic internet polls, which they sometimes carried out, were no substitute for mass meetings and open debates. There was great confusion about the nature of the tasks facing the democracy movement, with many leaning towards the conspiracy theory that Wachiralongkorn ruled Thailand as an “absolute monarchy”.  This meant not paying enough attention on the practicalities of how to crush the power of the military and the conservatives, when the military are clearly the major obstacle to democracy. Protests took on a symbolic nature against the “absolute monarchy” while having no clear strategy for moving towards a republic either. Activists vacillated between hoping that the military-dominated parliament might “reform” the monarchy and calling on organisations like the United Nations to step in. Not enough political theory was created, through debates, about the relationship between the military, the conservative elites and the monarchy. [See my article “Flawed theory about the King’s power: an excuse not to fight the military” https://bit.ly/3kaerRq ]

On a more positive note, the youth movement’s brave criticism of the monarchy broke a long-standing taboo, built on fear, concerning the criticism of the King. Of course, this came at a high price for the leaders, who now face lèse-majesté charges and long jail sentences. Another positive development, brought about by the youth movement, is the idea of self-activity from below and the idea that activists do not have to depend on rich tycoons as leaders. This also led to the growing interest in left-wing ideas among the new generation. Sometimes this has been channelled into dead-end ideas of anarchism, the most prominent being the creation of the anarcho-syndicalist organisation called the “Workers’ Movement”. This was thought to be a “short cut” to building political workers’ strikes. But in fact, the “Workers’ Movement” does not even function as a trade union, not bargaining with employers. It has become a diversion from working inside the existing trade union movement to build political activists and strike action. The one bright spark is the revival and moderate growth of the Socialist Workers group, with a small influx of youth members.

The pro-democracy movement is now experiencing a quiet period. But none of the problems that stimulated the past struggles have gone away. The hope is that future activists will learn from past failures and rebuild, as accumulated anger recharges the movement.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

No light at the end of the tunnel

2021 draws to a close with no light at the end of the tunnel for freedom and democracy in Thailand. Political activists, who have campaigned peacefully against the military junta, calling for democracy and reforms to the scandal-ridden monarchy, are still in jail, having been refused bail. Many more activists have serious court cases hanging over their heads. The pro-democracy movement is still fragmented and too weak to force out the junta, release all political prisoners and abolish or reform the monarchy. The draconian lèse-majesté law, which has been used against activists, is still enforced.

The state of Thai jails is dreadful. Severe over-crowding and degrading treatment are the order of the day and a recent news report highlighted the use of forced labour. [See https://tmsnrt.rs/3FswQSB ].

The struggle for democracy next door in Myanmar/Burma has taken a turn for the worse since activists decided to take up arms against the Burmese generals. Civil war in Myanmar/Burma has been going on for decades. Yet what can really shake the Burmese junta is mass protests and especially strikes. These have been tried to some extent, but not in any systematic manner. The non-cooperation campaign is not the same as a well organised general strike. The turn away from mass action towards armed struggle has deflated the mass movement, allowing for only a small number of armed combatants to participate in the fight against the generals. The Burmese army has hit back with brutal military actions, including torture, cold-blooded killing of civilians and bombing raids on villages.

Incredibly, Thai NGOs, stuck in their useless “lobby politics” have been calling on the Thai junta to protect civilian refugees from across the border. There are even some who call on the Thai junta to put pressure on the Burmese generals to return the country to democracy!! Anyone with any basic understanding of regional politics can see that the Thai and Burmese military are as thick as thieves, both with an interest in clinging on to authoritarian power by any means necessary.

The Thai junta, and previous civilian governments before them, have always had an appalling policy towards refugees. Those allowed into the country are often detained in prison camps and not allowed to earn a living or travel within the country. Generalissimo Prayut recently said that no permanent camps would be allowed for the recent refugees fleeing the violence of the Burmese military. That means forcing them back across the border at the earliest opportunity. Thailand often deports asylum seekers back to the country where they face danger.

