First, Pua Thai Party did a grubby deal to form a government with Bhumjaithai Party (pronounced Poomjaithai). This party supported the military junta after the last bogus election of 2019 ,and previously, its leaders organised thugs to beat up the pro-democracy Red Shirts who were protesting against the military. But all this was no obstacle for the opportunist politicians in Pua Thai. Pua Thai have also come to agreements with other unsavoury parties that supported the military.
Finally, they did a deal with General Prayut’s party.
So this is the end product of the bogus elections and the military appointed senate. And Pua Thai are so desperate to get into government that they have slithered on their bellies to achieve this.
No doubt the grubby deal has the approval of former Prime Minister Taksin Shinawat, paving the way for his return to Thailand and his claim to get his millions back.
Many people mistakenly thought that by voting for Pua Thai they were voting for a pro-democracy, anti-military party. They will be disappointed. But they should have known better. Pua Thai has a history of doing grubby deals, including joining up with arch reactionary politician Samak Sundaravej at one point.
Pua Thai has announced that it would refuse even to reform the Lèse-majesté law.
Before the latest Pua Thai announcement, the military appointed senators blocked the Move Forward Party, which won the most votes, from forming a government.
It would seem that the hopes among young people of a parliamentary road to democracy and reducing the power of the military have proved worthless.
As I mentioned in my last post, the results of this election stem from the military constitution and election rules and were designed to maintain the influence of the anti-democratic conservatives and the military. Pua Thai has now stepped forward to be the front man for the military.
Before 2006, when Taksin Shinawat was Prime Minister and leader of the Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), he began to monopolise power in Thai society. The power of Taksin’s political machine came from the fact that TRT could win the hearts and minds of the electorate through genuine pro-poor policies. Taksin also built his popularity on the clever use of a combination of Government spending and the free market, in order to revive the economy at grass roots level after the 1997 recession. This political power was thus based upon the democratic process and backed up by Taksin’s wealth as a successful businessman. He used this power to try to consolidate the Prime Minister’s control over the army and the bureaucracy. Local political bosses found that their use of gangsters, illegal activities and money politics was being undercut by TRT’s direct links to the electorate through real policies. Many illegal underground activities were legalised and brought into the open. The Government waged a vicious and murderous war against small time drug dealers. Taksin is also responsible for the cold-blooded murder of Malay Muslims in the South.
What frightened the conservatives was that Taksin had firm mass support from the electorate. Conservative ideas could not challenge this strong political base at the polls. Many politicians faced the choice of either joining TRT or sinking into electoral oblivion. Others, including the generals and the middle classes, eventually turned to using a military coup to overthrow him in 2006.
The military and the conservatives tried to destroy his political base in the years after the 2006 coup. But it took military crack-downs against prodemocracy demonstrators, a number of elections, and the Prayut coup of 2014 before the military could succeed, 17 years later.
Taksin and the generals, are two sides of the same coin. They are royalists and reactionaries. Taksin is best mates with Cambodian tyrant Hun Sen and the Thai generals cuddle up to their counterparts in Burma.
The fact that Pua Thai has agreed to form a conservative coalition with a pro-military party is just what the military needed. They have broken Taksin’s political monopoly and his strong links with the rural poor. They have also managed, for the moment, to silence the radicalised youth. They can now claim that Thailand has a “functioning democracy” and most world leaders will nod their heads in agreement.
As always, the hope lies with the social movements, radicalised youth and the working class. But it will take time to rebuild a strong democracy movement which can cut down the power of the military and also get rid of the monarchy.
Giles Ji Ungpakorn
Taksin: from private jet to “prison” to luxury “hotel” …..and then home
Taksin landed in his private jet in Bangkok and was whisked away to spend a few hours in a special prison room. Then he was transferred to the Police Hospital. Suddenly he had developed unspecified illnesses. The Police Hospital private room where he was staying developed a “fault” with its air-conditioning, so he was free to be moved by his family to a luxury room in a private hospital. What a soap opera!!!
By late February 2024, Taksin had been “pardoned” and was released to his luxury home. A few days later, the Cambodian despot, HunSen, paid him a friendly visit.
Meanwhile Generalissimo Prayut appointed all the new heads of the military without waiting for the new Prime Minister. Good to make sure who will still be in charge…
The Move Forward Party Prime Ministerial candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, has been barred from standing as Prime Minister, despite the fact that his party won the most votes in the May General Elections. In the first round of voting, a majority of elected MPs voted for him, but most of the 250 military appointed senators frustrated his win and then went on the vote against his second attempt to stand in the vote a few days later.
Despite the internet-based conspiracy theorists claiming that this was ordered by king Wachiralongkorn, there is a much simpler and truthful explanation. In 2014 Generalissimo Prayut staged a military coup against the democratically elected Pua Thai government, headed by Yingluk Shinawat. That government was supported by exiled former Prime Minister Taksin Shinawat, who himself was overthrown by a coup in 2006. The 2014 coup was supported by reactionary middle-class protests. Learning from the experience of the 2006 coup and the subsequent election results which led to the return of parties supported by Taksin Shinawat, the military decided that this time they needed to fix any future elections in favour of themselves and their supporters in the conservative establishment.
The junta designed the so-called 20-year National Strategy and wrote the current constitution. This paved the way for the military to appoint 250 senators, who would sit with the 500 elected MPs to choose future Prime Ministers. Together with using military inspired election laws and military supported judges, any political parties which became a threat to the conservative establishment were dissolved and some politicians banned.
