Thailand is on the election trail and heading towards uncertainty
“WE’RE not selling fish sauce, this is an election rally,” jokes Sombat Ratano as he walks alongside his campaign truck with a microphone, hailing the voters of a rural village in Ubon Ratchathani province. In Isaan, Thailand’s poor and populous north-east region, support is still strong for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by a military coup in September 2006. Mr Sombat is a candidate in the Sunday December 23rd general election. He is standing for the People’s Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT), which was disbanded after the coup. As he tours the village, he drops Mr Thaksin’s name at every opportunity, promising to revive the policies—from cheap health care to farming loans—that made the former prime minister popular.
Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.
Middle-class Bangkokians, who are as snooty about their country cousins as any metropolitan elite anywhere, often say that “uneducated” rural voters such as those in Isaan were bribed and tricked into voting for Mr Thaksin. But rural voters were quite rational in handing him landslide victories in 2001 and 2005. He was Thailand’s first party leader to promise and deliver a comprehensive set of policies aimed at the mass of voters. The allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest and vote-buying that surround him are serious but hardly unusual: such practices are endemic in Thai politics.
The gravest allegation against Mr Thaksin is that in a “war on drugs” in 2003 he seemed to be encouraging extra-judicial killings of suspected drugs-dealers by police. An investigation into this, started after the coup, remains incomplete—perhaps because the policy, however brutal, was also popular. Amid signs of resurgent amphetamine abuse, the PPP unashamedly talks of reviving it.
On his shirt Mr Sombat bears the logo of King Bhumibol’s 80th birthday celebrations, held earlier in December. This is a subtle riposte to the military junta’s accusation that Mr Thaksin and his party do not respect the country’s revered monarch, whose portrait is as omnipresent in the Isaan countryside as it is around Bangkok’s royal palaces. The PPP has also hired Samak Sundaravej, an ferocious right-winger andarch-royalist, as stand-in leader while Mr Thaksin remains abroad. Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king’s chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.
Many parties, old and new, are contesting the election. Some have brought military men on board, hoping for army backing. Niran Pitakwatchara, a local doctor standing in Ubon Ratchathani for Matchimathipataya, one of the new parties, reckons voters have started to see the flaws in Mr Thaksin’s policies. But all the other parties, including Mr Niran’s, have adopted copycat versions of them—making them awkward to attack.
The generals who staged the coup claimed to be saving Thai democracy from Mr Thaksin’s abuses. Their dictatorship has been a pretty mild one and they are keeping their promise to hold the election by the end of 2007. But they presumably hoped the former leader would be forgotten by now. He has not been. Though Thailand’s quirky opinion polls must be treated with caution, most predict that the PPP will win comfortably more seats than its nearest rival, the Democrats, although not a majority. The widespread assumption is that the Democrats will nevertheless form a ramshackle coalition. The problem is that Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrats’ leader, though young and handsome, may not command enough respect to lead a fractious government.
Until the coup, Thailand seemed to be escaping its historic cycle of alternating military dictatorships and weak civilian rule. By the late 1990s it had become a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Whether that beacon will shine again is unclear. If a Democrat-led coalition takes office, the PPP seems likely to make its life difficult and short-lived. If the PPP leads the next government, a peace pact with the generals is possible but the military men are bound to be nervous. The PPP promises to rescind a political ban that a tribunal created by the junta imposed on Mr Thaksin and 110 allies. If he returns, he would be able to scrap the amnesty that the coupmakers granted themselves—and put them in the dock.
General Anupong Paojinda, a new army chief who took over in October, insists there will be no coup even if the Thaksinites win. Then again, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, his predecessor, repeatedly made the same promise right up to the moment he overthrew Mr Thaksin.
The generals, courtiers and bureaucrats who have been in charge for the past 15 months have ruled dismally. Thailand’s economy is now one of the slowest-growing in booming Asia. The army-appointed interim government has become ever more invisible as its popularity has sunk. General Sonthi, presumably fearing humiliation, quietly dropped plans to stand in the election. But it is unclear whether the army and its civilian backers have learned the old lesson that coups and extra-constitutional excursions tend to make political crises worse and do not produce good government.
