Struggles for democracy either side of the border

The people of Burma are waging a heroic fight against the brutal Burmese military. Over three hundred unarmed protesters have so far been murdered in cold blood since the coup at the beginning of February. Yet, every day we see reports of more mass protests up and down the country. The general strike is having an impact on the economy, shaking the junta. In their anger at the strikers, the military have been threatening to throw people out of their workplace accommodation unless they return to work. Many have chosen to move out of their homes rather than submit to the junta.

Railway workers, hospital workers, civil servants, garment workers and bank workers have all joined the general strike. In stepping up the action, workers councils really need to be formed, as they were in the general strike of 1988. These workers councils could then start to organise the distribution of food and essential services to people, thus creating the beginnings of a functioning parallel government controlled by workers. Trade unionists in other countries could also make solidarity donations to help the workers of Myanmar.

In a challenge to the determination of those on strike, a recent article in the Financial Times argued that business leaders in Burma are saying that “protesters are playing a dangerous game with the Myanmar economy” This shows that strikes and civil disobedience are starting to have a real impact and worry the bosses. That is something to be celebrated. Working class strikes which cripple the economy are vital to overthrowing the military dictatorship and are potentially less dangerous than confronting the military and police on the streets. Yet, not surprisingly, bosses in Burma claim that these strikes and the many demonstrations that are occurring “could wipe out a decade of economic gain”. They are only worried by about their profits. In the past, these bosses were quite happy to go along with the military controlled sham democracy before the February coup and have turned a blind eye to gross human rights abuses throughout the country. Western governments were also happy to talk about “progress towards democracy” under the military constitution which allowed the military to hold real power even before the coup. The concerns for the wellbeing of ordinary people because of the strikes and protests expressed by bosses and even the UN are merely crocodile tears. Bosses and the so-called “international community” cannot be relied upon to liberate the people of Myanmar from military rule. And ASEAN certainly cannot be relied upon to do anything to stop the Burmese military. Most ASEAN countries are ruled by authoritarian governments.

In Thailand, prodemocracy activists look at events in Burma with a mixture of huge respect for the protesters and absolute horror at the actions of the military. Many Thais are really hoping for a victory against the Burmese junta which would invigorate the struggle in Thailand.

But important lessons from Burma are not being learnt by Thai activists. So far there have been no real attempts to build a strike movement against the Thai dictatorship and activists are stuck on a strategy of repeated demonstrations, which are smaller in size than those held in 2020. There have been sectarian comments against a group of more militant protesters calling themselves the REDEM movement. This movement takes internet polls from participants about where and how to organise protests. Their marches have been brutally attacked by police and royalist thugs. Some conservatives are criticising them for being “violent” when they defend themselves. But the violence of self-defence cannot in any way be equated to the violence of the Thai military junta, which uses crowd dispersing weapons, intimidation and kidnapping and the courts and prisons against those calling for freedom and democracy.

The junta has long sensed that the movement is stalling and this has given the military confidence to attack numerous protest leaders using the draconian lèse-majesté law and other undemocratic laws in the junta’s legal arsenal. If the democracy movement does not change tactics and increase pressure on the Thai junta, many leaders will be jailed for merely peacefully expressing themselves during protests. Some are being held in jail anyway after being denied bail.

The protesters are quite right in being critical of the odious King Wachiralongkorn, even if they exaggerate his powers in relation to the military. He has continued with his disgusting behaviour flaunting his wives in public and giving military ranks to his many women. This is going on even when he is engaged in a “charm offensive” to counter all the public criticism by touring the country and spending more time in Thailand instead of Germany.

Meanwhile, the total disregard by the military, for the welfare of Thai citizens in relation to the lack of Covid vaccinations, can be summed up by the news that one of the young princesses received her vaccination ahead of the elderly “because she has to meet lots of people while carrying out her duties”. In addition to this, the head of the army suggested that golf caddies on military golf courses be given the jab as a priority! The generals obviously feel that they can say any old rubbish because they are in power and no one can hold them accountable.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

See also:

Wachiralongkorn’s mythical power https://bit.ly/2EOjsNL Rubber Ducks cannot defeat the military https://bit.ly/3p3LlnI

Rubber Ducks Can’t Defeat the Military

The youth-led prodemocracy movement that erupted in August has been inspiring. It has made huge strides forward towards getting rid of the conservative and corrupt, military dominated, society. But it is time to take an honest look at what has been achieved while assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the movement.