Such an election fix, to create a Military “Guided Democracy” was necessary because repression alone was not enough to stop people voting for anti-military parties. General Prayut and his thuggish friends had been responsible for the brutal bloody repression of Red Shirt pro-democracy demonstrators in 2010.
All this explains why the first elections after the Prayut coup of 2014, which were held in 2019, resulted in Prayut becoming Prime Minister, despite winning less of the popular vote than his anti-military rivals.
During Prayut’s period in power after the 2019 election, mass protests against the military erupted in 2020. This was a new movement led by students and young people and at its highest point it managed to pull a hundred thousand people on to the streets.
However, the leadership of the movement showed important weaknesses. They failed to create democratic structures, like mass assemblies, to give the movement rank and file strength and guidance. They tended to lead by ad-hock discussions among a small group of young people, mistakenly believing that students and young people were a “pure force”, unlike the old Red Shirt movement. Despite the fact that many former Red Shirts and people of working age supported the youth, there were barriers to their mass participation. They remained just “supporters”.
However, the greatest weakness was the failure to involve the organised working class. This was partly due to the ideology of the youth which down-played the strength of workers, but also due to the fact that they had no means by which they could link up and help organise workers to join the fight. This was also a weakness related to the very small size of organised militant socialists.
The youth protests started to weaken when the leaders could not think of ways to further develop the movement. Attempts at so-called alternative symbolic methods of street protests, such as the use of rubber ducks, copied from Hong Kong, were a failure. The state then went on the offensive by charging the youth leaders under the notorious lèse-majesté law because they dared to criticise the playboy king Wachiralongkorn. The law is designed to protect all the conservatives, especially the military, by associating any criticism or opposition to the military as an insult against the monarchy. The military protect and use the powerless monarchy and claim legitimacy from the institution (see previous posts on this site).
Tanatorn
As the protest movement dissipated, many young people turned towards placing their hopes in the parliamentary system, despite its being designed by the military. To many, it seemed like the best way out, given the circumstances. But it was a false hope. Many were drawn towards the Move Forward Party (formally called the Future Forward Party), which was the brain child of young businessman Tanatorn Juangroongruangkit and academic Piyabutr Saengkanokkul. Despite the party being a neo-liberal party of business, it tried to put on a progressive, anti-military face by promising to amend the lèse-majesté law and building links with a few union activists. Its other attraction was that it was not associated with Taksin Shinawat. The Move Forward Party is disliked by the conservative establishment and the military.
It would seem that after winning the most votes in the May 2023 elections, the hopes among young people of a parliamentary road to democracy and reducing the power of the military now lie in ruins.
Concentration on parliamentary elections encourages even the best politicians to make compromises and become opportunists. They shun the building of mass-movements and strikes, preferring to discuss parliamentary manoeuvres behind closed doors.
There are indications that the Pua Thai Party might now be prepared to make a grubby deal with the generals. Only time will tell. (See below).
Like in many countries, including Sudan and Egypt, for example, the way forward to abolishing the military dictatorship is to keep organising and strengthening mass, extra-parliamentary movements from below, paying special attention to the power of the working class. To do this more efficiently requires expanding the network and influence of revolutionary socialists instead of having false hopes in parties like Move Forward.
2nd August 2023 addition:
Pua Thai has just announced that it will try to form a government without Move Forward Party. It confirms that it totally supports the institution of the monarchy, which is “loved by all Thais” and is a “unifying institution”. It is strongly opposed to any changes in the lèse-majesté law. Pua Thai hopes that this will be enough for the senators not to oppose it.
Taksin Shinawat has announced that he will be returning to Thailand very soon. No doubt he has reached a deal with the conservatives. Pua Thai will also be engaging in grubby deals with political parties which supported the military.
None of this is any surprise. Taksin is, and always has been, a royalist.
Pua Thai, in the past, has tried unsuccessfully to do grubby deals concerning pardoning Taksin and the military murderers. That time it blew up in its face and led to Prayut’s coup.
Conclusion:
The military constitution and election rules, involving military appointed senators, continue to distort democracy.
Pua Thai has now become the front man for the military and the autocratic conservatives instead of General Prayut and his gang.
The way forward to build democracy is the strengthening mass, extra-parliamentary movements from below, paying special attention to the power of the working class.
Today , in the first round of voting in parliament, a majority of elected MPs in Thailand voted for Pita Limjaroenrat, from the Move Forward Party, to be Prime Minister. He gained 311 to 148 votes, with 40 abstentions. The elected parliament has 500 seats. Even when the military-appointed Senators were included, as stipulated by the constitution, he still won by 324 to 182 votes.
But there were 159 abstentions among the non-elected Senators. These were tactical abstentions to make sure Pita didn’t make the 375 votes required by the military constitution to become Prime Minister.
These tactical abstentions were a cowardly way that the 159 senators could oppose the will of the electorate without directly “appearing to” oppose Pita.
The neo-liberal Move Forward Party came top of the poll in May with 151 seats. Together with Taksin Shinawat’s Pua Thai Party—which led the military overthrown coalition government in 2014—the two anti-military parties had 292 seats in the 500-seat house of representatives. They have also managed to gain support from a number of small parties.
The two military-run parties only managed to scrape together 76 seats.
The military have most of the 250 appointed senators on their side.