Treatment of migrant workers in Thailand is hardly any better, with most denied any vaccines against Covid or any financial help when sacked by employers. Local people who cannot “prove” that they are “Thai” face huge bureaucratic hurdles and delays to becoming citizens. The government even uses DNA testing to somehow complete the process! Mass DNA testing of citizens in Patani is also routine oppressive government policy. For those who are stateless, not having citizenship means people have no access to any benefits, rights, or government help. The general level of nationalism and racism in Thai society helps to ensure that those showing solidarity with migrants and refugees remain a small minority. Thai nationalism has never had any progressive element; no historical roots in a national liberation struggle against colonial powers. It is 100% reactionary.

The situation in Myanmar/Burma is a lesson for Thai activists not to go down the road of armed struggle. The situation in the Thai parliament is another lesson for people not to place their hopes in the parliamentary process which is controlled by the military. The opposition Pua Thai and Move Forward MPs in parliament have been engaged in virtually useless manoeuvres which have not in any way reduced the power of the junta. The opposition parties are not even able to put forward significantly radical policies, which would benefit most ordinary people to win over those who still vote for the military party. Such policies would include a welfare state, significant benefits for those made unemployed by Covid, huge investment in good quality, free or cheap, public transport and progressive housing, education and health policies. The opposition have forgotten why Thai Rak Thai won land slide victories at the polls. They are afraid of being “too radical” and angering the generals and the reactionaries.

anti-lèse-majesté protests

The Thai junta is doing next to nothing to reduce CO₂ emissions, which could easily be achieved by ramping up the use of solar power and other renewables, while closing down coal and gas power stations. There have been some protests by local communities against new power stations, but pro-democracy activists are yet to raise the question of the Climate Crisis.

Covid continues to be a serious threat in Thailand, especially after the emergence of Omicron. Yet, many people are having to choose between paying out large sums of money for injections or waiting months for free doses.

One small fragment of light at the end of the tunnel is that young people are now much more political, with a significant minority interested in socialist ideas and militancy.

There are also signs that “gig” or “platform” workers, such as motorbike delivery drivers, are now getting organised in unions.

In addition, the protests against the monarchy are having an effect on the legitimacy of both the monarchy and the military. But for serious steps towards freedom and democracy, a stronger mass movement needs to be built, with important input from the working class.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Lèse-majesté rears its ugly head

The military junta is throwing all its legal weapons at the pro-democracy youth leaders. It is now just over a year since Generalissimo Prayut announce that the government would start to use the lèse-majesté law law against protesters. This was after a brief two year period when the no one was charged under this law.

The human rights organisation “iLaw” reports that 156 people have since been accused of lèse-majesté, with prominent leaders facing multiple lèse-majesté charges. Student activist Parit Chiwarak (“Penguin”) faces 22 cases under this law, while the lawyer Arnon Nampa faces 14 cases.

Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak

Arnon Nampa

Other leaders being charged include student activist Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul and Ramkhamhaeng University student Panupong Jadnok. Many activists have spent time in jail or are still being detained. The junta’s Kangaroo courts have often refused bail. [See https://bit.ly/3r6hBun .]

Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul

Panupong Jadnok

The use of the lèse-majesté law this time round has been aimed at those demanding the reform of the scandal-ridden Monarchy, with many pro-democracy activists believing that loathsome King Wachiralongkorn has too much power. Recently, the junta’s Kangaroo Constitutional Court ruled that merely calling for the reform of the Monarchy is equivalent to “treason” or attempting to overthrow the state. The maximum sentence for this is the death penalty. Some protesters have also been charged with lèse-majesté for wearing crop-tops on protests, ridiculing the preferred dress style of Wachiralongkorn.

This repression against the protest leaders has resulted in a revival of calls for the abolition or reform of lèse-majesté. Such calls were raised by myself and others after the 2006 military coup, but the movement against the lèse-majesté law today is more wide-spread and has support of large numbers of young people. A recent on-line petition gathered over 200,000 signatures. People are also refusing to stand up for the King’s anthem in cinemas.

In many ways, the demand to reform the Monarchy is a real threat to the military junta and the Thai ruling class. It undermines the way that the military and the capitalist politicians have always used the weak Monarchy to justify their rule, claiming that they always act to defend the “sacred” Monarchy, when in fact they merely act to defend their own interests.

The so-called “power” of the king is manufactured by the military, and other members of the Thai ruling class, in order to create fear and also enforce the idea that people are not equal. It is equivalent to the way some regimes in the world claim that they rule according to God’s wishes. Neither Pumipon, nor his idiot son Wachiralongkorn have any real political power.

