Pua Thai grovels to the dictatorship

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…

Temporary Defeat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Politics of the Sewer

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The nomination of Princess Ubonrut, eldest daughter of the late Pumipon, (full name: Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi), as a candidate for Prime Minister by Taksin’s Thai Raksa Chart Party, is a new low for Taksin and his fellow politicians in all his parties, for the former Red Shirt leaders in Thai Raksa Chart, and for people who should know better like Chaturon Chaisang. But worse than all that, it is a symbol of the total degeneration of the Thai electoral system into the politics of the sewer, especially after the interventions of the military.

Most people with half a brain and an ounce of democratic principles will not need to ask themselves about Ubonrut’s qualifications for the position of Prime Minister. But this might need to be spelt out for some Thais. Has Ubonrut ever been in touch with the lives of the majority of poor people in the country? Has she ever said anything progressive? Has she ever supported the struggle for democracy and justice? Has she ever condemned the military? Has she ever opposed the backward idea of hereditary public positions? The answer is clearly No! The only experience she has had in recent years is to promote herself in rubbish TV programmes while living her life in a bubble of luxury.

The nomination of Ubonrut by Thai Raksa Chart is a slap in the face for all the Thai people who made huge sacrifices in the struggles for democracy, equality, justice and human rights. It spits on the memories of the 1932 revolution, the 14^th October 1973 uprising, the 6^th October 1976 massacre, the 1992 uprising and the great Red Shirt movement. Many people sacrificed their lives during these events. Ubonrut’s nomination spits on the very idea of democracy and peoples’ participation by saying that ordinary citizens cannot make any social changes and that the only person that can challenge the military has to come from the royal family. It is an exact mirror image of what the Yellow Shirt PAD protesters believed when they were trying to unseat Taksin.

But there is a background to all this. Taksin deliberately destroyed the Red Shirt mass movement, the biggest pro-democracy movement in Thai history, after the election of Yingluk. He, along with the donkeys that led that movement, put it into cold storage and killed it so that it could no longer oppose the military. It is a terrible shame that progressive Red Shirts were unwilling or unable to build an alternative leadership of the movement.

Historical experience from Thailand, and elsewhere, shows that so-called “clever manoeuvres”, which involve adopting the reactionary ideology or views of opponents, always end badly. Ubonrut’s nomination will not destroy the power of the military, its 20 year National Strategy or the extreme political and economic inequality in Thailand. Even now, the mainstream Thai media is still using outdated and feudal Royal Language when referring to Ubonrut, although we are led to believe that she is a commoner. Worse still, the nomination opens the door to a “government of national unity”. All this merely represents another attempt at an elite settlement between Taksin and his opponents.

Some people seem to confuse “form” with “content”. Ubonrut’s nomination is not a consolidation of any mythical absolute monarchy. This is confirmed by the fact that King Wachiralongkorn has now come out against Ubonrut’s nomination, claiming that it drags the monarchy into politics.

It is a process which was aimed at cementing a conservative alliance between Taksin and the military within the framework of “Guided Democracy”, leaving out any space for democracy or participation by Thai citizens.

For those of us who are totally opposed to this “politics of the sewer”, we must redouble our efforts to build a progressive mass movement and to oppose the reactionary ideology of the ruling elites.

 

WHO praises Thai Universal Health Care while junta wants it destroyed

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Recently the deputy head of the World Health Organisation, Dr.Soumya Swaminathan, visited Thailand to prepare a Memorandum of Understanding which would allow the WHO to share the experiences of the Thai Universal Health Care scheme with other poor and middle-income countries, especially those in Africa.

The success of the Thai Universal Health Care scheme means that ordinary Thai citizens receive better health care than millions of people living in the United States.

It is worth reminding ourselves of the history of the Thai Universal Health Care scheme. It started out as a proposal by progressive doctors like Sanguan Nitayarumpong. Taksin Shinawat’s political team who were building the Thai Rak Thai Party in order to fight their first election in 2001, listened to people like Sanguan and took his idea on board to make it an important part of their election manifesto. After winning the election, Taksin implemented this health care policy which charged everyone a flat rate 30 baht for visits to hospitals. The scheme was designed to cover anyone who was not already part of the National Insurance or Civil Service scheme for employees and resulted in everyone being covered by a health care scheme. It was especially valuable to villagers in rural areas, people in informal employment and their children.