The senate and the house of representatives sit together to choose the Prime Minister. This, together with other laws brought in by the military junta, is frustrating the democratic process.
The election process under the military constitution has been painfully slow and bureaucratic. Elections were held on 14th May 2023, yet it is only on the 13th July that the first vote could take place in parliament!!
The reactionary military appointed senators and their allies, used as their excuse to oppose the Move Forward Party, the fact that the party has indicated that it wants to carry out some weak reforms to the authoritarian Lèse-majesté law.
The law is designed to protect all the conservatives, especially the military, by associating any criticism with an insult against the monarchy.
The present Thai king is an obnoxious playboy who prefers to live with his harem in Germany.
The results of the Thai election are a slap in the face for the military junta. The generals have been in charge since they overthrew the democratically-elected government in 2014—despite officially relinquishing power in 2019.
Surprisingly, the neo-liberal Move Forward Party came top of the poll with 151 seats. Together with Taksin Shinawat’s Pua Thai Party—which led the overthrown coalition government in 2014—the two anti-military parties have 292 seats in the 500-seat house of representatives.
The two military-run parties only managed to scrape together 76 seats. But the final outcome of the election is by no means certain. The military have 250 of their appointed senators on their side.
The senate and the house of representatives sit together to choose the prime minister. This, together with other laws brought in by the military junta, can frustrate the democratic process.
Despite some commentators describing the Move Forward Party as “extreme” and “radical”, it is a business-led party. It has tried to co-opt some sections of the labour movement. It talks about reforming the military and building a “welfare state”, but is short on details.
Move Forward and Pua Thai are in favour of pro-corporate, free market policies. For example, there are no plans to abolish private hospitals and create a new national health service.
The mass movement for democracy, which exploded onto the streets in 2020, was defeated through mass repression. Its energy has been channelled into electoral support for the Move Forward party.
Even if Move Forward were to form a government, it would be constrained by Pua Thai’s conservatism. And its candidate for prime minister could be disqualified for holding some shares in a defunct media company. In the past, anti-military parties have been dissolved by military appointed judges and some politicians disqualified.
A few days after the election, Move Forward had talks with Korn Chatikavanij, leader of the Chart Pattana Kla Party, which supported the 2014 military coup. This is an early indication of how far Move Forward are prepared to compromise their anti-military position and any other policies. The party later backed away from a deal with Chart Pattana Kla Party and apologised to its supporters after a storm of criticism on social media.
Neither Move Forward nor Pua Thai are proposing the basic democratic step of abolishing the draconian lèse-majesté law. Move Forward did not even mention reforming it during a meeting to build a parliamentary coalition with some other pro-democracy parties. The military and reactionaries use the law—which clamps down on criticism of the monarchy—to defend themselves and their authoritarian policies.
Many pro-democracy activists face numerous court cases, have been locked up or are in exile abroad because of this law. None of the mainstream parties propose the immediate release of political prisoners.
The election will do nothing to solve the crisis of pollution and dust, which puts the lives of millions of Thai citizens at risk. No political parties are seriously considering a drastic reduction in private vehicles with a switch to electric public transport.
They don’t propose serious measures aimed at reducing forest fires, which also cause smoke and dust. 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. The money for these measures could come from the military budget and abolishing the lavish budget for the monarchy.
The free-market parties offer no solutions to low wages, long working hours or poor trade union rights. They will not solve poverty in rural areas, introduce abortion rights or break with the Thai state’s war and repression against Malay Muslims in Patani.
The election result is to be welcomed. But the only way to prevent another coup and win real change is to rebuild a pro-democracy, mass movement of young people and the organised working class. Such a movement could also put pressure on any non-military government to introduce more radical policies.
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 Partyto 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.
Finally we can see the end result of the March 2019 Thai election. As predicted, the junta and its servants have fixed it so that Generalissimo Prayut can continue to be Prime Minister, extending the life of the military junta under a veneer of “democracy”. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a system of “Guided Democracy under the Junta’s Jackboots”.
Generalissimo Prayut has taken a lesson from the brutal General Sisi of Egypt. He can now pretend to have been a “democratically elected Prime Minister”, despite the fact that he is not even an elected member of parliament.
Most of us could see this coming for years before the actual election was held.
From iLaw
Prayut’s first act was to stage a military coup, overthrowing a democratically elected government in 2014. Before and after the coup, Prayut’s team brutally suppressed opposition to his regime. The junta then set about designing their “Guided Democracy” system by drawing up the military Constitution, the 20 year National Strategy and the warped election rules. As the election approached, the junta used the Constitutional Court to dissolve one of Taksin’s parties. The junta appointed all 250 of its people to the Senate. It then delayed the count after the election. This allowed the Electoral Commission to take seats from the Future Forward Party and give them to a number of small parties which had won miniscule numbers of votes. This helped to reduce the number of anti-junta seats.
On 5th May, the entire senate obediently raised their hands for Prayut and together with pro-junta parties he was able to claim the post of Prime Minister. He had previously changed the rules so that an unelected figure could become Prime Minister and the Senate and Lower House would sit together to elect the Prime Minister.
This is despite the fact that anti-junta parties had won more popular votes and constituency parliamentary seats than the pro-junta parties. Generalissimo Prayut lost the election, but is now claiming to be a democratically elected leader. No doubt Western governments will use this fig-leaf to restore full and friendly relations with the Thai government and sell it more arms.