Strengths

The movement has successfully rebuilt the pro-democracy movement on the streets in Bangkok and other locations up and down the country. This is after the bloody repression of the Red Shirt movement in 2010 and the following years when only small symbolic protests took place. At its height over 100,000 people have now taken to the streets in recent months. This is a remarkable achievement.

The protest movement has been invigorated by young people who are not afraid to defy the Old Order. Apart from the demands for the resignation of General Prayut as Prime Minister, and the demand to write a new “peoples” constitution, the protesters have dared to demand that the monarchy be reformed. This is long over-due and occurs in the face of a long history of stifling royalist propaganda and draconian laws used to protect the monarchy.

Young women have played key roles in the movement and activists from a wide range of campaigns have join the protests. LGBT and abortion rights issues have been raised. The right to self-determination for the people of Patani has also been flagged up. And the pressing need to reform the conservative and backward education system has also been a feature of protests by school students.

Rank and file organisation of the protests under the slogan “we are all leaders” has meant that demonstrations have continued when the original leaders have been arrested. The flash mobs are clearly well organised and continually use innovative styles of protest.

But there are weaknesses

Symbolism during the protests, for example, the use of rubber ducks, might be very photogenic and excite foreign journalists, but it cannot hide the fact that so far the protest movement has not been able to make the country ungovernable. Without doing this, Prayut’s parliamentary dictatorship cannot be overthrown. Rubber ducks are no substitute for real protest power that comes from strikes and workplace walk-outs. Unfortunately, little is being done to go out and visit worker activists in offices, banks, hospitals and factories in order to argue for strikes. This is mainly due to the appalling weakness of the left and the unwillingness of activists to rebuild a left-wing political organisation which can argue within the movement for an orientation on strikes.

The “we are all leaders” strategy means that it is difficult to have serious and democratic discussions about the way forward because no democratic structures exist within the movement which can encourage participation in decision making. The top protest leaders become de facto unelected leaders. This is not because they wish to be authoritarian, but it is 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 is not unique here. The same problem occurred with Podemos in the Spanish State.

If the movement fails to get strike action, we shall end up with a miserable compromise, carried out in the junta dominated parliament. Some sections of the constitution might be amended, but Prayut and the junta will not resign and the monarchy will not be reformed. [See https://bit.ly/3qol8Bl ].

A dozen protest leaders have been charged with lèse-majesté with the prospect of long drawn out court cases ending in draconian prison sentences. There does not seem to be any strategy to defend these leaders and to be able to pressure the regime to drop the charges.

Given the great strides made by the protest movement, it would be a terrible tragedy if very little was achieved in the end and the leaders ended up being isolated.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

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.

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

 

Have the deep divisions between Reds and Yellows in Thailand been healed?

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

When Generalissimo Prayut staged his military coup to overthrow the elected Yingluk government, he claimed that it was in order to bring about reconciliation in a country deeply divided between Reds and Yellows. He also claimed that the junta would push through political reform and end corruption. No thinking person ever believed him and, today, what seems to be the main achievement of the junta is the self-enrichment of its members.

“Reform” is a much abused word and is mainly used for what should rightly be called “anti-reforms”. This is true of Thailand, but also of the neo-liberals in the West who want to destroy trade union rights and the welfare state.

I have discussed the crafting of a system of military “Guided Democracy” by the junta in number of articles on this site, so I will address the question of whether the junta has healed the deep divisions between Reds and Yellows in society. [See: http://bit.ly/2hDTT6S ]

The fact that a number of former Yellows are now critical of Prayut’s junta might indicate that a Red-Yellow reconciliation might be possible. The exiled academic Somsak Jeeamteerasakul certainly feels that this is something worth serious consideration.

However, I have always argued that it is not possible or desirable to have unity between those who believe in freedom and democracy and those who believe that democracy has to be limited because the “wrong” people get elected by an “ignorant” electorate.

This is still the case despite the fact that not all Reds are totally committed to freedom and democracy in the strict sense of the word. Some hold narrow-minded views about Patani and GLBT people. Some supported the so-called War on Drugs. The reason why Reds can be regarded as generally pro-democratic is because they have maintained a position against military coups and unelected political bodies, while the Yellows have supported “any means necessary” to overthrow Taksin’s governments, even if it means supporting military coups. What is more, pro-democracy activists who have dared to challenge the military in recent times have generally sided with, or been sympathetic to, the Reds.

