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Thai Political Beat Goes On

Written by Our Correspondent

Sunday, 13 April 2008

Never mind elections, the fate of Thaksin’s proxy party could be decided, yet again, by Thailand’s royalist judges and generals

Thaksin Thailand’s proxy war between loyalists to deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Bangkok’s royalist elite is stirring once again, with the outcome as uncertain as ever.

Despite the fact that Thaksin’s popularity had soared to record heights in early 2005, royalist generals managed to oust him from power in a 2006 coup. After 15 months of bumbling military rule, Thaksin’s allies in the People Power Party surged back to power with a decisive win in elections last December. Yet their grip is tenuous.

Two cases that could eventually lead to the party’s dissolution will come before Thailand’s Supreme Court ‑ home turf for royalists. While the PPP – and before that Thaksin’s now-banned Thai Rak Thai Party – have had a trump card in due to unassailable political support in the populous rural northeast, the anti-Thaksin forces have countered with judges and soldiers. If things play out as they have over the past two years, PPP’s election victories will be undermined by coups or court decisions to ban the party, which could in turn be followed by another election victory by friends and relatives of the banned Thaksin loyalists.

The PPP is attempting to break this cycle by seeking quickly to change certain clauses in the military-drafted constitution that make it very easy to dissolve political parties. This has sparked a backlash from the same elements that tried to oust Thaksin a few years ago, including the anti-Thaksin interest group People’s Alliance for Democracy, led by publisher Sondhi Limthongkul.

The options for the anti-Thaksin side also carry risks, as a coup or court decision to ban the PPP could spark social unrest. Any such move would have to be carefully calculated, and the royalists would rather hand governance over to the pro-establishment Democrat Party instead of letting the military take the reins again. The royalists hoped to do this in December’s election, but they couldn’t muster enough votes to unlock Thaksin’s grip over the electorate.

The conflict will simmer under the surface for the time being. The real power brokers ‑Thaksin and the royalists heavyweights ‑ will let the proxy power brokers — Prime Minister Samak Sundarevej and the Democrat Party — trade blows. But when push comes to shove, the big guys will call the shots.

Thaksin spent 18 months in exile but now moves freely in and out of the country. He says he's out of politics, although he is adept at staying in the public eye. One week he’s off to England to try and convince Brazilian star Ronaldhino to join his Manchester City Premier League football club, and the next he is back in Thailand greeting top businessmen. This week he hosted an economic forum featuring Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of steel giant ArcelorMittal.

The PPP has also reinstated Thaksin’s populist programs, helping to firm up his rural base in the event of another unexpected election. In addition, it has realigned elements of the bureaucracy and the police force to fall under its influence.

But getting through the courts is another story. Like the military, judges in Thailand are traditionally aligned with royalist elements, and previously they played a crucial role in setting the stage for the coup.

This week King Bhumibol Adulyadej named three more people to his 19-member Privy Council: Surayud Chulanont, a former army chief who left the Privy Council after the coup to become the military-appointed prime minister; and two former Supreme Court presidents, Charnchai Likhitjitta and Supachai Phungam. They join Santi Thakral, who was named to the advisory body in 2005, and former top judge Atthaniti Disathaamnari, who joined the council last year. This means that of the last five appointments to the council, four have been former presidents of the top court.

The moves are significant given that Thaksin was once seen to peddle his own influence over the courts, most glaringly in 2001 when the Constitutional Court acquitted him in a narrow 8-7 vote of failing to properly disclose his assets, a move that preserved his premiership. Yet ever since the king instructed judges in April 2006 to clean up the legal mess stemming from a boycotted election earlier that month, the courts have moved in lockstep with the palace, even when legal experts cried foul.

In defending the judiciary’s jump into the political arena, Charnchai said that judges must be focused on “justice” instead of the “letter of the law.”

“But most practitioners of the law tend to lose sight of that and become fixated on what they’ve been taught,” he said, according to local media.

Like judges, privy councilors are supposed to stay “above politics.” But also like judges, that’s not the case in reality. Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda, the former army chief and prime minister, was widely credited with orchestrating the coup that brought the military to power in 2006. This belief was furthered when the military appointed privy councilor Surayud as interim prime minister.

“In the past five to six years, the council has moved to a new level of overt political intervention in the context of the tensions that developed between the palace and the Thaksin government between 2001-2006,” Paul Handley, author of the highly-regarded book The King Never Smiles, wrote in an academic paper presented at a Thai Studies conference in January.