This health care scheme has always been opposed by the extreme neo-liberals in the Democrat Party and within the two military juntas which staged coups against Taksin-led governments.

The Democrat Party spent most of the time during Taksin’s first government attacking his pro-poor policies, including the Universal Health Care scheme, as being a waste of government money and against “fiscal discipline”. No wonder most working class or poor Thais never voted for the Democrats. When the Democrats eventually formed an unelected government with military backing in December 2008, they cut the universal health budget by almost a third. The military budget was increased and has continued to increase under the two military juntas that followed the 2006 coup.

Academics like Tirayut Boonmi and Ammar Siamwalla talked about Taksin building “a climate of dependency” with “too much” welfare. Other rich snobs in the academic world claimed that the ignorant poor would just visit hospitals “every day”. In fact the health care policy fulfilled an urgent basic need for millions.

After the 2006 coup the military junta announced that they were scrapping the 30 baht treatment fee. What looked like a progressive measure was really an attempt at a neo-liberal trick. The plan was to gradually introduce means-tested fees in the future. For those deemed to be too well-off, a system of “co-payments” or health charges, way above 30 baht, would be introduced at a future date. Meanwhile the very poor would receive bad quality free health care. Even some members of the Yingluk government toyed with the same idea under pressure from the neo-liberals.

By a slight of hand, the military constitution of 2017 has changed the clause concerning health care. The key word removed from the previous constitution is “equality”. The junta’s 20 year health development plan also talks about co-payments.

So far the various military regimes have not dared to introduce health charges. But General Prayut and his team keep talking about the health care scheme, which covers 48 million Thais, being a “burden” when the country “cannot afford it”. The real burden is actually the role of the military and its huge budget. The Royal Family, especially Wachiralongkorn, are also a useless burden.

Now, once again, voices in the junta’s Ministry of Finance are suggesting that anyone earning over 100, 000 baht per year should be charged up to 20% of their health care costs. Workers on the minimum wage earn about 90,000 baht and struggle to make end meet. This is a serious neo-liberal attack on the Universal Health Care scheme and if it is introduced it would be the thin end of a wedge to create a two-tear system within the scheme, but to also allow for bigger increases in health charges in the future.

We desperately need a mass movement which both campaigns for democracy and against the neo-liberal policies which exclude the majority from fully enjoying the benefits of society.

 

12 years since the 19th September 2006 coup

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The major forces behind the 19^th September coup were anti-democratic groups in the military and civilian elite, disgruntled business leaders and neo-liberal intellectuals and politicians. The coup was also supported by the Monarchy, although the King did not order it to take place. Most NGOs also supported the coup. What all these groups had in common was contempt or hatred for the poor. For them, “too much democracy” gave “too much” power to the poor electorate and encouraged governments to “over-spend” on welfare. For them, Thailand is still divided between the “enlightened middle-classes who understand democracy” and the “ignorant rural and urban poor”. In fact, the reverse is the case. It is the poor who understand and are committed to democracy while the so-called middle classes are determined to hang on to their privileges by any means possible.

The junta claimed that they had appointed a “civilian” Prime Minister. Commentators rushed to suck up to the new Prime Minister, General Surayud, by saying that he was a “good and moral man”. In fact, Surayud, while he was serving in the armed forces in 1992, was partly responsible for the blood bath against unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. He personally led a group of 16 soldiers into the Royal Hotel which was a temporary field hospital. Here, his soldiers beat and kicked people. Three months after the 2006 coup, on the 4th December, the King praised Prime Minister Surayud in his annual birthday speech.

The new military appointed cabinet was stuffed full of neo-liberals. The Finance Minister, Pridiyatorn Devakul, was a man who believed in “neo-liberal fiscal discipline”. He was opposed to “too much spending” on public health. After the coup the Budget Bureau cut the budget for Thai Rak Thai’s universal health care scheme by 23% while increasing military spending by 30%. Pridiyatorn threatened to axe many good mass transit projects which could solve Bangkok’s traffic.