Needless to say, the idiotic and nasty King Wachiralongkorn had nothing to do with any of the plans for Guided Democracy or the outcome of this election. To claim that the King is behind all this is to divert attention from the real gangsters in the military. [See https://bit.ly/2EOjsNL ].
Democrat Party prostitutes itself to enter the government
As usual, the mis-named Democrat Party prostituted itself to enter the junta’s government. The party has never won an election and even lied to the electorate before this election that it would not support Prayut, but eventually it showed its true colours and got into bed with the bloody dictatorship. This is the second time that the party has loved up to the military. In 2010, it was part of a military installed regime that shot down a hundred pro-democracy demonstrators in cold blood.
Future Forward and Pua Thai Parties obsessed with playing by the rules
The leadership of the Future Forward and Pua Thai Parties remain obsessed with playing by the junta’s rules. Before the election they promised that merely voting in the junta’s election would result in the end of military rule and an end to the military’s Constitution. When they felt they had been treated unfairly they only resorted to the junta’s kangaroo courts. This strategy has reached a dead-end.
The leadership of the Future Forward and Pua Thai Parties threw away the golden opportunity to use the legitimacy of winning the popular vote to organise a broad-based social movement against the dictatorship. Even now they are refusing to consider building such a movement.
Lessons from Thailand and all over the world show that entrenched dictatorial regimes can only be overthrown by mass movements outside parliament. [See https://bit.ly/2aDzest ]. It will be up to grass-roots activists to build such a movement, independent from the politicians of mainstream parties. This is what I am advocating in my Thai language blog “Turn Left Thailand”.
After the Thai junta’s recent flawed elections, there are voices of pessimism being raised about the prospects of democracy in the country. Many raise the monarchy as a reason to explain why the pro-democracy side are “always” unsuccessful.
But they ignore the evidence about how little power is actually in the hands of King Wachiralongkorn and more importantly, they ignore Thai history.
Wachiralongkorn is a play-boy puppet of the military junta, who spends almost all of his time living in Germany. He has never expressed a view about politics and society. When he quoted his father, just before the election, to say that people should vote for “good” people, if it was supposed to encourage citizens to vote for the junta party, it did not work. A majority of people voted for anti-military parties and the proportion voting for pro-junta parties corresponded to the number of votes cast by middle-class yellow shirts in the 2011 election. [See https://bit.ly/2EOjsNL ].
The democratic space in Thailand, and in any other society, is never a fixed item. It expands and contracts in accordance with the level of struggle and public opinion. The democratic space in Thailand was expanded after the victories of mass social movements against the military in 1973 and 1992. Even in 2010, when the red shirts were gunned down in cold blood, the actions of the movement forced an election one year later, which Yingluk’s Pua Thai Party won in a landslide victory.
It is interesting to note that in 1991, King Pumipon came out and praised junta head Suchinda. One year later, a mass movement toppled Suchinda from power. So much for the influence of the monarchy!
Often, the voices of pessimism reflect mood swings, from wildly optimistic hopes that the junta and its legacy could be destroyed merely by putting a cross against pro-democracy parties on the ballot paper, and the realisation that this will not be nearly enough.
As I have written before, this is understandable and deep down people knew in their heart of hearts that a long struggle would be necessary to achieve democracy. People were just desperate to believe in an easier route.
But activists need to do better than this. They need to think about Antonio Gramsci’s motto on looking at politics. Gramsci proposed that we should have “pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will”.
In terms of current Thai politics this means that we should realise the real obstacles to building democracy. In a nutshell we are faced with a “Guided Democracy” system crafted by the military, which has created a 20 year National Strategy, a military appointed senate and judiciary, and a warped electoral process which favours the junta. The junta is also still using repression against activists.
We also need to realise that in the real world, the only power that can destroy the military’s hold on politics is a mass social movement aimed at expanding the democratic space. We need to see that such a movement, in the shape of the red shirts, was put into cold storage and destroyed by Taksin and his allies, in the mistaken hope that a grubby deal could be reached with the military. Finally, we need to take a hard look at the weak state of the pro-democracy movement since Prayut’s military coup in 2014. It has been fragmented and has concentrated on symbolic gestures by a small number of young activists.
This is the “pessimism of the intellect”.
But the “optimism of the will” means that after studying the reality of the Thai history of struggle, we can realise that a mass social movement can gradually be built and such movements have beaten the military in the past. But to be successful, lessons also need to be learnt from past mistakes such as allowing people like Taksin to have too much influence over the movement, failing to build the movement among students, young people and trade unions, and relying on static prolonged street encampments rather than individual days of protests and strikes.
The junta can be beaten, but only by building a mass movement guided by ideas grounded in reality which are a result of vigorous and democratic discussions within the movement.
In my previous post I wrote that: “Both in terms of the popular votes for and against the junta and the estimates of seats, Prayut has no legitimate democratic claim to form a government. But that may not stop him from muscling his way into government. He has already claimed the right to form a government because his party won most votes, ignoring the higher combined votes against the junta. Even if he does not install himself as Prime Minister, the military will still use every means possible stop a civilian government from functioning normally”.
The obvious conclusion from any study of the ebb and flow of class struggle in Thailand since 1932, is that progressive steps to increase the democratic space and to reduce inequality have always taken place in the context of previous victories or pressure from mass social movements. This is the kind of idea put forward by Rosa Luxemburg a century ago in her important pamphlet on “Reform or Revolution”.