The rubber will hit the road later this year. If the PPP can’t change the laws in time, its fate will be in the hands of the Supreme Court. If the past is any prologue, that doesn’t bode well for Thaksin’s allies.

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written by 1-grassroot, April 13, 2008

Needless to say, Thai people understood what country’s direction SHOULD be …when they heard the appointments of the additional three more people to join the Privy Council.

I wonder who has courage to write a book titled: "Who's calling for Civil War in Thailand?"

...
written by Doug Youvan, April 13, 2008

I would encourage readers of this article to take the time and make the effort to bring all appropriate articles on Thailand, Thaksin, and the recent coup up to date on www.wikipedia.org. The perspective from China is especially important.

-1

Bad reporter
written by Banyat, April 14, 2008

"Never mind elections, the fate of Thaksin’s proxy party "

What is this - the report did not have evident to support the "Proxy Party". A report like this cause the rift in the country and irresponsible reporter. HE/She needs to be fired.

idiot
written by oblivia, April 14, 2008

"A report like this cause the rift in the country and irresponsible reporter. HE/She needs to be fired."

It is not even remotely controversial to say that the PPP is aligned with Thaksin or that it is mostly made up of ex-TRT politicians and supporters. If anyone is to be accused of trying to cause a rift in Thailand it ought to be the moronic Bangkok elite that forcefully ousted a government that was fairly elected by the Thai people -- and which has now, in effect, been returned to power by the same people.

Like It Is
written by Frequent Flyer, April 14, 2008

A good, up-dated synopsis of the current political situation in Thailand: TIT - SNAFU!

Spot on
written by ThaiCrisis, April 15, 2008

The latest appointments reveal that the rift between the palace and Thaksin’s allies remains. Handley writes that Prem has recruited judicial and national security experts to allow an “assertive Privy Council” to go toe-to-toe with the PPP-led government.

This super Privy Council makes perfectly sense in the light of the coming... King's succession.

I would like to remind you that the Constitution states that the royal succession can be managed -in certain circumstances- by the Privy Council itself...

My point : this Council is becoming more and more strategic and important... This Council is much more than a simple tuperware-have-a-cup-of-tea group for old men !

It's a key piece within the system.

Again, we have to repeat that all the events since 2005 must be seen with only one -and only one- magnifying glass : the royal succession.

It's so easy to understand !

Basically, and to say it quickly, the death of the King is going to undermine the thai monarchy (for many reasons, too long to explain here)...

Thaksin knows it, and felt the historic opportunity... The monarchists know this too... For them, it's a terrible perspective. So you can be sure that they will fight like lions.

Nothing is solved. The fight is going to continue, on several levels (right now, it's the "judicial" level, but it could change).

PM Samak
written by Bushwhacker, April 17, 2008

A smart and cunning PM Samak is no a proxy of Thaksin as he tries to make it out to the Press. He has wisely chosen the Defence Minister for himself. He is also a close confidante of the King and therefore a thorn to the old Royalist clique around Prem.

...
written by AR, April 21, 2008

Thailand's political beat gets deafeningly louder . . . if anyone had bother to notice . . . as the court cases against former PM Thaksin, and against current PM Samak (corruption and libel cases), and against former House Speaker Yongyuth (electoral fraud) gathers momentum and conviction gets more imminent. Not only louder and certainly offbeat and out-of-tune.

But all three Thaksin, Samak and Yongyuth all say they welcome judicial inquiries . . . or do they? Listen to their songs gentlemen!

The king is Thaksin real opponent
written by Peter Kauffner, April 21, 2008

The article describes Thaksin's opponents as soldiers, royalist judges and the privy council members, but isn't time we acknowledged the king himself must be behind these anti-Thaksin mechanations? The writers of the 1997 constitution imagined a divided parliament and a weak prime minister. The rival factions would then beg the king to intervene whenever a controversial issue needed to be decided. Thus the king could retain power while appearing to be above politics. This calculation was upset by Thaksin's overwhelming victory in the 2005 election and the unprecidented period of one party rule that followed.

Another major oversight in the article is that it neglects to mention Thaksin's sale of Shin Corp. to Singapore in early 2006. The anti-foriegn ownership backlash this unleashed was the No. 1 pretext for the military coup later that year.