The poor, who form the vast majority of the Thai electorate, voted enthusiastically for the two flagship policies of Thai Rak Thai. These were a universal health care scheme (the first ever in Thailand) and a 1 million baht fund loaned to each village to encourage small businesses. Thai Rak Thai won a second term of office with an overall majority in parliament in 2005. It is easy to see why. The main opposition party, the Democrats, spent the whole four years attacking the health care system and other social benefits. They said that it contravened “fiscal discipline” and Tirayut Boonmi and Ammar Siamwalla echoed Margaret Thatcher in talking about “a climate of dependency” built up by “too much” welfare.  Previously the Democrat government, which came to power immediately after the 1997 economic crisis, had used taxes paid by the poor to prop up the financial system. The banks were in crisis due to wild speculation by the rich which resulted in non-performing loans. The Democrats supported the 19^th September 2006 coup because, according to deputy leader Korn Chatikavanij, “there was no constitutional” method of getting rid of Taksin. Korn then went on to praise Prime Minister Gen. Surayud, saying that the new appointed government was “not a military government”. He also said that he “respected” the junta for trying to establish political “stability”.

There was of course a very nasty side to the Taksin government which was overthrown by the coup. During their first term of office they waged a so-called “war on drugs” in which over 3000 people were shot without ever coming to trial.  In the Patani they waged a campaign of violence against the Muslim Malay-speaking population. The government was also responsible for the murder, by the police, of defence lawyer Somchai Nilapaichit, who was defending people from the Patani.

Immediately after the coup, a coalition of young people sprang into action. Only two days after the 19th September, while armed troops were still on the streets of Bangkok, the “19th September Network against the Coup” organised the first of many illegal public demonstrations. Many people from different groups cooperated with the Network. Our slogans were simple: “No to Taksin and No to the Coup”.

Soon after the September coup, I published a book titled “A Coup for the Rich” . The book was given to the Special Branch by Chulalongkorn University, where I taught politics. This resulted in my exile in the UK to avoid charges of lèse-majesté. Many other Thais are now in exile abroad because of their political views.

The 19^th September 2006 coup marks the beginning of the present period of political crisis and the destruction of democracy in Thailand.

 

Brazil-Thailand “Neo-Liberalism versus Democracy”

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

A recent book by Alfredo Saad-Filho & Lecio Morais titled “Brazil: Neoliberalism versus Democracy”, describes how the Brazilian elite conspired with the middle-classes and right-wing politicians to destroy the Workers’ Party (PT) government and its pro-poor policies.

The events in Brazil have a similarity with the destruction of democracy in Thailand.

Obviously the events in Brazil and Thailand are not the same. For a start, the PT was a social democratic party with roots in the trade union movement and Lula, their first president was a former metal worker and trade unionist. Taksin Shinawat is a big business tycoon and his party was not in any way social democratic nor allied to the working class.

Lula’s PT government, which came to power in 2002, continued to pursue neo-liberal policies which the previous right-wing government had used. Lula had toned down his social democratic policies and built an alliance with national capitalists in order to look respectable. However, the PT needed to reach out to its base among workers and the poor, who were suffering from the effects of neo-liberalism. So when Lula was re-elected in 2007 the government started to use what Saad-Filho & Morais refer to as “Developmental Neoliberalism”. This policy did not abandon neo-liberalism but added to it the role of the state in creating an economic atmosphere beneficial to national private capital. Developmental Neoliberalism also accepted that economic growth could not be sustained unless such growth was reconciled with tackling social inequality. This was the policy which was also used by Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff.

After the 1996-7 Thai economic crisis, which was a symptom of extreme neo-liberal policies in the past, Taksin Shinawat’s party proposed a “dual track” economic policy, combining neo-liberalism with “grass-roots Keynesianism”. This used state funds to raise living standards of the poor and bring in a universal health care system.

Workers’ Party governments in Brazil were lucky because when “Developmental Neoliberalism” was introduced, the Brazilian economy entered a period of rapid growth due to rising prices of raw materials which Brazil exported to China. Increased state revenues were successfully used to fund pro-poor schemes involving health, education, housing, and attempts to eradicate poverty. This caused discontent among the elites and the middle-classes who resented such state policies which they saw as giving “hand-outs” to the undeserving poor. Accusations of corruption were levelled at PT political leaders.