Those who claim that Wachiralongkorn is all powerful need to explain how this can be the case, given that he chooses to spend most of his time living with his harem in Germany. Is there an example anywhere in the world, now or in the past, where a powerful ruler can exercise his power while spending most of his life abroad? Tyrants are very wary of leaving the country where they rule for fear of being deposed while abroad. The idea that Wachiralongkorn has been increasing his power is parroted by some articles published by mainstream news outlets abroad.

The lèse-majesté law is an anti-democratic law. The way it is used in the courts, with cases held in secret, is also un-democratic. It cannot be reformed; it must be abolished. In fact, the parasitic and wasteful Monarchy, which is used to justify the destruction of democracy, cannot be reformed either. It is time to fight for a Republic. Many young people today would agree with this sentiment.

Unfortunately, the building of a powerful pro-democracy social movement to achieve these aims has still not been achieved. The protest movements are fragmented, with many just watching from the sides or merely hoping in vain that the opposition mainstream political parties can achieve reform in a parliament controlled by the military. A mass movement based among the working class is required so that strikes can bring down the military. Some young people understand this, but they are being led astray by Anarcho-Syndicalist ideas about building a “red” trade union: “The Workers’ Union”. Unfortunately, this Red Union is merely an Anarcho-Syndicalist movement made up of youth, it isn’t an affective trade union and, unlike a revolutionary party, it cannot place activists among existing unions in order to agitate among workers. This is a task that is being attempted by a small group of Marxists in Thailand at the moment.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Thailand needs a movement like in Hong Kong

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Thailand desperately needs an anti-dictatorship mass social movement like in Hong Kong. When I say “like Hong Kong” I don’t mean that it should be a carbon copy of the Hong Kong movement, but it needs to be a real mass movement aiming to clear away the Prayut parliamentary dictatorship and the legacy of military rule, including the military constitution and all the institutions set up by the junta.

It is now 3 months after the so-called elections and no new government has been set up. But this means very little since the junta are still in charge with Prayut as Prime Minister.

It does not take a genius to see that there is no freedom, democracy or justice in Thailand. Those who cannot see this, chose not to see it because they favour authoritarian rule.

The recent brutal attack on the pro-democracy activist Sirawit Seritiwat or “Ja New” and the continuing operations of military death squads in neighbouring countries, is one horrific aspect of the state of Thai politics. The fact that Generalissimo Prayut can come out and say recently that he doesn’t want to be forced to stage another coup, is another.

But what is lacking from many pro-democracy activists and politicians is a clear idea of how to bring down the junta. It is long past the time when people can still believe that the elections could change things. We all know that the constitution needs to be amended and the military reformed. But the question is how?

It is a pure pipe-dream to think that this can be done through a parliament which is a result of rigged elections. It shows a lack of responsibility to just say that the constitution or various junta laws need to be amended and scrapped and that the election laws need to be changed without saying how this can be done.

The “Long Coup” from 2006 to the present day, when elected governments were overthrown by the military and the judiciary, with the help of royalist protestors and much of the NGO movement, did not finish when Prayut held false elections earlier this year. We are now in a process of “parliamentary dictatorship”, planned and implemented by the junta. What is important to remember is that this long destruction of democracy was never carried out using an elected parliament, or by respecting the law and the constitution. It was carried out using the brute force of the military in tandem with mass mobilisations of reactionary, anti-democratic, social movements.

For this reason it should be clear that the opposition MPs in the present parliament cannot hope to make any significant changes. The illegitimate rules of the junta cannot be used to get rid of the illegitimate junta.

It is high time for a serious discussion about building a real pro-democracy social movement. Such a mass movement needs to be better than the red shirts that came before. It needs to be independent of establishment parties that seek to control and limit the struggle and it needs to be linked to youth and labour.

Hong Kong protest movement

It takes real people, meeting face to face, in order to build the networks necessary to construct this movement. The question is: are there enough activists on the ground to achieve this?