I have deliberately used a colour short hand to describe the two sides in Thailand’s political crisis. I have not used the term “Red Shirts” as this movement no longer exists, having been destroyed through deliberate neglect by Taksin and his allies. The Yellow Shirts also morphed into the multi-coloured shirts (“Salim”) and then into Sutep’s street thugs.

It is very unlikely that the mistrust and hatred of those who participated in the destruction of democracy can so easily be forgotten by the Reds and why should it be? This destruction of democracy continues with the junta’s plans for Guided Democracy. In practice it means that the kind of government favoured in the past by the majority of the population will be ruled out by the military’s constitution and its electoral rules. In the past his kind of government had many flaws but it was also forward looking, pro-modern and serious about some degree of poverty reduction. This means that if nothing changes in the near future, Thai citizens will be saddled with a neoliberal government which treats people, especially poor people, in a patronising manner while improving the lives of the rich.

Yet at the same time, what the junta, together with Taksin’s allies, have achieved is a demoralisation of hundreds of former pro-democracy activists. This has been achieved by both repression by the junta and neglect from Taksin’s people.

So an explosion of opposition to the military is not on the immediate horizon, although we must always be aware that in the right circumstances, things can change very quickly, especially if there is a new generation of activists who are determined to fight.

Ugly and dangerous royalist hysteria turning into witch-hunts

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

The death of the Thai king and the atmosphere of repression under the military junta has unleashed an ugly and dangerous royalist hysteria which is rapidly becoming a witch hunt against those who believe in democracy and equality. Anyone not wearing black in the streets or anyone rumoured to have supposedly “insulted” the king is being persecuted and threatened with violence while the authorities look on approvingly. The general in charge of the ministry of “justice” has even approved of mobs bullying dissidents.

The military and police have been taking advantage of the situation and arresting any dissidents who have been accused of insulting the king by the fantatics. No hard evidence is necessary. One such person was arrested after police “found” a single methamphetamine pill.

There were three cases of angry mobs attacking people in various southern provinces only days after the death of the king. These are areas where Sutep and his Democrat Party mobs drew support for their anti-election rampage through Bangkok in 2014. Many of these thugs may now be engaging in the royalist witch-hunts.

Mob of fanatical royalists

https://www.facebook.com/100010058258085/videos/356653494679923/

On the tourist island of Koh Samui, a howling crowd of 500 fanatical royalists forced a young woman to grovel in front of a picture of the king and ask for forgiveness at a local police station for apparently “insulting” the king. The police clearly sided with the crowd.

An elderly woman was slapped in the face in front of police for apparently “insulting the monarchy”…

There have been numerous threats to people on social media for not changing their profiles to black and white.

Riantong Nanan

Riantong as part of a fascist-type mob organised to disrupt elections

Self-appointed “Witch-Hunter General”, Major General Riantong Nanan, director of Monkutwatana Hospital, has incited people to “deal” with Aum Neko, exiled trans-gender prodemocracy activist, who has been given asylum in France. He also threatened to do her harm himself.

Aum Neko

A fanatical royalist also posted on her face book that someone should “deal” with me in England as a result of my call for a republic.

Fanatical royalist threatening me

It reminds many of us of the kind of atmosphere created around the 6^th October 1976 massacre at Thammasart University.

Why aren’t you wearing black?

But what it exposes more than anything is that love and respect for the Thai monarchy is hardly voluntary or natural in the case of millions of people. It exposes that the royalists are really frightened of a possible republican mood in the country after the death of Pumipon.

Let us hope that their fears are justified!!

 

Thai Paris Debates: Gramsci and building political consensus

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

During the recent Paris seminar on Thai politics, held on the tenth anniversary of the 19^th September military coup, there were many interesting debates. I shall comment on the discussion around consensus and divisions in Thai society.

Somsak Jeamteerasakul explained that in the 20 years up to the 2006 military coup, there was a “royalist” consensus or hegemony among the population, with little divisions in society. Yet since the 2006 coup, Thai society has been deeply divided. This, Somsak believes, is something that does not exist in Western democracies where he claims there is a democratic consensus.

This is obviously a broad view which ignores the continuous discontent among the Malay Muslims in Patani. But in my opinion what appeared as a “quiet period” with little political divisions among the Thai population was merely a shallow surface view. In every society there are divisions based on competing class interests. A brief look at Western Europe or the United States today reveals serious conflicts around the issues of austerity, defending the welfare state, labour rights, support or opposition to the European Union, the issue of war or the attitude to migrants and refugees. This has resulted in growing support for Socialists but also for the Fascists.