The Thai elites and middle-classes also resented Taksin’s pro-poor policies for similar reasons. The elites also felt that they were unable to compete electorally with Taksin’s mass base.

“Anti-Corruption” is a useful political weapon for the middle-classes because it is difficult to oppose and can be a vague cover for attacking political opponents while ignoring the real underlying class issues. “Corruption” can also be conflated with pro-poor policies and this is what happened in both Brazil and Thailand.

Corruption, both of the legal and illegal variety, is part and parcel of capitalism and mainstream politics throughout the world. Attempts by the PT to become more “respectable” by dropping radical ideas, meant that they decided to do corrupt deals with right-wing politicians and local businesses. The rise of less political PT politicians who emphasised their administrative capabilities, also encouraged corruption. But Saad-Filho & Morais claim with good reason that there is so far little evidence to prove that either Lula or Dilma Rousseff were directly guilty of corruption.

Despite some of Taksin’s odious policies, especially in the field of human rights, and his tax avoidance manoeuvres, there has been little evidence that he was directly guilty of corruption.

In Brazil and Thailand, charges of corruption have been selectively used, ignoring the behaviour of opposition party politicians and the military.

The neo-liberals in Brazil and Thailand also complained about pro-poor policies being against “fiscal discipline”, although in the Thai case, huge military and royal budgets are never subjected to the same complaints.

The PT’s “Developmental Neoliberalism” in Brazil went off the rails after the 2008 world economic crisis and the drastic fall in raw material prices. Cuts were made to pro-poor policies under Dilma Rousseff. This alienated the PT’s base among the poor and was a golden opportunity for the right-wing and middle-classes to overthrow her government and impeach her. A Judicial-Senate coup took place. What was interesting was that Dilma Rousseff was actually removed, not for corruption, but for not adhering to “fiscal discipline”. This is exactly the same excuse used to punish Taksin’s sister, ex-Prime Minister Yingluk Shinawat, in the Rice Price scheme.

After the over-throw of PT and Taksin allied governments, the regimes which replaced them in Brazil and Thailand turned back towards extreme neo-liberal policies.

The comparison between Brazil and Thailand reinforces the class and political economic reasons for the destruction of democracy in Thailand. Conspiratorial theories about the role of the Thai monarchy in destroying democracy explain nothing.

 

Further reading on Thailand: “What Led to the Destruction of Thai Democracy?” https://bit.ly/2cGAi1E

“Thailand’s Crisis and the Struggle for Democracy” https://bit.ly/1TdKKYs

 

Class struggle has always been a feature of recent Thai history

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Given the recent discussions about the new “Future Forward Party”, whose leading members seem to deny the existence of class struggle [See http://bit.ly/2HAyO59 ], it is worth taking a long term look at class struggle in the country.

Since the transformation to a capitalist state in the 1870s, Thai society has been a constant battle ground. It has been a struggle between the rulers and the ruled. Naturally, different factions of the ruling class have also had their conflicts. But intra-ruling class disputes have been about which faction can benefit most from the wealth generated by the class exploitation of workers and farmers. Class struggle also existed in pre-capitalist Thailand.

In 1932 a revolution overthrew the capitalist absolute monarchy of King Rama VII. The revolution was staged by the Peoples’ Party, led by the socialist politician Pridi Panomyong. It was staged in the context of rising class discontent associated with the world economic crisis. The royal government brought in austerity measures which affected the civil service. Workers’ wages and farmers’ incomes fell dramatically as a result of the economic down-turn. Farmers’ and workers’ demands for the government to do something about the crisis fell on deaf ears. Although the revolution was staged by a coalition between civilian bureaucrats and the military, it enjoyed mass popular support. A royalist rebellion one year later was defeated by the government armed forces supported by worker volunteers.

After the revolution, Pridi proposed a radical economic plan, including land nationalisation and a welfare state. However, he was defeated by forces from the Right. Pridi had failed to build a mass political party of workers and farmers. Instead he relied too much on the military which eventually pushed him out of power.