 

Further reading:  https://bit.ly/2RTlleU

Study of Thai military factionalism does not explain coup d’états

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

For years there have been people who have made it their job to study the minutiae of military factionalism with detailed explanations of which generals are allied to whom and from which military academy classes they graduated. Paul Chambers’ recent article in New Mandala is the latest example of this [see https://bit.ly/2O4ok2q ]. For years the Far Eastern Economic Review used to publish numerous speculative articles on this subject. With hindsight, they told us nothing of any substance about the nature of Thai politics and society.

Studying military factionalism goes hand in hand with an elite analysis of the gossip about the royal family. It entirely excluded the actions of millions of ordinary citizens.

In my 2010 book “Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy”, I wrote that…. “The military is split into squabbling factions which are often a law unto themselves. Those who engage in military watching are often over-obsessed by the various factions and their leaders, forgetting the actions of other societal players. The military factions are purely about self-interest. They are also linked to various retired soldiers, businessmen and politicians. No one is allowed to hold on to top military positions for long…. generals must take their turn at the feeding trough. The military has lucrative commercial interests in the media and in the state enterprises.” [See http://bit.ly/1TdKKYs ].

Military factionalism can only explain who ends up leading a coup, but not the fundamental reasons or causes of these coups.

Since 1958, none of the 6 successful military coups in Thailand can be explained by factionalism within the military. The 1971 self-coup by Field Marshall Tanom was intended to get rid of his parliamentary experiment. The 1976 coup was part of a general crack-down on the rising socialist movement and occurred at the same time as the brutal massacre at Thammasart University. The 1977 coup was staged in order to get rid of the ultra-right-wing Tanin government which had become a liability for the ruling class and was fuelling popular support for the Communist Party of Thailand. The 1991 coup against the elected Chartchai government was staged because the military feared that their influence was being eroded by politicians. The resulting junta was then overthrown one year later by a mass popular uprising.

What is extremely notable is that the last two coup d’états in 2006 and 2014 were only carried out when right-wing middle-class protesters went on to the streets to oppose elected governments. This tells us that the military must rely on some form of popular support among right-wing citizens in order to stage a coup. It means that they are mindful of public reaction. Both the 2006 and 2014 coup d’états cannot be explained by military factionalism or by the attitude of the monarchy. The two coups can only be explained by the long-running dispute between Taksin’s allies and the conservative elites, the background of which is the significant changes to the social and economic conditions of millions of citizens and their unmet political aspirations.

Now, I know that in 2006 I foolishly ruled out the possibility of a military coup against Taksin’s government, initially missing the fact that the reactionary mass movement of Yellow Shirts was demanding military intervention. Predictions in politics are risky things to do. But I am reasonably sure that the reason for any future coup will not be determined by military factionalism and that if it were to take place it would require a significant level of public support from conservatives.

The Prayut junta had 3 levels of action to maintain their power. The first plan was to get Prayut elected as Prime Minister with the support of the 250 military-appointed senators. The second plan was to restrict the actions of any elected government not headed by Prayut, using the powers of the 20 year National Strategy and various junta appointed bodies like the judiciary and the senate. The third and most desperate action would be another military coup if the election does not give them what they want. But the choice and outcome of any of these 3 actions would not merely be decided in Prayut’s military headquarters and even less so in Wachiralongkorn’s German palace. It will have a real dialectic relationship with the reaction of millions of ordinary Thais. For reasons that I have explained, it seems extremely unlikely that another military coup could take place without significant backing from a right-wing movement on the streets.

Finally, Wachiralongkorn is hardly the “Absolute Monarch” that some would have you believe. Such a tyrant is hardly going to choose to spend most of his life living abroad where he cannot hope to control events within Thailand.

In a recent opinion article in the Bangkok Post, Chulalongkorn University academic Thitinan Pongsudhirak wrote that the “army-backed junta now appears to be the most powerful force in Thailand above and beyond any other entity”. He went on to write that the symbiotic relationship between the military and the monarchy had changed from the Pumipon era. [See https://bit.ly/2VYq3cg ].

 

Monument Wars #2

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

In 2017 I wrote an article about “Monument Wars” after the disappearance of the metal plaque celebrating the 1932 revolution against the king. The latest casualty is the Lak-Si Democracy Monument, north of Bangkok, which commemorates the military victory against the Boworadet royalist rebellion one year after the revolution. This monument was removed at night, under the watchful eyes of soldiers, in late December. A democracy activist who took pictures of the removal on his phone had his phone confiscated for 24 hours by police.

