Election fraud cases
threaten to wide rifts between Thaksin’s supporters and
opponents
 Just when it looked
like Thailand was ready to move past the two-year political crisis
that has sapped consumer and investor confidence, the battle between
the People Power Party and its enemies has started to heat up again.
Last week the Election
Commission recommended the dissolution of the PPP, which is comprised
of allies of deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as well as
two of its coalition partners for alleged election fraud committed by
PPP executive and House Speaker Yongyuth Tiyapairat.
The cases could take
months or years to drag through the courts, but already PPP has vowed
not to accept a dissolution verdict. A year earlier the courts
disbanded Thai Rak Thai, the party Thaksin founded and which is a
precursor to PPP. At that time Thaksin’s loyalists went away
meekly.
“I think we are
now beyond the petty legal interpretations,” said Jakrapob
Penkair, a PPP cabinet member who earlier staged protests against the
group that staged the coup that ousted Thaksin in September 2006. “If
the party will be dissolved again, we would see it as a struggle now.
It’s not only a legal conclusion, it is actually the
undermining of democracy.”
The PPP-led government
is now rushing to change the constitution and electoral laws written
in the aftermath of the coup. This has led to criticism from
anti-Thaksin activists who believe the government should live by the
military’s rules instead of those enshrined in the 1997
charter. That constitution, which was once touted as the “People’s
Constitution,” was tossed away by the military with the
acquiescence of some supposedly reform-minded democrats united by
their distaste for Thaksin’s brand of strong-man populism.
The 1997 constitution
was designed to create strong political parties as a way out of the
period of unstable and weak coalition governments in the 1990s. Yet
Thaksin defanged the independent bodies in the constitution that were
supposed to provide a system of checks and balances, prompting a
backlash from civil society members who saw the billionaire CEO
pushing the country toward Singapore-style authoritarianism.
Even though the courts
were turning against Thaksin by September 2006, the military still
decided a coup was necessary to get him out of the way. The
army-appointed legislators quickly drafted a constitution and
electoral laws that gave bureaucrats and judges immense power to
dissolve political parties and ban leading party figures from
politics.
Politicians claim these
measures allow non-elected insiders to overthrow elected governments
without actually bringing out the tanks. However, others argue that
the laws will help reduce corruption and introduce a cleaner
political system in the future.
“It would be good
to set a precedent for the future,” said Somchai Pakpatwiwat, a
political scientist at Thammasat University. “If executives for
each party are held responsible and the party is dissolved, then next
time everyone will be more careful.”
These legal changes are
crucial as Thailand’s political stability hangs in the balance.
Proponents of the military’s amendments say they enforce the
“rule of law” on the political system, while others say
the generals simply want an easy way to knock off political parties
they don’t like.
Looking at the legal
system as a whole, the laws have come into force after two years in
which the judiciary has been aligned with the generals who ousted
Thaksin. Starting in May 2006, when the courts quickly nullified an
election after Thailand’s influential king asked judges to
“solve the problem” of a pending constitutional crisis, a
slew of dubious legal decisions have followed.
In the most bizarre
case, a junta-appointed court dissolved Thai Rak Thai for trying to
gain power through unconstitutional means even as it upheld
administrative orders from the generals who tore up the constitution
when they took power. The decision essentially gave legal legitimacy
to coups.
Many political analysts
in Thailand accepted the court decisions at the time under the belief
that they would be one-off measures to get the country through the
political crisis. But then the military-appointed assembly took
another step by permanently changing the constitution and the law to
reflect the dubious legal interpretations.
“It was the views
of the court when it dissolved TRT that it tried to get a key person
of the party, and was probably done with tacit consent of the party
itself," said Gotham Arya, a former election commissioner. "But
this time around with the new constitution the judges may have less
room to interpret the case because the law is very clear that one
member of an executive party is enough to dissolve the whole party.”
The Election Commission
claims it is simply enforcing the laws on the books.
“The EC doesn’t
have a choice,” commissioner Sumeth Upanisakorn told reporters
last week. “We ask for public understanding. It’s simply
that the law has put a lock and chain around our neck.”
The selection process
for a new Constitutional Court that will eventually decide on the
dissolution cases is now underway. So far, things don’t look
good for PPP.