The long-term consolidation of military power in politics came with the Sarit military coup in 1957. The economic development during the subsequent years of the highly corrupt military dictatorship took place in the context of a world economic boom and a localised economic boom created by the Korean and Vietnam wars. This economic growth had a profound impact on the nature of Thai society. The size of the working class increased as factories and businesses were developed. However, under the dictatorship trade union rights were suppressed and wages and conditions of employment were tightly controlled. Illegal strikes had already occurred throughout the period of dictatorship, but strikes increased rapidly due to general economic discontent in the early 1970s. The influence of the Communist Party increased among workers and students.

Economic development also resulted in a massive expansion of student numbers and an increased intake of students from working class backgrounds. The new generation of students, in the early 1970s, were influenced by the revolts and revolutions which occurred throughout the world in that period, May 1968 in Paris being a prime example. The struggle against US imperialism in Vietnam was also an important influence.

In late 1973, the arrest of 11 academics and students for handing out leaflets demanding a democratic constitution resulted in hundreds of thousands of students and workers taking to the streets of Bangkok in October. As troops with tanks fired on unarmed demonstrators, the people of Bangkok began to fight-back. Bus passengers spontaneously alighted from their vehicles to join the demonstrators. Government buildings were set on fire. The “Yellow Tigers”, a militant group of students, sent a jet of high-octane gasoline from a captured fire engine into the police station at Parn-Fa Bridge, setting it on fire. Earlier they had been fired upon by the police.

The successful 14^th October 1973 mass uprising against the military dictatorship shook the Thai ruling class to its foundations. For the next few days, there was a strange new atmosphere in Bangkok. Uniformed officers of the state disappeared from the streets and ordinary people organised themselves to clean up the city. It was the first time that the pu-noi (little people) had actually started a revolution from below. It was not planned and those that took part had conflicting notions about what kind of democracy and society they wanted. But the Thai ruling class could not shoot enough demonstrators to protect their regime. It was not just a student uprising to demand a democratic constitution. It involved thousands of ordinary working class people and occurred on the crest of a rising wave of workers’ strikes.

Success in over-throwing the military dictatorship bred increased confidence. Workers, peasants and students began to fight for more than just parliamentary democracy. In the two months following the uprising, the new Royal appointed civilian government faced a total of 300 workers’ strikes. On the 1st May 1975 a quarter of a million workers rallied in Bangkok and a year later half a million workers took part in a general strike against price increases. In the countryside small farmers began to build organisations and they came to Bangkok to make their voices heard. Workers and peasants wanted social justice and an end to long-held privileges. A Triple Alliance between students, workers and small farmers was created. Some activists wanted an end to exploitation and capitalism itself. The influence of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) increased rapidly, especially among activists in urban areas.

It was not long before the ruling class and the conservative middle classes fought back.

In the early hours of 6^th October 1976, Thai uniformed police, stationed in the grounds of the National Museum, next door to Thammasat University, destroyed a peaceful gathering of students and working people on the university campus under a hail of relentless automatic fire. At the same time a large gang of ultra-right-wing “informal forces”, known as the Village Scouts, Krating-Daeng and Nawapon, indulged in an orgy of violence and brutality towards anyone near the front entrance of the university. Students and their supporters were dragged out of the university and hung from the trees around Sanam Luang; others were burnt alive in front of the Ministry of “Justice” while the mob danced round the flames. Women and men, dead or alive, were subjected to the utmost degrading and violent behaviour.

The actions of the police and right-wing mobs on 6^th October were the culmination of attempts by the ruling class to stop the further development of a socialist movement in Thailand. The events at Thammasat University were followed by a military coup which brought to power one of the most right-wing governments Thailand has ever known. In the days that followed, offices and houses of organisations and individuals were raided. Trade unionists were arrested and trade union rights were curtailed. Centre-Left and left-wing newspapers were closed and their offices ransacked.

Thousands of activists joined the armed struggle led by the Communist Party of Thailand in remote rural areas. However, this struggle was ultimately unsuccessful, but it managed to put a great deal of pressure on the ruling class.

