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Abhisit's conservative stripes
Asia Times - January 29, 2009
Shawn W. Crispin, Bangkok – Two months since anti-government protesters seized and shut Thailand's main international airport, a modicum of stability has returned with a change in government. But the deals new Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his party associates struck to form a new coalition government are raising questions about the young premier's progressive credentials and doubts about who is truly in charge of the country's politics.
The political forces that aligned to oppose the now dissolved People's Power Party-led government – including the military, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest movement and the royalist establishment represented in business and the bureaucracy – are all ensconced in Abhisit's Democrat Party-led administration. So, too, are key defectors from exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra's camp.
The military was apparently instrumental from behind the scenes in cobbling together Abhisit's coalition and observers believe that the top brass have since exerted influence over policy-making and appointments. If so, stability in Thailand will likely be determined more by how Abhisit negotiates power-sharing first with the military and second with his junior coalition partners than on how he manages confrontations with the pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship protest group.
The opposition Peua Thai party, consisting of the remnants of the court-dissolved People's Power Party (PPP), has been shaken by the defection of powerbroker Newin Chidchob's camp and is now at risk of splintering further with the formation of the Bhum Jai Thai party, a ruling coalition member which will compete for votes in Peua Thai's northern and northeastern region strongholds in future elections.
Peua Thai stalwarts are divided over strategy and have split into competing factions, according to one party insider. One faction, led by former Prime Minister's Office Minister and Thaksin loyalist Jakrapob Penkair, favors mounting a campaign of instability similar to the PAD street movement which brought on the PPP's demise.
Another faction, led by Thaksin's sister Yaowapha Wongsawat, apparently prefers to take a wait-and-see approach and has indicated reluctance to bankroll expensive street protests. Her less confrontational stance, one insider contends, has been influenced by the exiled Thaksin's own financial troubles, including ongoing legal proceedings in Thailand aimed at seizing US$2.2 billion of his personal assets.
With the Peua Thai-led opposition divided and weakened, the Democrats have successfully shifted media attention towards the country's fragile economy and the various fiscal measures they have devised to buffer the blows of mounting global turbulence. Foreign investors, meanwhile, have acknowledged favorably the Democrats' upgrade in technocratic competence and coherence over the outgoing PPP-led administration.
Still, because exports account for around 65% of gross domestic product (GDP), market analysts say there is little the government can do to avoid a sharp downturn. UBS recently estimated Thai growth will dip to -2%, a considerable falloff from the (positive) 2% projection Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij has maintained the government's stimulus package will help to achieve.
Whether the collapse in growth and mounting industrial and service sector lay-offs will provide human fodder for new rounds of political stability is unclear. If past political alliances are any indication, Peua Thai will have difficulty finding common cause with disenfranchised laborers.
State enterprise labor unions strongly opposed Thaksin's privatization plans and vigorously supported both incarnations of the anti-government PAD movement; the private labor force, meanwhile, is highly fragmented with less than 5% union membership and, at least in recent decades, has not been prone to mass mobilization for political purposes. To guard against possible urban unrest, the Democrats have conditioned certain unemployment benefits on laid-off workers returning to their home provinces.
Military minds
The opposition will likely have greater success in portraying Abhisit and the Democrats as the military's willing proxy. While in the opposition, the Oxford-educated Abhisit consistently criticized Thaksin's anti-democratic policies and tendencies. He also claimed to be one of the first Thai politicians to speak out against the 2006 military coup that ousted Thaksin and since assuming power last December has insisted on his commitment to parliamentary processes and upholding the rule of law.
That presentation has struck some local analysts as naive – if not disingenuous – considering the pivotal role the PAD played in catapulting his party to power. One foreign banker likened the 44-year-old premier's vow during a presentation to foreign journalists this month to pursue justice for PAD leaders involved in the airport seizure as a "boy in the bubble" mentality, considering the military's and royal establishment's tacit support for the movement.
There are growing indications that Abhisit is yielding to military power. His early suggestion to roll back emergency rule in the country's three Muslim insurgency-hit southernmost provinces was rebuffed out-of-hand by army commander General Anupong Paochinda. Critics claim the decree has provided legal cover for military abuses, including, according to Britain-based rights group Amnesty International, the systematic torture of detained rebel suspects.
Many were surprised when Abhisit publicly challenged Amnesty's apparently well-documented findings. Similar dismay surrounded his quick defense of the military when allegations of human-rights abuses surfaced this month over the Thai navy's handling of a group of ethnic Rohingya refugees that washed up on Thai shores. Some of the refugees claimed in subsequent press interviews that they were beaten and sodomized by military officials before being released at sea in rickety boats without sufficient food and water.
Meanwhile, his government's aggressive pursuit of lese majeste charges falls in lockstep with the campaign of censorship and intimidation first launched by the coupmaker-appointed royalist government. Abhisit has said protecting the monarchy will be his first priority as premier and indicated during a recent press event that he believed there was a concerted political effort underway to undermine the crown.
The Information, Communication and Technology Ministry has claimed to have closed down 2,300 web sites for posting materials criticizing the monarchy. Meanwhile, Justice Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga has proposed legal changes to extend the current maximum penalty for lese majeste convictions from 15 to 25 years in prison and has called for a blanket ban on reporting the details of specific cases in the media.
The call to censorship is at least partially related to the increasingly controversial tactics security forces have taken under Abhisit's watch to enforce the controversial law. The Thai Netizen Network, a newly formed Internet censorship watchdog, claimed in a recent circular that police have recently raided lese majeste suspects' homes at night and seized their computers.
The group claims that on January 14 oil-rig engineer Suwicha Thakhor became the latest Thai citizen to be arrested at his home in the northeastern province of Nakorn Phanom. Security officials also raided his home in Bangkok, from where he stands accused of spreading materials over the Internet defaming the monarchy. He is still being held without bail, according to the activist group.
Behind the cut-and-thrust is mounting national anxiety over the royal succession. Some political observers speculate that when 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej finally passes from the scene, that the military will invoke the Internal Security Act – which in times of crises gives the army commander more executive power than the prime minister – to ensure a smooth and favorable transition.
Whether or not the top brass takes the extreme measure of suspending democracy outright in that eventuality will depend largely on how relations with the Democrats and coalition partners play out in the months ahead. So far Abhisit and the Democrats have presented themselves as compliant, if not grateful, reactionary partners.
[Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He may be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.]
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