Thailand’s judicial and regulatory institutions are on trial in the election. For example, a new Election Commission, appointed with little dissent in the turmoil shortly before the coup, faces accusations of partiality. It absolved the military junta of plotting to subvert the election by undermining the PPP, despite the discovery of army documents detailing the plot. But the commission is now threatening to disqualify the PPP over the less serious matter of a video clip in which Mr Thaksin breaches his ban on politicking and urges support for his party.
The commission and courts will have lots of complaints to handle after the polls close. If they enforce the rules impartially and promptly, they could set Thailand back on the road to democracy. If they are arbitrary, biased or dilatory, they may doom it to more years of instability—especially if they leave the impression that the people have voted for Thaksinism, only to have their will subverted.
Dec 22nd 2007 | UBON RATCHATHANI
From The Economist print edition
Full Version: Thailand to become South-East Asia’s Pakistan?
So if the PPP wins does that mean the coup d'etat (sp?) was in vain? O_o Are they this election's favorite?
it's not entirlely vain though, at least they learn that coup is not alway the answer.
^ Good point.
Bad Karma for those who did Thaksin wrong..
Hail PPP
Hail PPP
QUOTE(Ubon94 @ Dec 24 2007, 10:01 PM) [snapback]3383872[/snapback]
Bad Karma for those who did Thaksin wrong..
Hail PPP
Hail PPP
Bad Karma for those who corupt the country will get soon
Jail Thakky
arent both countries muslim???
QUOTE(DrGieL3 @ Dec 22 2007, 09:01 PM) [snapback]3381288[/snapback]
Thailand is on the election trail and heading towards uncertainty
“WE’RE not selling fish sauce, this is an election rally,” jokes Sombat Ratano as he walks alongside his campaign truck with a microphone, hailing the voters of a rural village in Ubon Ratchathani province. In Isaan, Thailand’s poor and populous north-east region, support is still strong for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by a military coup in September 2006. Mr Sombat is a candidate in the Sunday December 23rd general election. He is standing for the People’s Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT), which was disbanded after the coup. As he tours the village, he drops Mr Thaksin’s name at every opportunity, promising to revive the policies—from cheap health care to farming loans—that made the former prime minister popular.
Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.
Middle-class Bangkokians, who are as snooty about their country cousins as any metropolitan elite anywhere, often say that “uneducated” rural voters such as those in Isaan were bribed and tricked into voting for Mr Thaksin. But rural voters were quite rational in handing him landslide victories in 2001 and 2005. He was Thailand’s first party leader to promise and deliver a comprehensive set of policies aimed at the mass of voters. The allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest and vote-buying that surround him are serious but hardly unusual: such practices are endemic in Thai politics.
The gravest allegation against Mr Thaksin is that in a “war on drugs” in 2003 he seemed to be encouraging extra-judicial killings of suspected drugs-dealers by police. An investigation into this, started after the coup, remains incomplete—perhaps because the policy, however brutal, was also popular. Amid signs of resurgent amphetamine abuse, the PPP unashamedly talks of reviving it.
On his shirt Mr Sombat bears the logo of King Bhumibol’s 80th birthday celebrations, held earlier in December. This is a subtle riposte to the military junta’s accusation that Mr Thaksin and his party do not respect the country’s revered monarch, whose portrait is as omnipresent in the Isaan countryside as it is around Bangkok’s royal palaces. The PPP has also hired Samak Sundaravej, an ferocious right-winger andarch-royalist, as stand-in leader while Mr Thaksin remains abroad. Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king’s chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.
Many parties, old and new, are contesting the election. Some have brought military men on board, hoping for army backing. Niran Pitakwatchara, a local doctor standing in Ubon Ratchathani for Matchimathipataya, one of the new parties, reckons voters have started to see the flaws in Mr Thaksin’s policies. But all the other parties, including Mr Niran’s, have adopted copycat versions of them—making them awkward to attack.