Three years after 1976, the government decreed an “amnesty” for those who had left to fight alongside the communists. This coincided with splits and arguments between the student activists and the Stalinist CPT leaders. By 1988 the student activists had all returned to the city as the CPT collapsed. Thailand returned to an almost full parliamentary democracy, but with one special condition: it was a parliamentary democracy without the Left or any political parties representing workers or small farmers. But the economic boom helped to damp down discontent.

Three years later 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 the deadly gunfire from the army and overthrew the junta. Many key activists in this uprising had previously cut their teeth in the struggles in 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.

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, mainly the 1997 economic crisis and the influence of some ex-student activists from the 1970s within the party. The government delivered on 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. By allying himself with workers and farmers, Taksin had built a coalition between them and his modernising section of the capitalist class. TRT policies were threatening the interests of the conservatives and upsetting the ruling class consensus which had determined the nature of Thai politics since the defeat of the Communist Party. This political consensus had managed to exclude the interests of workers and farmers. The conservative backlash re-established the era of military rule which we see today.

Anyone who studies this period of Thai history, since 1932, cannot fail to see the importance of class struggle. Denying the importance of class struggle, or a divide between left and right, can only be either sheer ignorance or an excuse to ignore the interests of the majority of citizens.

 

 

Read more in my book “Thailand’s Crisis”….at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/47097266/Thailand-s-Crisis-and-the-fight-for-Democracy

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

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Reviewing the past year: Wachiralongkorn is just an irrelevant side show.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Looking back over the past year we can make a number of observations about the political situation in Thailand.

The king’s lavish funeral has been done and dusted and the new king is on the throne. Wild conspiracy theories about a royal civil war for the throne between Pumipon’s son and daughter have proved to be totally untrue. So has the idea that the country would experience instability after the former king’s death. The latter theory was based on the incorrect view that Pumipon had political power, some, like Somsak Jeeamteerasakul, even claiming that Pumipon was the most powerful figure in the country. [See http://bit.ly/2AF9ozT ]

The fact of the matter is that there has been no instability at all in the military junta’s grip on power. They have continued to oversee the building of a future “Guided Democracy” system under their control. Important elements of this consist of the “National Strategy” and various junta-appointed bodies designed to control and fix elections, political parties and the actions of any future governments. [See http://bit.ly/2x1Ov43 ]There is absolutely no evidence that Pumipon ever had any input or opinion about this plan. He was totally incapacitated for some years.

The junta’s Road Map towards “Guided Democracy” and its backward conservative “National Strategy” has not featured in the new King’s role either. Wachiralongkorn has never expressed any opinions about this and he has no interest in such important matters of State. Wachiralongkorn is certainly an odious creature; selfish, nasty and lacking in any respect for others, especially women. But everything that he has done over the last year has been about himself and his quest for pleasure and riches at the expense of the Thai public. [See http://bit.ly/2l63Z1I ]

The change in the person who is now on the throne has not had any significant impact on the nature of Thai society, politics, or economics. It is just an expensive side-show. This is despite the sensational press articles which have claimed that Thailand has been plunged into the dark ages under king Wachiralongkorn.

Some even point to the new fashion for “buzz cuts” in the military and police as “evidence” of the dictatorial power of Wachiralongkorn, as though that was a crucial aspect of politics rather than a demented obsession by the deluded king and those who wish to suck up to him. We shall see whether Generalissimo Prayut and General Pig-Face Prawit follow the same fashion! [See http://bit.ly/2AWacAq ]

Obsession with the monarchy merely diverts attention away from the real democratic tasks ahead.

The real show in town is the continued grip on power of the military and how the policies of the junta are affecting democracy, human rights, social policy and the state of the economy. Their so-called “Road Map to Elections” is like an elastic band, with an unlimited stretch, and even with elections we will still have a junta controlled Guided Democracy.

Generalissimo Prayut seems to be positioning himself to become the next Prime Minister after the fixed elections. Recently he claimed that he was not a soldier, but a politician. Electoral rules are designed to discriminate against large political parties, especially any party associated with Taksin. The idea is that a fragmented parliament, along with an appointed senate could more easily be manipulated into choosing someone like Prayut to lead the country.