An example of the importance of social movements is the consequences of the 1992 uprising against the military and the events after that. In 1991 the military staged a coup against an elected government which it feared would reduce its role in society. Resistance to the coup took a year to gather momentum, but in May 1992 a mass uprising in Bangkok braved deadly gunfire from the army and overthrew the junta. A key issue was that the junta head had appointed himself as Prime Minister after the 1992 elections. Many activists in this uprising had previously cut their teeth in the struggles of the 1970s.
Four years after this uprising, Thailand experienced a deep economic crisis. Activists pushed for a new, more democratic constitution, in the hope that the country could escape from the cycle of corruption, human rights abuses and military coups. There was also an increase in workers’ struggles and one factory was set alight by workers who had had their wages slashed as a result of the crisis. The new democratic constitution was only possible because of the victorious uprising against the military.
In the general election of January 2001, Taksin Shinawat’s Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) won a landslide victory. The election victory was in response to previous government policy under the Democrats, which had totally ignored the plight of the rural and urban poor during the crisis. TRT also made 3 important promises to the electorate. These were (1) a promise to introduce a Universal Health Care Scheme for all citizens, (2) a promise to provide a 1 million baht job creation loan to each village in order to stimulate economic activity and (3) a promise to introduce a debt moratorium for farmers. The policies of TRT arose from a number of factors such as the victory against the military in 1992 and the climate for reform, the 1997 economic crisis and its effects upon ordinary people and finally the influence of some ex-student activists from the 1970s within the party. The government delivered on all their promises which resulted in mass support for the party.
Eventually, there was a backlash from the conservative sections of the ruling class and most of the middle-classes. It is this conservative backlash that re-established the era of military rule with the coup in September in 2006. But the military were not confident enough to avoid holding elections one year later. However, they did manage to rewrite a more authoritarian version of the constitution beforehand. Taksin’s party won a majority in this election, but the government was overthrown by the conservative and military-backed judiciary. The military then installed a Democrat Party government. This military-backed authoritarian government was opposed by the Red Shirt movement, which became the largest pro-democracy social movement in Thai history. The Red Shirts were primarily a movement of small farmers and urban workers. [See: “The Role of Thai Social Movements in Democratisation” https://bit.ly/2aDzest ]
The military and the Democrat government responded to the rise of the Red Shirts with lethal violence against unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. Yet, pressure from the Red Shirts meant that elections were held in 2011 and Taksin’s Pua Thai Party won a landslide victory in these elections. Yingluk became Prime Minister. But her government was weak and operated under threats from the military and the conservative middle-classes, which eventually wrecked the 2014 elections. An important weakness of the Yingluk government was the fact that she refused to call on the Red Shirt movement to protect her government. Instead, Taksin and Yingluk preferred to make compromises with the military and the conservatives, which merely encouraged anti-democratic forces.
Despite the fact that the Red Shirt movement was a grass-roots social movement with many elements of self-activity, political leadership remained with Taksin and his allies. More progressive voices were too small to develop an independent leadership. This meant that Taksin was able to de-mobilise the movement after the election of the Yingluk government. This opened the door to the Prayut coup of 2014.
What all this means for the present situation in Thailand, after the 2019 election, is that only the pressure from a mass social movement can prevent the military from stealing the election or, in the event of a new government led by the Pua Thai or Future Forward parties, such a movement will be vital to ensure that the government can move forward to dismantle the legacy of the dictatorship. Already, the leadership of the Future Forward Party are facing lawsuits initiated by the military in order to weaken the opposition to the dictatorship. Parliamentary politics on its own cannot achieve this. If no movement is built, the legacy of the dictatorship will be extended far into the future.
It will take time a much discussion in order to build a new pro-democracy social movement because the leaders of the main anti-junta parties have not shown an interest in this. But a new movement can be built if people learn the lessons from the past.
The flawed election of March 2019 was conducted under undemocratic rules written by Prayut’s military junta. The junta built a “Guided Democracy” system under their control. Important elements of this consist of the “National 20 Year Strategy” and various junta-appointed bodies, including the Senate, the Electoral Commission and the Constitutional Court. Dictator Prayut has an in-built advantage due to his control of 250 military-appointed senators. This means that he can become Prime Minister if his military party, Palang Pracharut, is backed by votes from the Senate. Yet, Prayut and his party lost the popular vote to pro-democracy parties and had fewer elected seats.
The junta party did not win the popular vote, as claimed by the dictator himself, and echoed by the foreign media. We have to understand that the junta’s election rules resulted in fragmentation of political parties. This was a blatant anti-Taksin measure. In response, Taksin’s parties divided into two main parties, Pua Thai and Thai Raksa Chart, with a couple more minor parties like Pua Chart and Pracharchart. For this reason it is not valid to look at the number of votes won by just one party. A bigger picture of the popular vote for and against the regime needs to be viewed.
In the run up to the election, Prayut and his military junta remained in power. Pro-democracy civilian politicians were continually harassed and prevented from electioneering until the last minute, unlike the junta party.
The junta-appointed Electoral Commission and the Constitutional Court dissolved Thai Raksa Chart Party because it proposed Princess Ubonrut as candidate for Prime Minister. This was a major act of election rigging by the junta. Despite complaints to the Electoral Commission about the junta party’s mis-use of public funds and the fact that Prayut should have been ineligible to stand as a Prime Ministerial candidate because he was still a “State Official”, no action was taken. All this shows the blatant manipulation of the election by the junta.
