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.

Guided Democracy under the Thai Junta’s Jackboots

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

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 5^th 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”.

Further Reading:

Flawed Thai elections.  https://bit.ly/2RIIvrD

The Thai Junta’s Road Map to “Guided Democracy”.  https://bit.ly/2QMrGf9

Thai Politics after the 2019 Election. https://bit.ly/2UsA30a

 

Thai junta party’s lack of democratic legitimacy vital for building a mass pro-democracy social movement

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

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.

[For a full analysis of the 2019 election, read “Thai Politics after the 2019 Election“]

What now after the Thai election?

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

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 25^th 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 28^th 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 25^th 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 27^th 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.

We need a strong vote for anti-military parties: See this summary of their policies

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Despite the flawed nature of the coming Thai election, the voting process provides 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 Commoners parties. The details of the candidates and make up of these anti-military parties is of secondary importance here. What is needed is a strong vote for the anti-military parties. The election needs to be treated like a referendum.

It should also be understood that the junta’s election rules are biased against large civilian parties winning a majority of seats. This was an anti-Taksin measure. Under these circumstances spreading anti-military votes between various parties can potentially win more seats than voting for a single party. But the number of seats won by various parties is also of secondary importance.

If a majority of the electorate express a vote of no confidence in the junta, it will be a strong legitimising force for those who wish to continue the struggle for democracy. It is the popular vote that matters.

Given that the junta has fixed the elections, providing Prayut with huge advantages through the appointment of 250 senators, we must have few illusions in the election process. But if we do not get a strong majority of the popular vote for anti-military parties it will seriously weaken the democracy movement. Egypt is a stark reminder of the dangers of this.

Lumping the Pua Thai, Pua Chart, Pracharchart, Future Forward and Commoners parties together as “anti-military” parties is an approximation, given the divergent nature of these parties. However, unlike the so-called Democrat Party, these parties have not cooperated closely with the military or sought to overthrow elected governments. They are also known for their opposition to the junta in various ways.

Pua Thai Party is a right-wing pro-business party which is part of Taksin’s network. It has a history of policies which help the poor. However, it has a number of extremely unsavoury characters among its key “party list” candidates. Mafia type politicians like Sanoh Thienthong and Chalerm Yubamrung come to mind. Pua Thai’s party list candidates also include retired general Pallop Pinmanee, the “butcher of Krue Se” in Patani.  Among some of the prominent policies is a wish to cut the military budget in order to use the money to stimulate small businesses. They propose a state retirement pension of 3000 baht per month. They also propose cancelling the junta’s plans to buy Chinese tanks and use the money to buy non-polluting electric buses instead.

The Future Forward Party, as a newly formed party, does not contain candidates with unsavoury backgrounds from the past. It is a centrist, pro-business, liberal party with an abstract commitment to a future welfare state at some point. Yet its policies do not include any super-tax on the rich or plans to amalgamate the various health insurance policies into a single national health service. It has a few trade union candidates, but is not committed to strengthening trade union rights. Since the party is headed by a rich businessman, any benefits for working people are conditional upon businesses making profits. It has made some progressive statements about migrants and asylum seekers and solving the problems in Patani. It promises a state retirement pension of 1800 baht per month. It’s most prominent and progressive policy is to reduce the military budget to fund welfare and to end the legacy of the present military junta.

Pua Chart Party, another party in Taksin’s network, is not strong on policies with vague promises about reducing inequality and promoting a “digital” future. It has promised to fund medical students from local rural communities. It has prominent Red Shirts among its candidates.

Pracharchart Party, yet another party closely allied to Taksin and made up of politicians who used to be in Thai Rak Thai, has its base in the south. Its main policy is to promote justice in a multi-ethnic society. Yet it has unclear policies on how to bring peace and justice to Patani. It also proposes a state retirement pension of 3000 baht per month.