The history of the crushing of the royalist rebellion shows why the royalists wish to destroy the monument. In 1932 Prince Boworadet assembled rebel soldiers at Korat ready to move down by train to attack Bangkok and restore the power of the monarchy. The royalists spread propaganda that the government, and especially Pridi Panomyong, were communists who wanted to establish a republic. The rebels planned to assassinate leaders of the People’s Party when they entered Bangkok.

As soon as news of the royalist rebellion reached Bangkok, many citizens volunteered to form an army to fight off the rebellion and defend the constitution. Military reservists started reporting for duty even though the government had not yet issued any orders to report. Civilians also volunteered to help the police in intelligence gathering about those involved with the royalist rebellion. Boy scouts reported for duty to help keep the peace in the capital city and they also played an important role in supplying government troops with ammunition and other essentials. Trade unionists were prominent in volunteering to fight against the rebellion. Workers from munitions factories, aircraft maintenance workers, Siam Cement workers, boatmen, taxi drivers and railway maintenance workers at the Makasan repair shop, all expressed enthusiasm to join the fight against the royalists. This fight ended in defeat for the royalists and forever ended their dreams of restoring the absolute monarchy. [See https://bit.ly/2uXDfAT ].

Historians have described the importance of monuments in modern day to day political struggles. This is part of what Gramsci would have called “the War of Position”. It is an ideological war between different sides or classes. The recent disappearance of the metal plaque celebrating the 1932 revolution and the removal of the Lak Si monument are part of this war.

The fact that these monuments were removed while leading members of the junta and various authorities all deny knowledge or responsibility, raises some interesting questions. Those who have questioned these acts have been harassed by the police and military.

A study of the works of Thai historians shows that the Democracy Monument, in the centre of Bangkok, is also part of the continuing Monument War. The Democracy Monument was in fact built by the military dictator Pibun in the 1930s as an anti-royalist monument. Pibun was a nationalist republican who favoured dictatorship over democracy. The monument was built in the middle of the “King’s Avenue”, a bit like giving the “middle finger” to the monarchy. It is worth visiting this monument to look at the modernist imagery which does not contain a single reference to the monarchy.

The Democracy Monument in Bangkok is interesting because it shows that through popular struggle the meaning of monuments can change. Ever since the days of the royalist dictator Sarit, who overthrew Pibun, Thai citizens have seen this monument as a symbol of democracy. So far no dictatorship has ever dared to demolish it because of the strength of the democratic ideology among Thai people.

When Sarit came to power, he promoted King Pumipon in order to give himself more legitimacy and power. He never had any intention of giving Pumipon any power and Pumipon was never powerful. We need to remember that “political power” is concrete. It determines social and economic policies and international relations. Neither Pumipon nor his idiot son have or have ever had this kind of power.

Conservatives have constantly tried to cover up and dismiss the history of the 1932 revolution. That is why most Thais probably have never heard of the 1932 plaque or the Lak-Si monument. That is also why the conservatives built the moment of the deposed king Rama 7 in front of the present parliament after the 6^th October bloodbath in 1976. It is like building a monument to King George in front of the US Congress!

In this Monument War, the progressives have fought back by building monuments to those who were killed by the military in 1973 and 1976. The latter monument is inside Thammasart University, which is also the location for a monument to Pridi Panomyong, founder of the People’s Party and a key leader of the 1932 revolution.

This is truly a “Monument War” in Thailand’s War of Position.

How to access my publications

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The Failure of Stalinist Ideology and the Communist Parties of Southeast Asia (1998). https://bit.ly/1OEfsJo 

Thailand: Class Struggle in an Era of Economic Crisis (1999).   http://bit.ly/2kPNX9E  Book about the Thai labour movement.

From the city, via the jungle, to defeat: the 6th Oct 1976 bloodbath and the C.P.T. http://bit.ly/1TKgv02   or   http://bit.ly/2d1iZbj

A Coup for the Rich (2007).  https://www.scribd.com/doc/41173616/Coup-For-the-Rich-by-Giles-Ji-Ungpakorn or http://bit.ly/2aE7zc6  Book written in response to the 2006 military coup.