The Electoral Commission faced a number of questions about how it conducted the vote. Vote counting suddenly stopped for 3 days for no reason in the early hours of 25th March, when 94% of the votes were counted. More questions also arose because there were 2 million supposedly “spoilt votes”. Many voting stations had dubious numbers of votes which did not tally with the number of people registered to vote, there was much confusion about seat numbers, and votes from New Zealand took a week to arrive and were deemed “invalid” by the Commission. To top it all the final tally of votes announced on 28th March was full of discrepancies. No wonder then, that huge numbers of citizens believe that there was widespread fraud. Never the less, it is unlikely that any blatant large scale ballot box stuffing took place.
The shambles over the election results was likely to be a combination of total incompetence by the Electoral Commission and minor fraud.
The commission claim that the final number of seats for each party would not be declared until May! This gives the Commission plenty of time to disqualify any candidates or parties opposed to the junta.
Despite the flawed nature of the election, the voting process provided an opportunity for citizens to express a vote of no confidence in the dictatorship by voting for Pua Thai, Pua Chart, Pracharchart, Future Forward and Seri Ruam Thai Parties. Even though the precise figures are problematic, the overall picture of the voting tally remained the same since 25th March. The pro-democracy side won the popular vote.
The majority of voters were not stupid. They knew in their heart of hearts that the junta had fixed the rules. Yet despite this, they wanted to optimistically dream that placing a cross against pro-democracy parties could destroy the junta. The alternative to this would be to accept that a long hard struggle against the junta would be necessary. This is understandable. But now people are waking up.
The junta party lost the popular vote
Pua Thai and Future Forward Party won 7.9 and 6.3 million votes, respectively. Their combined popular vote is therefore 14.2 million. If three other minor parties which are opposed to the junta are counted, the combined anti-junta vote stands at 15.9 million or 41.5%.
The junta’s party, Palang Pracharrut, won 8.4 million votes. Two parties which stated before the election that they would ally with the junta, Poomjai Thai and Sutep’s Ruam Palang Pracharchart Thai Parties won 3.7 million and 0.4 million votes, respectively, bringing the combined pro-junta vote to only 12.5 million or 32.6%.
The Democrat Party vote is not counted in the above combined pro-junta tally because before the election, their leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, declared that they would not support Prayut for Prime Minister.
The Democrat Party suffered a big defeat, gaining only 4 million votes, down from 11.4 million in the 2011 election. They failed to get a single seat in Bangkok. Sutep’s mafia-style grip on his home province in the south was also destroyed and his party performed abysmally.
The NGO-influenced Commoners’ party also performed badly, winning only five thousand votes.
Seats in the 500 seat elected parliament are split between 350 constituency seats and 150 party list seats. The allocation of “party list” seats under the junta’s rules is a ridiculously complicated affair, designed to weigh against large parties like Pua Thai. The numbers of party list seats will not be confirmed until May and can easily change. Estimates of total numbers of seats point to Pua Thai gaining 137 seats and Future Forward gaining 89 seats.
Seven parties, led by Pua Thai and Future Forward, announced on 27th March that they would try to form an anti-junta government. Other parties supporting this coalition include Pua Chart, Pracharchart, Seri Ruam Thai, Palang Buangchon Thai and the New Economics Parties. Together the combined number of anti-junta seats should be around 256, which is a majority of the lower house. However, The New Economics Party’s 6 seats may not be reliable and the number of seats may change.
The junta party was estimated to have 121 seats, lower than Pua Thai. Combined with Poomjai Thai and Sutep’s party, the combined pro-junta seats stand at around 179. But if the Democrats use their 56 seats to support the junta, breaking their manifesto promise, the total number of seats still only reaches 235. Yet, the junta is claiming that it has the “right” to form a government. They may also use the 250 military-appointed senators to claim a majority.
The political divisions in Thai society have not changed significantly
The turnout was 74.7% of the 51.2 million electorate. This is similar to the turn out in the 2011 election where the turnout was 75% of a smaller electorate of 46.9 million.
It looks like the anti-democratic middle-class, or former yellow shirts, switched to voting directly for the junta instead of the “junta-proxy” Democrats, which they had supported back in 2011. The 2011 election was held soon after the bloody crackdown against the red shirts by the military installed Democrat government. This switch in voting explains why the junta party did well. It cannot be described as a “surge in support” for dictatorship.
If we factor in the enlarged electorate since 2011, we can see that the number of votes for the junta party and the Democrat Party combined, was similar to the Democrat vote in 2011.
The Pua Thai votes dropped from 15.7 million in 2011 to 7.9 million in 2019. This reflected the fact that Pua Thai deliberately did not stand in all constituencies in order not to split the vote with its sister party Thai Raksa Chart. The latter was then disbanded by the Constitutional Court. The disbanding of the Thai Raksa Chart party may have caused confusion and may have helped increase votes for Poomjai Thai party from 1.3 to 3.7 million. This party was made up of some former Taksin-allied politicians who now support the junta. The electorate also had two main choices between large anti-junta parties: Pua Thai and Future Forward. This was not the case in 2011.
Banal statement by the King
Just before Election Day, Wachiralongkorn urged the Thai people to “vote for good people”. He could not even manage to come up with this banal statement on his own, having to quote one of his late father’s statements. Conspiracy theorists wet themselves with excitement, claiming that this was an intervention in the election on behalf of the military because the junta had spent years claiming to be good people. Of course, these claims were pure nonsense. Firstly, figures showed that no one who was opposed to the military took the slightest notice of this. The same goes for pro-junta voters. Secondly, this kind of banal statement is typical of the kind of thing that the Thai monarchy has always said. It is meaningless, neutral and open to anyone to interpret in any way they wish. In short, it was irrelevant to the election.