The generals who staged the coup claimed to be saving Thai democracy from Mr Thaksin’s abuses. Their dictatorship has been a pretty mild one and they are keeping their promise to hold the election by the end of 2007. But they presumably hoped the former leader would be forgotten by now. He has not been. Though Thailand’s quirky opinion polls must be treated with caution, most predict that the PPP will win comfortably more seats than its nearest rival, the Democrats, although not a majority. The widespread assumption is that the Democrats will nevertheless form a ramshackle coalition. The problem is that Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrats’ leader, though young and handsome, may not command enough respect to lead a fractious government.
Until the coup, Thailand seemed to be escaping its historic cycle of alternating military dictatorships and weak civilian rule. By the late 1990s it had become a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Whether that beacon will shine again is unclear. If a Democrat-led coalition takes office, the PPP seems likely to make its life difficult and short-lived. If the PPP leads the next government, a peace pact with the generals is possible but the military men are bound to be nervous. The PPP promises to rescind a political ban that a tribunal created by the junta imposed on Mr Thaksin and 110 allies. If he returns, he would be able to scrap the amnesty that the coupmakers granted themselves—and put them in the dock.
General Anupong Paojinda, a new army chief who took over in October, insists there will be no coup even if the Thaksinites win. Then again, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, his predecessor, repeatedly made the same promise right up to the moment he overthrew Mr Thaksin.
The generals, courtiers and bureaucrats who have been in charge for the past 15 months have ruled dismally. Thailand’s economy is now one of the slowest-growing in booming Asia. The army-appointed interim government has become ever more invisible as its popularity has sunk. General Sonthi, presumably fearing humiliation, quietly dropped plans to stand in the election. But it is unclear whether the army and its civilian backers have learned the old lesson that coups and extra-constitutional excursions tend to make political crises worse and do not produce good government.
Thailand’s judicial and regulatory institutions are on trial in the election. For example, a new Election Commission, appointed with little dissent in the turmoil shortly before the coup, faces accusations of partiality. It absolved the military junta of plotting to subvert the election by undermining the PPP, despite the discovery of army documents detailing the plot. But the commission is now threatening to disqualify the PPP over the less serious matter of a video clip in which Mr Thaksin breaches his ban on politicking and urges support for his party.
The commission and courts will have lots of complaints to handle after the polls close. If they enforce the rules impartially and promptly, they could set Thailand back on the road to democracy. If they are arbitrary, biased or dilatory, they may doom it to more years of instability—especially if they leave the impression that the people have voted for Thaksinism, only to have their will subverted.
Dec 22nd 2007 | UBON RATCHATHANI
From The Economist print edition
“WE’RE not selling fish sauce, this is an election rally,” jokes Sombat Ratano as he walks alongside his campaign truck with a microphone, hailing the voters of a rural village in Ubon Ratchathani province. In Isaan, Thailand’s poor and populous north-east region, support is still strong for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by a military coup in September 2006. Mr Sombat is a candidate in the Sunday December 23rd general election. He is standing for the People’s Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT), which was disbanded after the coup. As he tours the village, he drops Mr Thaksin’s name at every opportunity, promising to revive the policies—from cheap health care to farming loans—that made the former prime minister popular.
Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.
Middle-class Bangkokians, who are as snooty about their country cousins as any metropolitan elite anywhere, often say that “uneducated” rural voters such as those in Isaan were bribed and tricked into voting for Mr Thaksin. But rural voters were quite rational in handing him landslide victories in 2001 and 2005. He was Thailand’s first party leader to promise and deliver a comprehensive set of policies aimed at the mass of voters. The allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest and vote-buying that surround him are serious but hardly unusual: such practices are endemic in Thai politics.
The gravest allegation against Mr Thaksin is that in a “war on drugs” in 2003 he seemed to be encouraging extra-judicial killings of suspected drugs-dealers by police. An investigation into this, started after the coup, remains incomplete—perhaps because the policy, however brutal, was also popular. Amid signs of resurgent amphetamine abuse, the PPP unashamedly talks of reviving it.
On his shirt Mr Sombat bears the logo of King Bhumibol’s 80th birthday celebrations, held earlier in December. This is a subtle riposte to the military junta’s accusation that Mr Thaksin and his party do not respect the country’s revered monarch, whose portrait is as omnipresent in the Isaan countryside as it is around Bangkok’s royal palaces. The PPP has also hired Samak Sundaravej, an ferocious right-winger andarch-royalist, as stand-in leader while Mr Thaksin remains abroad. Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king’s chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.