The supposed Thai consensus for 20 years before the 2006 coup was a result of economic growth but also the defeat of the Communist Party of Thailand and the weakening of political dissent. Even so, class struggle continued to bubble under the surface with strikes and protests by workers and small farmers.

The point to keep in mind here is that there is no real consensus in any capitalist society and periods of apparent class peace soon end in explosions of discontent. An important factor which ended the quiet period in Thailand was the 1997 economic crisis and the choices made in response to this by various political actors, especially Taksin and his Thai Rak Thai Party. [See http://bit.ly/2d9UUAu , http://bit.ly/2bSpoF2   or http://bit.ly/2cmZkAa  ]

Somsak is now trying to find a way to build political peace in Thai society by seeking a “democratic consensus” between red shirts, other pro-democracy activists, and the middle class. Remember that the middle class has a recent history of outright opposition to democracy and to associated measures which improve the economic status of workers and small farmers, which Taksin’s political parties tried to push forward.

Somsak, who I regard as a friend, seems to view Marxists like myself as figures of fun who are hopelessly deluded, but he also tries to legitimise his views by quoting Gramsci on the issue of hegemony.

Now this reminds me of the mis-use of Gramsci by the leaders of the Spanish left-wing party Podemos. They claim to be attempting to build political hegemony in Spanish society by moving beyond the concept of “Left” and “Right”. They also wish to ignore the issue of class and class struggle.

Yet Gramsci was a Marxist, who did not in anyway, believe that you could move beyond or ignore class struggle. His ideas about hegemony were about how to counter the prevailing ideas of the ruling capitalist class with ideas which were in the interests of workers and small farmers. This was with the aim of moving towards a socialist revolution. It was not about building cross-class unity.

Instead, Somsak wants to distort the ideas of Gramsci in order to achieve a compromise and political peace between the reactionary middle-classes and the workers and small farmers in Thailand. It would be a pseudo-peace based on giving up the ideals of equality, human rights and democracy. The explanation for Somsak’s views lies with his rejection of the possibility of building mass movements from below. He regards the red shirts as mere foot soldiers of Taksin and can see no way forward in terms of social movements.

Another pro-democracy activist, Rangsiman Rome, from the student NDM, also expressed a desire to “talk to the other side” in a recent BBC interview. Again, this arises from the rejection of a need to build mass social movements. [See  http://bit.ly/2dizkuE %5D and http://bit.ly/2a0A4TK   ]

Yet there is a real potential for building a new mass movement for democracy, independent of Taksin, out of the remnants of the redshirts, from the 10 million people who voted against the military’s constitution, and from the progressive students. This needs determined political and organisational work and also the creation of a left-wing political party. If such a movement became strong in the future it could pull many elements of the fractured middle-classes to support its agenda, rather than capitulating to the current reactionary agenda of the right-wing core of the middle-classes. In the past the Thai middle-classes have been pulled in the direction of supporting democracy or dictatorship, depending on the balance of class forces. This is the same for other countries. [See http://bit.ly/2aDzest ]

The sad fact that the pro-democracy movement is currently weak means that it is highly unlikely that Thai society is “waiting to explode”, as claimed by pro-democracy academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun, who also spoke at the Paris seminar.

Somsak and Pavin’s “top-down” view of society means that they believe in the political power of the king, which is something with which I disagree. I believe that the king is a puppet of the military. But for Somsak the king’s power comes from the fact that no one can criticise him while he does not necessarily have to give out obvious orders to the military. My answer to this is to say that God can also not be criticised in many societies, yet God, despite not existing in reality, can be used as a puppet by many ruling classes! [See http://bit.ly/2cBnidg ]

Finally, one further interesting point came out of Somsak’s talk about consensus and military coups. He pointed out that a number of military coups in the past have been directed against military governments by their rivals. In other words the military has been highly fractured. For me this is another nail in the coffin of the theory of a “Deep State” opposing Taksin. [See http://bit.ly/29H0FC9 ]

How did we reach this point in Thai politics?

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Ten years ago 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. The country is now run by an arrogant but not very bright military regime. 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 TRT 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 Thai society which had developed rapidly over many decades but which was in conflict with an unchanged conservative “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.