The crisis of democracy will not be resolved in parliament
Both in terms of the popular votes for and against the junta and the estimates of seats, Prayut has no legitimate democratic claim to form a government. But that may not stop him from muscling his way into government. He has already claimed the right to form a government because his party won most votes, ignoring the higher combined votes against the junta. Even if he does not install himself as Prime Minister, the military will still use every means possible stop a civilian government from functioning normally. As Taksin wrote recently in a New York Times article, whichever side forms a government there will be instability.
Only the pressure from a mass social movement can prevent the military from stealing the election or, in the event of a new government led by the Pua Thai and Future Forward parties, such a movement will be vital to ensure that the government can move forward to dismantle the legacy of the dictatorship. Parliamentary politics on its own cannot achieve this.
The recent incident where Taksin’s Thai Raksa Chart party nominated Princess Ubonrut as a candidate for Prime Minister, only to be rebuffed by King Wachiralongkorn, has caused a frenzy among elite and conspiracy theorists. Foreign journalists and academics have been desperately trying to pick over the entrails of the events to look for omens. This is reminiscent of the behaviour of oracles in ancient Rome or Greece. Articles in a whole range of media publications, ranging from the New York Times to the South China Morning Post have regurgitated this nonsense. Thai politics, in the eyes of these academics and Western journalists, is quintessentially different and exotic. The most striking aspect that these commentators wish to emphasise is the supposed “child-like” and “ineffectual” nature of ordinary people in regard to Thai politics. For them, only the juicy drama of the elites really matters.
This elitist attitude was emphasised to me by a debate I had on social media with a couple of expats working in Thailand. At least one works for a media company. They basically told me that Thais “cannot think for themselves because they are denied a decent education.”
Living in the racist expat bubble
This elitist view has a long history.
In the 1960s David Wilson wrote that the 1932 revolution was merely a dispute among the elites with little popular participation[1]. John Girling repeated this claim in his 1980s book[2]. This view was repeated by David Morell and Chai-anan Samudavanija[3]. Yet there is much research that shows the key involvement of ordinary people in this event.
The daddy of this right-wing elitist view was Fred Riggs, who claimed in the 1960s that Thailand was a “Bureaucratic Polity”, where politics was the exclusive preserve of the elites and totally immune from class struggle or participation from below[4]. This became the political science bible for many conservative Thai academics.
Political Science in Thailand, up to the early 1990s, was dominated by these right wing ideas from the USA. Most mainstream academics agreed with the Structural Functionalist School of democratization[5]. The main ideas were about building “stability” and “social norms”. The emphasis was on crafting democracy from above by enlightened academics. The “people” had to be “educated” to understand democracy. Organisations like the King Prachatipok Institute, named after Thailand’s last absolutist king, took it upon themselves to craft Thai Democracy and educate the people. Today, the Thai military junta and its supporters have maintained the need to “educate” Thai people in democracy!
Academic Thinapan Nakata wrote in 1987[6] that “Most Thais prefer use of absolute power. They are obedient and submissive.” My former boss at Chulalongkorn University, Suchit Bunbongkarn wrote in the same year that Thais have a “non-participatory political culture”[7]. His aristocratic colleague Prudhisan Jumbala also wrote that “Labour associations are all created at the impetus of the bureaucracy”[8]. I am not sure that Prudhisan had ever met an active Thai trade unionist!
In terms of how to relate to the Thai military regime, the views about democratisation among mainstream officials and politicians close to Western governments are heavily influenced by right-wing “comparative politics” theories associated with academics like Guillermo O’Donnell[9]. For these people, democratic transition is all about the behaviour of elite factions and how they manage a stable transition to so-called democracy. They are blind to and terrified of the prospect of mass movements of the working class and the poor rising up to overthrow authoritarian regimes.
This elitist narrative lives on. In his book The King Never Smiles[10], Paul Handley recycled the ideas of Fred Riggs by claiming that the entire political process in Thailand since the Second World War was determined by King Pumipon, claiming that Sarit was just Pumipon’s puppet. The exact opposite was the case[11]. Sarit and his military allies were responsible for promoting Pumipon and he was grateful and beholden to them. Handley also stated that ordinary Thai people, especially those living in the countryside, are blissfully ignorant of political events. He claimed that when Pumipon became king most Thais were uneducated, did not understand the concept of a modern state and were happy for the king to do everything for them. In fact Pumipon did very little and had no power. Handley also claimed that the 14th October 1973 uprising, when half a million students, workers and ordinary citizens drove out a military junta, was just the work of Pumipon and his advisors. Finally, Handley claimed that the 19th September 2006 coup against Taksin took place because the Palace and the military did not want Taksin to promote Wachiralongkorn as the next king over his sister Princess Sirintorn[12]. This final statement is rather ironic in the light of recent events.
Duncan McCargo sought to explain the war in Patani and the political crisis involving various coups against Taksin’s party by claiming that it was just an elite dispute between “network monarchy” and “network Taksin”[13]. The genuine sense of injustice felt by the Malay Muslim population of Patani or the activism of millions of Red Shirts was just written out of the plot.