Many parties, old and new, are contesting the election. Some have brought military men on board, hoping for army backing. Niran Pitakwatchara, a local doctor standing in Ubon Ratchathani for Matchimathipataya, one of the new parties, reckons voters have started to see the flaws in Mr Thaksin’s policies. But all the other parties, including Mr Niran’s, have adopted copycat versions of them—making them awkward to attack.
The generals who staged the coup claimed to be saving Thai democracy from Mr Thaksin’s abuses. Their dictatorship has been a pretty mild one and they are keeping their promise to hold the election by the end of 2007. But they presumably hoped the former leader would be forgotten by now. He has not been. Though Thailand’s quirky opinion polls must be treated with caution, most predict that the PPP will win comfortably more seats than its nearest rival, the Democrats, although not a majority. The widespread assumption is that the Democrats will nevertheless form a ramshackle coalition. The problem is that Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrats’ leader, though young and handsome, may not command enough respect to lead a fractious government.
Until the coup, Thailand seemed to be escaping its historic cycle of alternating military dictatorships and weak civilian rule. By the late 1990s it had become a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Whether that beacon will shine again is unclear. If a Democrat-led coalition takes office, the PPP seems likely to make its life difficult and short-lived. If the PPP leads the next government, a peace pact with the generals is possible but the military men are bound to be nervous. The PPP promises to rescind a political ban that a tribunal created by the junta imposed on Mr Thaksin and 110 allies. If he returns, he would be able to scrap the amnesty that the coupmakers granted themselves—and put them in the dock.
General Anupong Paojinda, a new army chief who took over in October, insists there will be no coup even if the Thaksinites win. Then again, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, his predecessor, repeatedly made the same promise right up to the moment he overthrew Mr Thaksin.
The generals, courtiers and bureaucrats who have been in charge for the past 15 months have ruled dismally. Thailand’s economy is now one of the slowest-growing in booming Asia. The army-appointed interim government has become ever more invisible as its popularity has sunk. General Sonthi, presumably fearing humiliation, quietly dropped plans to stand in the election. But it is unclear whether the army and its civilian backers have learned the old lesson that coups and extra-constitutional excursions tend to make political crises worse and do not produce good government.
Thailand’s judicial and regulatory institutions are on trial in the election. For example, a new Election Commission, appointed with little dissent in the turmoil shortly before the coup, faces accusations of partiality. It absolved the military junta of plotting to subvert the election by undermining the PPP, despite the discovery of army documents detailing the plot. But the commission is now threatening to disqualify the PPP over the less serious matter of a video clip in which Mr Thaksin breaches his ban on politicking and urges support for his party.
The commission and courts will have lots of complaints to handle after the polls close. If they enforce the rules impartially and promptly, they could set Thailand back on the road to democracy. If they are arbitrary, biased or dilatory, they may doom it to more years of instability—especially if they leave the impression that the people have voted for Thaksinism, only to have their will subverted.
Dec 22nd 2007 | UBON RATCHATHANI
From The Economist print edition
There is no uncertainty in Thailand's future.
NONE!
The train shall arrive, according to Thai time.
QUOTE(DrGieL3 @ Dec 23 2007, 04:01 AM) [snapback]3381288[/snapback]
Thailand is on the election trail and heading towards uncertainty
“WE’RE not selling fish sauce, this is an election rally,” jokes Sombat Ratano as he walks alongside his campaign truck with a microphone, hailing the voters of a rural village in Ubon Ratchathani province. In Isaan, Thailand’s poor and populous north-east region, support is still strong for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by a military coup in September 2006. Mr Sombat is a candidate in the Sunday December 23rd general election. He is standing for the People’s Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT), which was disbanded after the coup. As he tours the village, he drops Mr Thaksin’s name at every opportunity, promising to revive the policies—from cheap health care to farming loans—that made the former prime minister popular.
Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.