Despite the fact that many believe that the centre of power among the conservative elites is the monarchy, the real centre of power, lurking behind the throne, is the military. King Pumipon is a weak and characterless monarch who spent his useless and privileged life in a bubble, surrounded by fawning, and grovelling toadies. He is, and always has been, a puppet of the military and the conservative elites. The hypothesis that the present long-running unrest in Thailand is primarily caused by a “crisis of succession”, is a top-down view which assumes that the Thai monarch has real power and that he has been constantly intervening in politics. That is just not the case. There is no absolute monarch in his final years causing a potential power vacuum. All sides have also agreed that the scandal-prone and despicable prince will be the next king. To place the Princess, who has no male partner, on the throne instead, would immediately destroy all the “reinvented tradition” about the monarchy and undermine its mythical legitimacy. What is more the Prince will be even more of a weak and potential tool of the military because he cares nothing about affairs of state. The issue of royal succession is therefore of little relevance here, despite it being fashionable for journalists and academics to use this as a standard explanation for the crisis. [see http://bit.ly/2cju72D ]

The crisis has not been caused by a conflict between the monarchy and Taksin or the supposed presence of an anti-Taksin “Deep State”, either. There is no Deep State in Thailand. In order to argue for the existence of a so-called “Deep State”, the power of the King has to be exaggerated, the involvement of mass movements ignored, and long-running fractures within the military and conservative elites have to be overlooked. Taksin Shinawat, as a member of the ruling class, commanded a great deal of influence over sections of the military and judiciary in his early days as Prime Minister because of his promise to modernise Thailand after the 1997 economic crisis. The conservatives only turned against him when they could not compete with his electoral advantage as they were either not prepared to join him, or were not prepared to offer the population the kind of policies that would improve their lives. Thailand does not have some stable, unchanging core, of conservative reactionaries embedded deep within the state. There are fluid and dynamic bonds between members of the ruling class as the various factions make or break alliances in an opportunistic manner. Some of Taksin’s faction were drawn from the left, while others came from the conservative and royalist right-wing, who took part in attacks against democracy during the Cold War. Samak Sundaravej is a good example of the latter. [see http://bit.ly/29H0FC9]

The results of the referendum on the junta’s draft constitution on the 7^th August 2016 were disappointing and are a set-back for democracy. But we should not forget that this was never a democratic referendum and 10 million people voted against accepting the constitution.

This is not a time to retreat and try to build some kind of political consensus in civil society, as suggested by exiled academic Somsak Jeamteerasakul. Such a suggestion is not only a pipe-dream, but in practice would result in “half democracy”. This idea stems from Somsak’s lack of confidence in the potential power and relevance of pro-democracy social movements.

The way forward is to build a mass social movement against the junta. The rich experience of Thai mass movements defeating the military in 1973 and 1992 and the huge potential of the Red Shirt movement should be revisited. It is time to stop playing symbolic games organised by a handful of self-appointed heroes. Such misguided views arise from a mistaken analysis that in the days of social media we do not need to build mass movements. Ridding Thailand of the influence of the military will take time and determined political organisation.

 

My full paper written for “10 years of Politico-Social Crisis in Thailand”, a seminar organised by “Free Thais for Human Rights and Democracy” at CCFD-Terre Solidaire building, Paris, France, 19/9/2016, can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/2bSpoF2  or http://bit.ly/2cmZkAa

So-called “Succession Crisis” does not explain dictatorship

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

A couple of years ago it was fashionable for journalists and political commentators to try to explain the collapse of democracy in Thailand as being due to a “Succession Crisis”. The more extreme view was to predict a “Game of Thrones” war between the Prince and the Princess over who would succeed King Pumipon. Some muttered darkly that the Queen might take over. Those obsessed with military factions mapped out possible scenarios involving soldiers “belonging” to the Queen, the Princess or the Prince. The more subtle version was to say that there was “disquiet” among many Thais about what would happen when the King died. The king, so this argument went, was a “stabilising force” within Thai society.

Yet, observing Thai society today, Pumipon might as well be dead already. For some years now he has been so elderly and frail that he has not been capable of taking part in any public duties. Prayut’s military junta has not even bothered to perform the theatrics, common in previous times, of “taking orders” or consulting with the King. Today those insulting Generalissimo Prayut are now being charged with “breaking the law” as though the junta head himself was the monarch.

The mask hiding the real power in Thai society has finally slipped. Ever since the 1932 revolution that ended the absolute monarchy, the military, the business elites and the top bureaucrats have been the real power in Thailand, hiding behind a myth that the King is somehow “in charge”. This elite myth inflated the King into a god-like figure. Yet the King-God has no clothes.

The Prince is clearly set to be the next King, unless we can turn Thailand into a republic. There is no internecine war over the succession and the middle-classes and even a substantial number of Red Shirts are prepared to tolerate or even carry-on worshipping the Prince. This is despite the fact that Wachiralongkorn is a half-wit who is only interested in indulging his own whims.