In fact there is ample evidence that the crisis had deep-rooted structural causes and involved the building of the largest pro-democracy social movement in Thailand’s history. [See http://bit.ly/2bSpoF2 ]. There are also many accounts of how the struggles of ordinary people have shaped events throughout Thailand’s recent history. The writings by Katherine Bowie[14], Kevin Hewison[15], Somchai Pataratananun[16], Andrew Walker[17], Mary Beth Mills[18], and Bruce Missingham[19] come to mind. [See also https://bit.ly/2SyK7ok and http://bit.ly/1TdKKYs ].
trade union mobilisation
More recently the view that the elites monopolise Thai politics to the exclusion of ordinary citizens has been reproduced again by Andrew MacGregor Marshall[20]. Eugénie Mérieau’s analysis in her paper on the “Deep State”[21] also comes from this elite tradition. Most recently, after the events involving Ubonrut, Mérieau characterised the military junta as a military dictatorship under royal absolutist command. What is different for MacGregor Marshall and Mérieau is that unlike Riggs and the other right-wing writers, they genuinely wish to see an end to dictatorship and the building of democracy. However, their analysis is incorrect and an obstacle to this. [See https://bit.ly/2EOjsNL ].
Apart from totally ignoring the social movements, actions by ordinary citizens and the excitement among Thais generated by new political parties in the run up to the elections, the power of Wachiralongkorn is grossly exaggerated by MacGregor Marshall and Mérieau. [See https://bit.ly/2teiOzQ and https://bit.ly/2oppTvb ].
Power is not something which people can inherit in a passive manner. If Wachiralongkorn is now an “absolute monarch”, when did he rise to power by destroying his political opponents? Who was in charge during the 5 or 6 years when his father Pumipon was incapacitated and dying? Given that tyrants often get deposed when travelling abroad, why would Wachiralongkorn wish to spend most of his time living in Germany if he had ambitions to become an absolute ruler?
The nomination of Ubonrut by Taksin, was just a pathetic attempt to bargain with the military by claiming that he had a “sacred amulet” equal to the power of the military dictatorship. The power of Taksin’s sacred amulet was soon exposed to be nonsense within hours. [See https://bit.ly/2SHQrZW]. Taksin was using the princess, just like the military and the elites have used Pumipon in the past and are now using Wachiralongkorn. The elitist and conspiracy theorists totally ignored the fact that Taksin’s move had nothing to do with expanding and developing democracy, something which ordinary Thais have achieved in the past.
The real issues for most Thai citizens, as we approach Paryut’s flawed elections in a few days’ time, is how to dismantle the legacy of the military dictatorship and how to build a free and just society. No study of royal entrails will give any guidance for those seeking to carry out this immensely important task.
[1] David Wilson (1962) Politics in Thailand. Cornell University Press.
[2] John Girling (1981) Thailand. Society and politics. Cornell University Press, USA.
[3] David Morell & Chai-anan Samudavanija (1981) Political conflict in Thailand: reform, reaction and revolution. Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain.
[4] Fred Riggs (1966) Thailand. The modernisation of a Bureaucratic Polity. East West Press.
[5] Gabriel Almond & Bingham Powell (1966) Comparative Politics: a Developmental Approach. Little Brown, Boston. Gabriel Almond & Sidney Verba (1963) The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton University Press. Lucian Pye & Sidney Verba (1965) Political Culture and Political Development. Princeton University Press.
[6] Thinapan Nakata (1987) Political Culture: Problems of Development of Democracy. In Somsakdi Xuto (ed) Government and Politics of Thailand. Oxford University Press Singapore.
[7] Suchit Bunbongkarn (1987) Political Institutions and Processes. In Somsakdi Xuto (ed) Government and Politics of Thailand. Oxford University Press Singapore.
[8] Prudhisan Jumbala (1987) Interest and Pressure Groups. . In Somsakdi Xuto (ed) Government and Politics of Thailand. Oxford University Press Singapore.
[9] Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, Laurence Whitehead (1986) “Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives.” JHU Press.
[10] Paul Handley (2006) The King Never Smiles. Yale University Press.
[11] Thak Chaloemtiarana (1979) Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism. Cornell University Press.
[12] Paul Handley (2006) “What the Thai Coup was really about” 06 November 2006 Asia Sentinel website.
[13] Duncan McCargo (2005) Network Monarchy and the legitimacy crisis in Thailand. The Pacific Review 18(4) December, pp 499-519.
[14] Katherine Bowie (1997) Rituals of national loyalty. Columbia.
[15] Kevin Hewison (1996) Emerging social forces in Thailand. New political and economic roles. In: Robison, R. & Goodman, D. S. G. (eds) The New Rich in Asia. Routledge, UK.
[16] Somchai Pataratananun (Phatharathananunth) (2006) Civil Society and Democratization. Social Movements in Northeast Thailand. NIAS press.
[17] Andrew Walker (2008) The rural constitution and the everyday politics of elections in northern Thailand. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 38:1, 84 -105.
[18] Mary Beth Mills (1999) Thai women in the global labor force. Rutgers University Press.
[19] Bruce Missingham (2003) The Assembly of the Poor in Thailand. Silkworm Books.
[20] Andrew MacGregor Marshall (2014) “A Kingdom in Crisis”. Zed Press.
[21] Eugénie Mérieau (2016) “Thailand’s Deep State, Royal Power and the Constitutional Court (1997–2015).” Journal of Contemporary Asia 46(3).
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