Middle-class Bangkokians, who are as snooty about their country cousins as any metropolitan elite anywhere, often say that “uneducated” rural voters such as those in Isaan were bribed and tricked into voting for Mr Thaksin. But rural voters were quite rational in handing him landslide victories in 2001 and 2005. He was Thailand’s first party leader to promise and deliver a comprehensive set of policies aimed at the mass of voters. The allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest and vote-buying that surround him are serious but hardly unusual: such practices are endemic in Thai politics.
The gravest allegation against Mr Thaksin is that in a “war on drugs” in 2003 he seemed to be encouraging extra-judicial killings of suspected drugs-dealers by police. An investigation into this, started after the coup, remains incomplete—perhaps because the policy, however brutal, was also popular. Amid signs of resurgent amphetamine abuse, the PPP unashamedly talks of reviving it.
On his shirt Mr Sombat bears the logo of King Bhumibol’s 80th birthday celebrations, held earlier in December. This is a subtle riposte to the military junta’s accusation that Mr Thaksin and his party do not respect the country’s revered monarch, whose portrait is as omnipresent in the Isaan countryside as it is around Bangkok’s royal palaces. The PPP has also hired Samak Sundaravej, an ferocious right-winger andarch-royalist, as stand-in leader while Mr Thaksin remains abroad. Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king’s chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.
Many parties, old and new, are contesting the election. Some have brought military men on board, hoping for army backing. Niran Pitakwatchara, a local doctor standing in Ubon Ratchathani for Matchimathipataya, one of the new parties, reckons voters have started to see the flaws in Mr Thaksin’s policies. But all the other parties, including Mr Niran’s, have adopted copycat versions of them—making them awkward to attack.
The generals who staged the coup claimed to be saving Thai democracy from Mr Thaksin’s abuses. Their dictatorship has been a pretty mild one and they are keeping their promise to hold the election by the end of 2007. But they presumably hoped the former leader would be forgotten by now. He has not been. Though Thailand’s quirky opinion polls must be treated with caution, most predict that the PPP will win comfortably more seats than its nearest rival, the Democrats, although not a majority. The widespread assumption is that the Democrats will nevertheless form a ramshackle coalition. The problem is that Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrats’ leader, though young and handsome, may not command enough respect to lead a fractious government.
Until the coup, Thailand seemed to be escaping its historic cycle of alternating military dictatorships and weak civilian rule. By the late 1990s it had become a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Whether that beacon will shine again is unclear. If a Democrat-led coalition takes office, the PPP seems likely to make its life difficult and short-lived. If the PPP leads the next government, a peace pact with the generals is possible but the military men are bound to be nervous. The PPP promises to rescind a political ban that a tribunal created by the junta imposed on Mr Thaksin and 110 allies. If he returns, he would be able to scrap the amnesty that the coupmakers granted themselves—and put them in the dock.
General Anupong Paojinda, a new army chief who took over in October, insists there will be no coup even if the Thaksinites win. Then again, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, his predecessor, repeatedly made the same promise right up to the moment he overthrew Mr Thaksin.
The generals, courtiers and bureaucrats who have been in charge for the past 15 months have ruled dismally. Thailand’s economy is now one of the slowest-growing in booming Asia. The army-appointed interim government has become ever more invisible as its popularity has sunk. General Sonthi, presumably fearing humiliation, quietly dropped plans to stand in the election. But it is unclear whether the army and its civilian backers have learned the old lesson that coups and extra-constitutional excursions tend to make political crises worse and do not produce good government.
Thailand’s judicial and regulatory institutions are on trial in the election. For example, a new Election Commission, appointed with little dissent in the turmoil shortly before the coup, faces accusations of partiality. It absolved the military junta of plotting to subvert the election by undermining the PPP, despite the discovery of army documents detailing the plot. But the commission is now threatening to disqualify the PPP over the less serious matter of a video clip in which Mr Thaksin breaches his ban on politicking and urges support for his party.
The commission and courts will have lots of complaints to handle after the polls close. If they enforce the rules impartially and promptly, they could set Thailand back on the road to democracy. If they are arbitrary, biased or dilatory, they may doom it to more years of instability—especially if they leave the impression that the people have voted for Thaksinism, only to have their will subverted.