The junta represent the conservative, authoritarian, neo-liberal wing of the Thai ruling class. They are dead against rapid modernisation of society, any steps towards basic empowerment of citizens and the use of state funds to address economic inequality. This was at the core of their disagreement with Taksin and his allies. They are also totally opposed to young people becoming more politically engaged and to any notions of justice.

Getting rid of the military and its legacy cannot be left to Taksin and Pua Thai. As I have argued in previous articles on this site, Taksin and his allies have no interest in the kind of upheaval from below that would be necessary. The middle-classes and NGOs cannot be relied upon to carry out this task either. They have shown a preference for authoritarian rule over mass empowerment of ordinary people. What is holding back the real struggle for democracy is the fact that the most progressive people in society, especially students and working class activists, are yet to be convinced of the need to build a grass-roots left-wing political party that can play a significant role in building a much needed independent, pro-democracy, social movement.

Until large numbers of people decided to organise together against the military junta, who represent the real dark forces in society, the Thai Spring will not occur.

Looking Back on the Thai 1997 Economic Crisis

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The period leading up to the 1997 economic crisis was a period in which the Thai economy grew at a phenomenal rate. Average GDP growth rates reached 8% and on occasions the annual rate was in double figures. The main beneficiaries, naturally, were the rich. Between 1975 and 1988 the richest 20% of the population increased their share of national wealth from 43% to 55.4%, while the share controlled by the poorest 20% dropped from 6% to 4.5%.

The economic crisis was a shock to almost everyone for most had predicted it. Once the crisis broke, political scapegoats were quickly found in order to protect the status-quo. The more neo-liberal sections of the big business community quickly suggested the idea that the crisis was all the fault of Prime Minister Chawalit Yongjaiyut‘s government. This ridiculous message was put across at the “Silom Road Business People’s Protests” in October 1997, where businessmen and professional people came down from their office blocks, to demonstrate. They demanded and soon achieved the resignation of Chawalit’s government. The rich were not, however, very good at demonstrating. Many complained about the heat and others brought their servants to make up the numbers and, no doubt, to serve them with cold drinks and drive them to the protest.

Once Chawalit resigned, his Government was replaced by a Democrat Party-led coalition under Chuan Leekpai. The new finance minister, Tarrin Nimmanhaemind, was regarded as a reliable “bankers’ man”. This suggestion was born out by the fact that the Government quickly moved to nationalise the private debts of 56 failed banks and finance companies, which the Chawalit Government had already closed, and then proceeded to set aside a further 300 billion baht of state funds to boost the capital of existing banks. In total, the Government committed at least 1.2 trillion baht of public money to prop up the banking system and the savings of the rich and middle-classes.

The same enthusiasm for the use of public finances was not shown towards helping the poor and the unemployed who were worst hit by the crisis. The Government passed a bill allowing it to withhold state contribution to the private sector employees’ Social Insurance Fund and repeatedly delayed the implementation of an unemployment benefit scheme. It also told the unemployed to “go back to their villages” and live off their relatives. According to one survey carried out for the National Economic & Social Development Board, there was a 12.6% decline in earnings rates and a 4.4% decline in hours of employment in the first half of 1998. These were the main factors behind a fall in real incomes of 19.2% over this period.

The racist explanations of the Asian crisis which talked about Asian corruption, Asian Crony Capitalism and lack of good governance in Asia, are hardly worthy of serious consideration. More serious mainstream explanations for the crisis pinned the blame on lack of proper controls over investment after economic liberalisation in the late 1980s. Although it is true that the increased free movement of capital in and out of Thailand made the boom and the crisis more spectacular, these highly visible movements of money were more a symptom of what was happening in the real economy rather than the cause of the crisis. The implication of this neo-liberal explanation was that if proper controls were established, then crises would never occur again. Clearly a review of Western economies shows this to be nonsense.

The Marxist theory of capitalist crisis identifies over-production and falling rates of profit as the key underlying factors causing a crisis. Both these factors result from the uncontrolled competition for profit found under Capitalism. The main cause of the tendency for a fall in the rate of profit is the increased investment in fixed capital as compared to the hiring of labour (from which surplus value is extracted). However, the falling rate of profit is only an overall tendency with many countervailing factors. Profit rates can be restored temporarily by increased labour efficiency, increased exploitation or the destruction of competitors.