The Commoners Party is a left-leaning party which is too small to win significant votes or seats, but it has some progressive policies. These include plans to amalgamate the various health insurance policies into a single national health service. It claims to be in favour of a welfare state without clear policies on progressive taxation. This NGO-backed party stresses environmental and rural issues and is influenced by “rural community economics”, closely linked to the ideas of “Small is Beautiful”. It therefore claims that workers must make sacrifices to achieve measures to reduce climate change. However, it also supports the strengthening of trade unions and reform of oppressive labour laws. It has made noises about amnesties for Thai exiles abroad. Another plus for this party is that it is in favour of banning the use of Paraquat, which the junta has refused to do.

In late February, the Commoners Party was hauled over the coals by the ridiculous Electoral Commission for using the word “military dictatorship” to describe the junta. The Future Forward Party also faces legal sanctions, mainly because they are very clearly against the dictatorship and have a large following.

None of the mainstream political parties mentioned here have a policy to abolish or even reform the lèse-majesté law or to immediately establish a fully functioning and universal welfare state through progressive taxation of the rich and big business.

A strong vote for anti-military parties will act as a vote of no confidence in the junta and its destruction of democracy. That is the best outcome to expect.

If Prayut installs himself as Prime Minister against an anti-military popular vote, it will be a golden opportunity to build a mass movement to bring down the dictatorship.

Gender Politics and Thailand’s Political Parties

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Gender politics has always taken a back seat among the policies of Thailand’s political parties. This is because of the weakness of gender social movements and the weakness of the left.

Mainstream pro-democracy parties like Pua Thai (and its sister party “Thai Raksa Chart”) pay lip service to gender equality, but there is little concrete detail about any policies. The Future Forward Party and the Thai Pua Chart Party (another sister party of Pua Thai!) say that there needs to be changes to existing laws. But they tend to add that the issue of gender rights is “sensitive” in society, thus providing themselves with a get out clause. Many parties also admit that there is internal disagreement within the party over gender rights. [See Prachatai https://bit.ly/2DYsbuU ]. Importantly, most parties are not prepared to agitate among the population to achieve changes in people’s attitudes. They prefer to emphasise the need to win votes and follow existing attitudes in society.

This is not surprising, since in capitalist society, progress on gender rights is the result of campaigns by social movements, trade unions and the left and not due to any innate pro-gender rights ideology among main stream parties of the right. Worldwide, increases in women’s participation in the workforce has resulted in greater confidence among women to demand more rights and this has spilled over into the LGBT movement. At the same time, capitalism still requires women to carry out unpaid family work and this is the source of conservative family values which go against gender rights. There is always a tension between these two factors. Thailand is no exception.

Increased participation by women in the workplace has resulted in trade unions pushing for maternity leave, child care and abortion rights. But the women’s movement is very weak and dominated by middle-class women who are only interested in equality for women in managerial and elite political roles. Many members of the women’s movement also supported the destruction of democracy.

Thailand, along with other South-East Asian societies, has a long history of transgender people being tolerated, though not respected. There have never been any law which criminalise gay men, lesbians or transgender people. The LGBT movement tended to grow out of NGO activity.

LGBT activists have been commenting on the draft bill on Civil Partnerships which was initiated under the Yingluk government before Prayut’s military coup. Recently the BBC Thai website published a discussion about this [see https://bbc.in/2P5xn1T ].

Photo by WASAWAT LUKHARANG/BBC THAI

Although LGBT activist say that this draft bill is a step forward, many say it does not go far enough. This is because Civil Partnership gives less rights to the partners than marriage between men and women. For example, there is no provision for adoption of children, tax reduction,  or the use of a partner’s surname. One activist suggested that the way to solve this problem is to change the marriage law and make it concerned with marriage between “people” rather than just men and women.

Transgender and non-binary activists also criticise the draft law for doing nothing to improve the rights of transgender and non-binary people. They have no choice regarding their gender preferences and no rights as transgender and non-binary people.

The weakness of the LGBT movement is reflected in their use of many English terms. Given that ordinary people hardly speak any English, their activism is rooted among the middle-classes, leaving working class people unorganised. This needs to be addressed.