Dec 22nd 2007 | UBON RATCHATHANI
From The Economist print edition
“WE’RE not selling fish sauce, this is an election rally,” jokes Sombat Ratano as he walks alongside his campaign truck with a microphone, hailing the voters of a rural village in Ubon Ratchathani province. In Isaan, Thailand’s poor and populous north-east region, support is still strong for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed by a military coup in September 2006. Mr Sombat is a candidate in the Sunday December 23rd general election. He is standing for the People’s Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT), which was disbanded after the coup. As he tours the village, he drops Mr Thaksin’s name at every opportunity, promising to revive the policies—from cheap health care to farming loans—that made the former prime minister popular.
Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.
Middle-class Bangkokians, who are as snooty about their country cousins as any metropolitan elite anywhere, often say that “uneducated” rural voters such as those in Isaan were bribed and tricked into voting for Mr Thaksin. But rural voters were quite rational in handing him landslide victories in 2001 and 2005. He was Thailand’s first party leader to promise and deliver a comprehensive set of policies aimed at the mass of voters. The allegations of corruption, conflicts of interest and vote-buying that surround him are serious but hardly unusual: such practices are endemic in Thai politics.
The gravest allegation against Mr Thaksin is that in a “war on drugs” in 2003 he seemed to be encouraging extra-judicial killings of suspected drugs-dealers by police. An investigation into this, started after the coup, remains incomplete—perhaps because the policy, however brutal, was also popular. Amid signs of resurgent amphetamine abuse, the PPP unashamedly talks of reviving it.
On his shirt Mr Sombat bears the logo of King Bhumibol’s 80th birthday celebrations, held earlier in December. This is a subtle riposte to the military junta’s accusation that Mr Thaksin and his party do not respect the country’s revered monarch, whose portrait is as omnipresent in the Isaan countryside as it is around Bangkok’s royal palaces. The PPP has also hired Samak Sundaravej, an ferocious right-winger andarch-royalist, as stand-in leader while Mr Thaksin remains abroad. Though close to the palace, Mr Samak is a foe of General Prem Tinsulanonda, the king’s chief adviser and, Thaksinites allege, mastermind of the coup.
Many parties, old and new, are contesting the election. Some have brought military men on board, hoping for army backing. Niran Pitakwatchara, a local doctor standing in Ubon Ratchathani for Matchimathipataya, one of the new parties, reckons voters have started to see the flaws in Mr Thaksin’s policies. But all the other parties, including Mr Niran’s, have adopted copycat versions of them—making them awkward to attack.
The generals who staged the coup claimed to be saving Thai democracy from Mr Thaksin’s abuses. Their dictatorship has been a pretty mild one and they are keeping their promise to hold the election by the end of 2007. But they presumably hoped the former leader would be forgotten by now. He has not been. Though Thailand’s quirky opinion polls must be treated with caution, most predict that the PPP will win comfortably more seats than its nearest rival, the Democrats, although not a majority. The widespread assumption is that the Democrats will nevertheless form a ramshackle coalition. The problem is that Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Democrats’ leader, though young and handsome, may not command enough respect to lead a fractious government.
Until the coup, Thailand seemed to be escaping its historic cycle of alternating military dictatorships and weak civilian rule. By the late 1990s it had become a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Whether that beacon will shine again is unclear. If a Democrat-led coalition takes office, the PPP seems likely to make its life difficult and short-lived. If the PPP leads the next government, a peace pact with the generals is possible but the military men are bound to be nervous. The PPP promises to rescind a political ban that a tribunal created by the junta imposed on Mr Thaksin and 110 allies. If he returns, he would be able to scrap the amnesty that the coupmakers granted themselves—and put them in the dock.
General Anupong Paojinda, a new army chief who took over in October, insists there will be no coup even if the Thaksinites win. Then again, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, his predecessor, repeatedly made the same promise right up to the moment he overthrew Mr Thaksin.
