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The Democrat Party is a party of 'local boss patronage'
Red Thai Socialist - December 22, 2013
Yet many outside commentators still swallow the various myths fed to them by their middle-class Thai contacts. They repeat that Thailand needs political reform "because of vote-buying by Thai Rak Thai and Pua Thai". The nonsense about vote-buying exists on many levels.
On one level, people are talking about the giving out of money to voters by party agents in various localities. It cannot be denied that this takes place. But it is more of an election ritual than a real buying of people's allegiances. Siripan Nogsuan's research on the 2011 election shows that the vast majority of people voted for parties and their policies. Vote buying was only significant to the result of the election in a few marginal seats. Politicians who threw large amounts of money around often lost. In most constituencies the two main parties won by huge majorities which could not be accounted for by vote buying. Andrew Walker's research from northern villages, published in 2008, also confirms the fact that people spent time considering policies, irrespective of any money handed out to them.
Now, "considering party policies" could mean a variety of things. In the majority of constituencies, the national policies of Thai Rak Thai, such as universal health care and job creation, won the party huge majorities. Pua Thai inherited this support.
But "considering party policies" could also mean appreciating the patronage system run by local political bosses. These can result in real benefits to people in local areas. Those who follow Thai politics will know the names of many local political bosses such as Banharn, Sanoh, Chalerm and Sutep. Some are associated with Thai Rak Thai/Pua Thai and some with the Democrat Party. However, the important thing about patronage politics is that it is a local phenomenon and mainly associated with a lack of political policies. This means that the role of those local political bosses in Thai Rak Thai and Pua Thai was greatly over-shadowed by Taksin's national policies. The same cannot be said of the Democrat Party patronage system in Sutep's Surat-tani province.
Sutep Tuaksuban has two other brothers who were Democrat Party members of parliament for Surat-tani in this out-going parliament. His family have been local bosses for generations and apart from their numerous and lucrative local business interests, they also try to control local councils. The irony is that those academics and reporters who talk about "Bangkok vs the rural villages" fail to recognise that a good proportion of Sutep's demonstrators are brought to Bangkok from villages in the south where Sutep's family control politics through their system of patronage.
Apart from the Democrats support among sections of the middle class in Bangkok, their only other area of significant support is in the south. The main explanation lies with the local patronage system controlled by the Democrats. Historically the communists helped build support for the Democrats in the south and more recently Taksin lost many votes in this area after massacring Muslim Malays at Takbai, Naratiwat in 2004.
The significance of this is that the Democrat Party cannot hope to win on a national level until they propose serious policies which would benefit the majority of the electorate. But they have consistently opposed the universal health care system, the job creation policies, the rice support scheme and any infrastructural development projects. They reject state spending on the population and instead favour local patronage. They are clearly a party of the "old politics". Even Abhisit Vejjajiva, with his posh English public school accent, and attempts to have a "modern image" cannot get away from the fact that he has long been in the same political bed as the military and the arch conservatives.
Finally, there are those idiots who write articles for The Guardian in Britain or appear on Aljazeera TV, who claim that Taksin's universal health care system was "vote-buying" or just a "give-away" for the rural poor. This kind of attitude shows a complete contempt for democratic principles. There would be outrage in Western Europe if foreign commentators claimed that the introduction of the National Health Service or the Welfare States were just corrupt attempts to buy votes from the ignorant poor!
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