The Queen is equally incapable of anything, being even frailer than the King.

There is no quarrel over succession. There is no “instability” caused by succession either.

During the entirety of Pumipon’s reign he was a weak and cowardly individual who owed his position in society to the actions of the conservative elites, especially the military. He is beholden to them and only acted when told to do so by them. The military’s obsession with using and protecting the monarchy stems from this. They are extreme royalists because, for them, being a royalist means being pro-military. Lèse majesté exists in Thailand in order to protect the un-democratic powers of the elite who masquerade as incarnations of the King.

All the political activists charged with lèse majesté in the last ten years, including myself, have primarily been critics of the military and the conservative elite’s interventions in politics against elected governments.

During the entirety of Pumipon’s reign, Thailand experienced decades of political crisis between 1973 and the mid-1980s. The present political crisis erupted in the run up to the 2006 military coup. Pumipon cannot be said to have provided any significant “peace and stability” for the Thai people. The opposite is true. He has tolerated and looked kindly upon those causing carnage in society and those who have sought to destroy democracy.

What the elites mean by “stability”, in association with the King, is really about using the King to stabilise elite power and privileges. This is why millions of Thais are holding their breath, waiting for things to get better after the King dies. But things will not get better just because of Pumipon’s death in the future.

The present Thai crisis and the authoritarian rule of the military junta, who have long out-stayed their welcome, are due to a three dimensional conflict between the unelected conservative elites who have held power under military rule or have monopolised electoral politics since 1932, and a new brand of electoral politics introduced by Taksin Shinawat’s Thai Rak Thai Party in 2001. It is a three dimensional crisis because Taksin’s policies were extremely popular with the electorate, especially the universal health care scheme and a number of pro-poor job creation projects. The majority of the population, who in reality had been totally ignored or suppressed by previous governments, found that they had a political stake in society. Taksin needed their electoral support and they relied on his government to improve their lives. Taksin’s electoral power could not be challenged by the unelected conservative elites at the ballot-box. The old elites and the middle-classes felt that they had lost out to a winning coalition between Taksin and the rural and urban working people.

It is this that explains the violent middle-class Yellow Shirt protests and the various military and judiciary coups against elected governments led by Taksin and his supporters. It is this situation that explains why the present military junta are trying to force through an undemocratic constitution in order that they and the other conservative elites can retain power in future sham elections.

Obsession with the monarchy and life after Pumipon cannot explain anything about this crisis.

[In the next few weeks I shall be publishing a critique of the “Deep State” theory which some are attempting to use to “explain” the Thai crisis. ]

The 1997 economic crash and the crisis of Thai democracy

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 everyone for no one 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, who had always harboured a dislike for the “populist” and “unreliable” New Aspiration Party (NAP), quickly suggested the idea that the crisis was all the fault of Prime Minister Chawalit Yongjaiyut’s government.

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.

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. The World Bank estimated that in early 1999 the unemployment figure was 2.6 million or 8% of the workforce. Figures quoted by academics varied from 1.5 million to 4 million. However, a much more reliable indicator of the effect of the crisis on jobs was the “quality of employment”. 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.

Over-capacity and falling rates of return, the cause of the crisis, were not merely confined to the well-publicised real estate sector, which happened to be the initial trigger for the crash. The declining rate of Thai industrial exports was an important factor which led to the run on the baht, and this was due to over-production of export products on a global scale.

In the general election of January 2001, Taksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) won a landslide victory. The election victory was in response to the previous Democrat Party government policy 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. They kept these promises and built a strong supporter base among the majority of the population.

The policies of TRT arose from a number of factors, mainly the 1997 economic crisis and the influence of both big-business and some ex-student activists from the 1970s within the party. The “Taksin wing” of big-business believed that there was an urgent need to modernise the economy and turn the electorate into stake-holders in society.

It is this mass support for Taksin’s party that set the stage for the present political crisis. The middle class, the military and other sections of the conservative elites only tolerated democracy in the past when there was no competition for concrete policies at elections and when they could all eat their share of rich pickings at the economic table. Taksin’s political dominance upset the apple-cart.

Therefore the junta’s current claims to be reforming Thai democracy are the exact opposite of the truth. What they want is to turn the clock back and reduce the democratic space.

[See previous article on this site: BACKWARD, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC AND INFANTILE: THE JUNTA’S 2015 DRAFT CONSTITUTION]

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….