The generals, courtiers and bureaucrats who have been in charge for the past 15 months have ruled dismally. Thailand’s economy is now one of the slowest-growing in booming Asia. The army-appointed interim government has become ever more invisible as its popularity has sunk. General Sonthi, presumably fearing humiliation, quietly dropped plans to stand in the election. But it is unclear whether the army and its civilian backers have learned the old lesson that coups and extra-constitutional excursions tend to make political crises worse and do not produce good government.
Thailand’s judicial and regulatory institutions are on trial in the election. For example, a new Election Commission, appointed with little dissent in the turmoil shortly before the coup, faces accusations of partiality. It absolved the military junta of plotting to subvert the election by undermining the PPP, despite the discovery of army documents detailing the plot. But the commission is now threatening to disqualify the PPP over the less serious matter of a video clip in which Mr Thaksin breaches his ban on politicking and urges support for his party.
The commission and courts will have lots of complaints to handle after the polls close. If they enforce the rules impartially and promptly, they could set Thailand back on the road to democracy. If they are arbitrary, biased or dilatory, they may doom it to more years of instability—especially if they leave the impression that the people have voted for Thaksinism, only to have their will subverted.
Dec 22nd 2007 | UBON RATCHATHANI
From The Economist print edition
Why the PPP win? It just like how bush get vote from those redneck in Texas.
I has no problem with those Esarn people till the time that we election. PPP got vote from those esarn outbacker who sold their vote for couple hundred baht. The Esarn people in norteast is out number the Thais in other part. Some time I not sure that the Esarn people really feel that they are Thai people. They jst vote for PPP to get stuffs in return without thinking of other things.
SCREW those Scrum esarn who said they are the citizen of Thailand !!!!
blame on Esan..the whole country voted for PPP except the central and south..the people who go out to vote are not dumb.. the numbers speak for it self so stop cry and start accepting the democratic system. Thaksin is coming back
^ Each person looks out for themselves, especially poverty stricken people. The Isan folks will vote for those who give them benefits directly, whether it's good for the rest of the country or not. It's a little hard to explain to the less educated folks that they should choose a leader that will lead Thailand in the right direction, one that will implement policies to encourage growth and stability for the nation as a whole when other people are waving their monthly wage in front of their faces and saying 'Vote for us! You'll benefit directly from low interest loans, uber-cheap healthcare and best of all, if we win you'll get a couple of hundred Baht!'
Either that or it could simply be an Issan revenge on the central Thais for ousting the leader they elected years ago democratically.
Either that or it could simply be an Issan revenge on the central Thais for ousting the leader they elected years ago democratically.
There's seems to be a wind of change blowing in that part of the world as of late. I was wondering will there be an coalition government? and will the minority party go down without a fight? I'm sure Thaksin being a business man will not let what had happened to him and his family go by like it never happpened. It also seems like Thaksin is also winning the propaganda war. The situation in Thailand is very similiar to what had happened to another kingdom over 30 years ago. Now that kingdom no longer exist and the monarchy is gone.
Aeroforce, may I ask you not to be so prejudice against the Thai-Isarn people? Well, I admit that they're still some idiots who call themselves lao-isarn and who worship Thaksin. There's still others who got brains, you know. My khun loong in khon kaen dislike Thugkee regime, and he dislike Suvit even more.(Suvit= Sor Sor Sou pei nee) And he knows that the Democrat Party is just as corrupted as the rest.
In Khon Kaen, it's normally the young intellects who goes around buying votes,acting as lackeys(mostly PPP) But they don't dare to go my khun loong house, as it would mean a long lecture for them.
He even call relatives in BKK not to vote for PPP.
Anyway, in the end my 60+ year old uncle put down "No Vote".
In Khon Kaen, it's normally the young intellects who goes around buying votes,acting as lackeys(mostly PPP) But they don't dare to go my khun loong house, as it would mean a long lecture for them.
He even call relatives in BKK not to vote for PPP. Anyway, in the end my 60+ year old uncle put down "No Vote".
I'm sure the outcome of this will have a ripple effect in that part of world. After all, Thailand is the economic powerhouse there and I'm sure there's many "outside forces" who have lots at stake. Protests in Burma, protests in Cambodia, and now this issue in Thailand. I hope the authorities are keeping a eye on the trouble south. I'm sure the separates groups might use this a t their advantage.
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