In selecting the first
four of the court’s nine judges, the Supreme Court this week
chose Jarun Pukditanakul. He became permanent secretary of the
Justice Ministry after the coup and was instrumental in drafting the
military’s 2007 constitution that he will be tasked to uphold.
PPP Finance Minister
Surapong Suebwonglee has called for changes to the constitution
before the cases get to the Constitutional Court, saying that the
country can’t move forward with the executive branch constantly
facing dissolution. He has received the support of coalition partners
Matchimathipataya and Chart Thai, which also face dissolution.
But the moves to change
the constitution are already facing criticism from anti-Thaksin
corners. A Bangkok Post editorial this week said calls for amendments
were “mistimed, misplaced and mishandled.”
“If the
government pushes for amendments at this time, it would merely show
that politicians are far more obsessed with power and
self-preservation than attending to national needs,” the
newspaper said.
So far it’s
unclear where exactly the public stands. An Assumption University
poll released on Wednesday found that nearly 60 percent of
respondents back amendments to the constitution. More than half also
want the banned 111 Thai Rak Thai politicians to assist the current
government.
But the anti-Thaksin
People’s Alliance for Democracy, a group that focused
middle-class discontent into widespread protests in 2006, has already
come out against the constitutional amendments. The PAD plans to hold
a rally on Friday, its first since PPP took power.
Whether it will be able
to whip up enough public fury at PPP remains to be seen. But either
way, the dissolution cases have reopened the bitter fault line
between Thaksin supporters and opponents.
“This is a
reflection of the polarization that still exists in Thai society,”
said Somchai. “Thailand’s development will continue to be
mired in a vicious cycle between pro-Thaksin and anti-Thaksin groups
for the foreseeable future.”
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Read the Fine Print
Under the old laws, dissolution wouldn’t even be an issue
Under previous electoral laws, no Thai political party would
currently face dissolution.
In this current flap, for example, the Election Commission’s
decision to disqualify PPP executive and House Speaker Yongyuth
Tiyapairat wouldn’t have stood under the old laws.
In Yongyuth’s case, the commission voted against him in a 3 to
2 vote. Section 8 of the 1998 Election Commission law required votes
concerning investigations into election fraud to be unanimous.
Section 8 of the new law passed under the military-appointed
legislature does away with unanimous votes, requiring only a
majority.
The military rewrote the constitution to reinterpret what constitutes
undermining “the democratic regime of government with the King
as Head of the State” under Section 63 of the 1997
constitution. Charter drafters have said the clause was originally
meant for extreme cases in which parties openly advocated the violent
overthrow of the government, like the Communist Party did back in the
1970s.
The military states explicitly in Article 237 of the new constitution
that a political party “is assumed to have sought to gain power
in state administration by means other than what is provided in…
the Constitution” if an executive committee member is found
guilty of election fraud.
That clause is not in the 1997 constitution. Moreover, the previous
law on political parties provided room for interpretation on this
point, clearly indicating that the constitution drafters intended
dissolution for only the most extreme cases. Section 27 of the 1998
Political Parties law says that if an executive member of a party
commits an act that is “contrary to public order or good morals
or the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of the
State under the Constitution, but the nature of the act is not so
serious as to cause dissolution,” then the party would receive
“a written warning… to cease or rectify such act within
a period prescribed by the Registrar.”
“The dissolution of a political party should only take place in
a very serious case, so I tend to disagree with Article 237 of the
constitution,” said Gotham Arya, a former election commissioner
who played a key role in drafting the 1997 constitution.
The new constitution and political party laws also make it clear that
executive members of dissolved political parties will be banned from
standing in an election for five years. This clause stems from a
junta order issued immediately after the coup that was designed to
prevent 111 Thai Rak Thai lawmakers, including Thaksin, from
immediately forming another party. In a move that flew went against
international legal norms, the military-appointed court that
dissolved TRT applied this coup order ex post facto in May 2006,
ensuring that Thaksin and the other banned members can’t
participate in elections until May 2011.
Previously, the 1998 law said executive members of dissolved
political parties could still run for election but couldn’t
help form a new party or serve on its executive board.
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