In Thailand over-capacity and falling rates of return were seen in most of the export industries. This caused a shift in the direction of investment away from the productive sector towards speculation in real estate and the banking system. It is estimated that in 1996 about half of all investment was property related and this accounted for half of annual GDP growth.

The Thai working class reacted to the crisis in different ways. On the one hand, significant groups of workers were very angry when their annual bonus payments were cut. On one occasion, a Japanese-owned electronics factory was burnt to the ground. At many workers’ protest gatherings after that, someone could be relied upon to scare the management with a cry of “set fire to the bloody place!” Most of the time it was just a bluff. On another occasion workers at Summit Auto Parts blocked a main highway in response to a bonus cut, but they were eventually physically beaten by riot police, supported by volunteer “emergency rescue workers” and right-wing journalists from The Nation and their struggle was defeated.

A more organised response came at the Triumph underwear factory, where women workers had a long tradition of building a strong shop stewards network. Workers were able to achieve a respectable wage increase after a twenty day dispute in July 1999.

The rate of inflation, which quickly fell (after an initial rise) as the economy went into recession, was also a factor in determining the will to fight. For those who retained their jobs, a further sharp fall in living standards was avoided by the decline in inflation.

The dominant ideological response among organised workers and left-wing intellectuals to the crisis, and to the manner in which governments handled economic policy, was in the form of Left Nationalism. This ideology was a mirror image of ruling class nationalism.  A quick glance through the new book titles in any Thai book shop during the early part of the crisis would quickly have revealed the growing number of publications on “saving the country from the crisis”. In the main these publications were written by left-of-centre academics, many of them ex-CPT sympathisers, who regarded the 1997 crisis as a serious threat to “national independence”.

The cause of the crisis, according to the nationalists, was the imperialist designs of the G7 powers, especially the United States, in attempting to put the Asian Tigers under the yoke of Economic Colonialism. This could be seen from the proposal that the crisis was merely a crisis of a certain model of Capitalism: “fast-track” or foreign-investment-led export orientated manufacturing. Much of the Left Nationalist analysis also leant heavily on Dependency Theory, which saw the main divide in the world as between the “northern” industrial countries and the “southern” developing countries.

A number of solutions were proposed by the Left Nationalists; all within the framework of the capitalist system. Firstly there were the naive and utopian ideas of the “Community Economists” who believed that the Thai economy could somehow “turn back” to a self-sufficient low technology agricultural economy. Instead of foreign capital and technology, Thailand should use traditional “Thai intellectual resources”.

Secondly, there was a proposal to use Keynesian style economics. It was argued that the state should increase public expenditure in order to stimulate consumption. This strategy was eventually adapted for use by Taksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT) government after their election victory in 2001.

In the general election of January 2001, 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. 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 loan to each village in order to stimulate economic activity and (3) a promise to introduce a debt moratorium for poor peasants.

Ex-student and NGO activists, such as Pumtam Wejjayachai were recruited to TRT and became important links with the Peoples Movement. These activists encouraged the Prime Minister to meet with social movements like the Assembly of the Poor and they coordinated with movement and NGO leaders in order to solve disputes or dampen down protest actions against the Government.

Pumtam explained that Thailand needed a “Dual Track” development policy, where “Capitalism” and the “Peoples Economy” (community based activities) went hand in hand. This eventually evolved into the government policy of mixing neo-liberal policies with “grass roots Keynesianism”. The government also spent state funds on improving the lives of ordinary citizens and on developing infrastructure in order to raise productivity. These measures were helpful in reviving the economy, along with the fact that the Western advanced nations and China were not in crisis at the time, but they had little impact on preventing any future economic crises.

The popularity of Taksin and TRT with the electorate eventually resulted in increasing hostility against the government from conservative members of the ruling class, Taksin’s political rivals and members of the middle classes. They resented the alliance between the government and urban and rural working people and wanted to turn the clock back to the bad old days when the majority of the population were to be ignored by politicians and members of the elites. Today, we are still living under the shadow of military coups and a military regime which intends to craft a “Military Guided Democracy”.

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….