What is needed is a socialist party of the working class which would campaign on concrete gender issues such as LGBT rights to marry or have children and to choose their own gender classifications, including the right not to be classified. Such a party would also have to campaign for abortion rights and state subsidised child care. These gender issues need to be linked to other demands in society such as the demand for real democratic rights, freedom of expression, the right to self-determination for the people of Patani and labour rights. This could be done by building mass social movements and linking them up in solidarity networks. Yet the political parties which will be taking part in the next election have no such agenda.

Thai Electoral rules aimed to fragment political parties

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The junta’s anti-reformists have devised a strange and complicated equation for allocating the number of MPs that each party would have in parliament after the next election. As in previous Thai elections, there will be MPs elected directly to various constituencies and also MPs elected from national votes for party lists. In other countries, such formulae are used to introduce proportional representation. But in Thailand the number of Party List MPs will be determined by a bizarre equation designed primarily to stop a popular party, especially “Pua Thai”, from achieving a majority in parliament. The formula means that more Party List MPs will be allocated to parties which fail to gain many Constituency MPs and those that win in many constituencies will have a reduced number of Party List seats. This would give added MPs to smaller parties such as the pro-military “Democrat Party” at the expense of a party like Taksin Shinawat’s “Pua Thai Party”.

Unlike Taksin’s parties, the Democrat Party has never won a majority in parliament and it worked hand in glove with the military after Taksin’s parties were overthrown in military and judicial coups. Taksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party won a number of general elections due to its pro-poor and modernising policies, such as universal health care and job creation and poverty reduction schemes in the countryside. The party had to change its name to “Palang Prachachon” and then “Pua Thai” after the parties were dissolved by pro-military courts. “Pua Thai” means “for Thais”.

The junta’s election formula for allocating MPs is also designed to try to make sure that Thailand goes back to having a string of weak coalition governments where different parties fight for a place at the government feeding trough. A weak elected coalition government would be easier for the military to manipulate.

However, as they say, “every force has an equal and opposite reaction”. Politicians allied to Taksin have created 2 sister parties; “Pua Tum Party” (“for justice/virtuousness”) and “Pua Chart Party” (“for the nation”). Taksin’s allies hope that this will give the pro-Taksin coalition of 3 parties an increased number of MPs compared to if they all stood in the elections under a single Pua Thai banner.

Pua Tum has also been set up in case the pro-junta courts decide to dissolve Pua Thai on some spurious grounds. Pua Thai MPs could then migrate to the party.

Pua Chart Thai has been set up by a group of former Red Shirts.

The “The Prachachart Party”, set up by former Thai Rak Thai Muslim politicians in the South, might also support a Pua Thai government.

No doubt there are many other machinations and deals, involving other politicians, going on behind the scenes.

Of course, we must also not forget that whoever wins the election will be severely constrained by the junta’s 20 year National Strategy and its appointees in the Senate and the judiciary.

The state of the parties so far

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

At present the presumed date for the future Thai elections is sometime in February 2019 and various political parties are going through the process of registering with the Electoral Commission and holding meetings to elect people to leadership posts. However, political parties have been warned by the junta not to declare their manifestos or to start the process of electioneering.

There are a number of parties worth a mention on the anti-military side.

The “Future Forward Party” has a clear policy of reducing the power and influence of the military by scrapping the military constitution and other junta inspired laws, and it is busy pushing its “new look” and claiming to be the party of the new generation. However, it is likely to be a party aimed at sections of the pro-democracy middle classes. It will prioritise the free-market and business interests while also claiming to support the poor in an abstract manner. Its leader, tycoon Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, has stated that it will “protect capitalism for the benefit of the majority”. In the past he has emphasised that business must make a profit before benefits for workers can be improved. It is in favour of devolving power to the provinces and has made sounds about self-determination in Patani. [See https://bit.ly/2Nf7fks and https://bit.ly/2IpUUJa ].