Why have most Thai NGOs chosen to side with the conservative royalists, against democracy and the poor (2009).   http://bit.ly/1UpZbhh

Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy (2010).  http://bit.ly/1TdKKYs  Book written during the continued crisis of democracy.

Thai Spring? Structural roots of the Thai political crisis (2011). http://bit.ly/245WxhD

Lèse Majesté, the Monarchy, and the Military in Thailand (2011) http://bit.ly/1cLbFtr or http://bit.ly/2cexlW1

The Festering Sore: Thai State Crimes Go Unpunished (2012)   http://bit.ly/1qGYT9r

The Bloody Civil War in Patani (2013) http://bit.ly/2bemah3

The role of Thai Social Movements in Democratisation (2015). http://bit.ly/2aDzest

What led to the destruction of Thai democracy? (2016). http://bit.ly/2cmZkAa or http://bit.ly/2bSpoF2

Thai Military Re-adjusts its Relationship with the Monarchy (2017).  http://bit.ly/2xGDiSu Paper which looks at the role of the military and the monarchy after Pumipon. Also discusses the 20 year National Strategy for “Guided Democracy”.

 

Ignoring the roots of the Thai political crisis will not bring about democracy

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Today there are people who say we need to move forward and away from the past divisions between yellows and reds, as though the long lasting Thai crisis of democracy was just about people who wore different coloured shirts or merely a dispute between a few political personalities.

This is just political stupidity and intellectual bankruptcy. The crisis occurred, not because some people hated Taksin, but because of the underlying political differences based upon different visions about the future of Thai society. Class is also an important component.

In 2006 the military, the middle-classes, and the various sections of the conservative elites, set about to destroy democracy. Since 2006 there have been two military coups, a number of judicial coups and mass anti-democracy protests by royalist middle-class mobs, supported by the Democrat Party. Over a hundred pro-democracy activists have been shot down in cold blood by the military and Thai jails now hold more political prisoners than they have done for decades. How and why did this happen?

The Asian Economic crisis in 1997 was the spark that exposed the existing fault-lines in Thai society, and the actions of political actors in response to this, eventually led to a back-lash against democracy by the conservatives.

The main reason for the present Thai political crisis can be traced back to this 1997 economic crisis and the attempt by Taksin Shinawat to modernise Thai society and reduce inequality while relying on mass support for his policies at elections. These policies were also designed to benefit big business, increasing profits and competitiveness. Taksin called this a “dual track” strategy, using a mixture of neo-liberalism and “grass-roots Keynesianism”. Among this raft of policies was the first ever universal health care scheme.

Because the Democrat Party, and other elites, had ignored the plight of the poor during the crisis, while spending state finances in securing the savings for the rich and the middle-classes in failed banks, Taksin was able to say that his government would benefit everyone, not just the rich. Taksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party won the first post-1997 elections. The government was unique in being both popular and dynamic, with real policies, which were used to win the elections and were then implemented afterwards. Never-the-less, his government was not unique in the fact that it committed gross human rights abuses. Previously, the old parties had just bought votes without any policies. Taksin’s real policies reduced vote-buying and his overwhelming electoral base came to challenge the old way of conducting politics, eventually angering those who could not win the hearts and minds of the people.

The 1997 economic crisis exposed the material reality of the lives of most Thai citizens whose way of life had developed rapidly over many decades but which was in conflict with an unchanged and outdated “Superstructure”. This is the dynamic of conflict which was harnessed by Taksin.

It would be a mistake to see the present crisis as merely a dispute between two factions of the elite. It has another important dimension that cannot be ignored. We need to understand the role of the Red Shirts who had a “dialectical” relationship with their idol Taksin. There existed a kind of “parallel war” where thousands of ordinary Red Shirts struggled for democracy, dignity and social justice, while Taksin and his political allies waged a very different campaign to regain the political influence that they had enjoyed before the 2006 coup d’état.

The hypothesis that the present long-running unrest in Thailand was primarily caused by a “crisis of succession”, is a top-down view which assumes that the Thai monarch has real power and that it has been constantly intervening in politics. That is just not the case. The present junta is run by powerful generals who have used the monarchy as their tool.

It is simply banal to try to build some kind of political consensus in civil society by ignoring the root cause of the crisis just by bringing in new political faces who are not associated with Taksin’s team or the Democrat Party or the yellow shirts. This is the main idea behind the party of the “new generation”.

Without solving the real contradictions between lives of most Thai citizens whose way of life has developed rapidly over many decades and an unchanged, outdated and conservative “Superstructure”, Thai society cannot escape from a vicious cycle of crisis and coups. What is needed is concrete measures to modernise the country and to drastically decrease inequality between the poor majority and the rich elites.

For further reading on this subject see: http://bit.ly/2bSpoF2   or http://bit.ly/2cmZkAa

 

Junta implies country never ready for democracy

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Recently, General Chalermchai, head of the Thai army, told the media that the three Thai academics who objected to plain clothes soldiers and police attending the Thai Studies Conference to take notes and photograph people, should stop all political activities and stop all criticism of the junta. He claimed that the country was still in crisis and not ready for political activity.

A media outlet has been punished for calling the government a dictatorship and one of the few decent journalists faces prosecution for writing the truth.

Generalissimo Prayut added his putrid hot air comment to the discussion by saying that Thailand’s democracy had not developed properly “because Thai people had no morals”. Perhaps he was just talking about himself and his gang of anti-democratic criminals?

It has been revealed by the military that the student  Pai Daodin is now in jail because he was “stubborn” and refused to attend an “attitude changing session” in a military camp for the so-called “crime” of opposing the military coup. Of course the real criminals are those who staged the coup and now rule the country by dictatorship, denying all rights to Thai citizens. We need more stubborn citizens like Pai to rid us of this vile junta!

 

At the same time the junta has been trying to force prominent people to sign a “Civil Society Agreement” to abide by the junta’s twenty year plan for Guided Democracy. This is supposed to be part of the junta’s “reconciliation” strategy. It is more like reconciliation under duress.

No doubt part of this reconciliation strategy was to jail Red Shirt leader Jatuporn for a year for saying at a protest that former Prime Minister Abhisit had blood on his hands. Abhisit was Prime Minister in 2010 when his military appointed government ordered “live fire zones” to be set up in Bangkok in order to repress the peaceful Red Shirt protest which was calling for democratic elections. Ninety civilians were shot down during this military action. An official report revealed that the military had used 117,923 bullets against Red Shirts, 2120 of which were sniper bullets. The only military or police casualties were due to “friendly fire” from security forces. Abhisit’s deputy, Sutep, commented that the Red Shirts just “ran into the bullets”.

There is documentary evidence that the names of both Abhisit and Sutep appear on the government orders to use force to disperse the protests. Of course these orders would not have been possible with the agreement or even the prompting of the military.

So, yes, Abhisit and his government, and General Prayut, who was the top military man at the time, all have blood on their hands. They are murderers. Yet it is “illegal” to say this in public and the murderers remain free while democracy activists are in jail.

Pai Daodin, a student democracy activist from the north-east, has now been jailed for two and a half years while the royalists who used violence to disrupt elections enjoy freedom. The standards of justice in Thai courts is non-existent.

campaigning for Pai’s release

In general, the effect of being ruled by the present military junta is to destroy basic rights and stifle dissent at all levels of society. A recent seminar at Thammasart University, on the effect of 3 years of military rule on the people of the north-east, revealed that soldiers and local business mafia routinely collaborate to threaten villagers who are campaigning for land rights. Soldiers set up military camps in villagers and treat locals as enemies of the state.

Prominent pro-democracy journalist Pravit Rojanapruk has been accused of “sedition” for trying to speak the truth and TV journalists who interviewed passers by at Bangkok’s Victory Monument about the new proposed election legislation, were approached by military thugs demanding to photograph their ID cards. “We are in charge of this area”, they said, “and you need our permission.”

Even if elections are held next year, they will not be free and fair and any elected government will still have to conform to the diktats of the military.

Unrest and Opposition Over Military Rule: Thailand on the Brink ….

Bangkok resists the coup.

The 3 finger salute of the Thai anti-coup flash mobs today in Bangkok… It is probably adapted from Hunger Games (!) and some interpret it to mean Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

Photos: Facebook

 

Anti coup protesters chase away soldiers

Anti-coup protesters chase the army away at Victory Monument Bangkok today. Soldiers cower behind police and then run way….