Without an extra-parliamentary mass movement for democracy it will be difficult for any elected party to reduce the role of the military. [See https://bit.ly/2O5ZNNx ].

The “Commoners Party” claims to be a grass-roots party with no big-business backing and it is made up of NGO activists and villagers. It also has a position against the military’s involvement in politics, but so far its policies remain vague. It has recently been involved in a scandal when it was revealed that the elected deputy leader, Akechai Isarata, took part in the anti-election mob in 2014 which opened the door to Prayut’s coup. This stems from the NGO movement’s hatred of Taksin Shinawat and their reticence about democracy and the need to oppose military coups. He has now resigned after members of the party called on him to quit.

Akechai Isarata

The Taksin controlled Pua Thai Party has a long pedigree of being supported by the rural poor and urban workers, which will give it an advantage at the polls. Taksin’s first party, Thai Rak Thai, brought in the first ever universal health care scheme and other pro-poor policies. But Taksin has a reputation for brutal repression in Patani and during the War on Drugs. Pua Thai also enjoys an “anti-military” image from the fact that 4 of its elected governments were overthrown, either by the military or the pro-military judiciary. Yet Taksin and most Pua Thai politicians, with handful honourable exceptions, have done nothing to oppose Prayut’s military junta over the last 4 years. It is known that they would rather do a deal with the military and the reactionaries. [See https://bit.ly/2pI87Ev ].

Military and state murderers

In the pro-junta reactionary corner, we have the misnamed Democrat Party, which in 2008 became the “party of the military”. Abhisit Vejjajiva was appointed Prime Minister by the military and in 2010 ordered the cold-blooded shooting of unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. The Democrats have never won a majority in any election and since the Taksin years have taken an extreme free-market position, opposing state spending on the universal health care scheme and job creation programmes. The party now pretends to oppose military coups and Prayut’s continued role in politics. But it has a record of taking part in events which create the conditions for military intervention. There is currently a contest for the leader of the party. [See https://bit.ly/2IrOIAr ].

Also in the reactionary corner, we have the “Action Coalition for Thailand Party” set up by Sutep Tuaksuban and his mates. The Thai name is “Ruam Palang Prachachart Thai”, which means unite together the power of the Thai people. Included among founding party members are members of the Tuaksuban clan; a political mafia group who control areas of Surat Tani province in the south. They were formerly members of the Democrat Party. Sutep Tuaksuban, along with Democrat Party leader Abhisit and General Prayut, are responsible for the cold-blooded murders of Red Shirts in 2010. Sutep was also the leader of the anti-election mob which wrecked the February 2014 elections and paved the way to Prayut’s military coup. [See https://bit.ly/2QjpRS5 and https://bit.ly/2zF2bSS ]. Reactionary academic Anek laotamatat [https://bit.ly/2cPKRjP ] and former “professional student leader” turned PAD Yellow Shirt Suriyasai Katasila, along with Sutep’s lawyer, are also among the list of founding members of the Ruam Palang Prachachart Thai Party.

Anti-election gun man associated with Sutep’s mob

Sutep’s “Ruam Palang Prachachart Thai Party” supports the military junta and it might well vote for Generalissimo Prayut to become the next Prime Minister. Prayut has refused to rule out extending his role in politics and the military constitution allows for a non-MP to be nominated as Prime Minister in some circumstances. However, anyone wanting to vote for the junta can now directly support the “Palang Pracharat Party” (power of the citizens party). It has been set up by Prayut’s cronies and is stuff full of junta officials. Naturally, when the reactionary parties talk about “the people” they really mean the military and the elites.

Cartoon ridiculing Palang Pracharat’s connections to junta (from Lok Wan Nee)

Of course, we have to be absolute clear that these elections will not restore democracy to Thailand, as the political agenda is going to be tightly controlled by the military’s National Strategy and their powerful appointed supporters in the senate and the judiciary. However, this system of “Guided Democracy” will be enough satisfy Western governments who have never cared about freedom and democracy in most parts of the world.

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….