I foresaw Thaksin's resignation -- perhaps a move that's more form than substance, I'll grant -- some 3, 4 weeks beforehand; ask any of my friends whom I've discussed this with in the weeks preceding. Why did the Straits Times think it was such a surprise?

The Straits Times had been reading the facts quite well, generally in accordance with what neutral political observers had been saying. It was in how they drew their conclusions from those facts which I thought interesting. In a column on 25 March 2006, Warren Fernandez, the Foreign Editor, wrote

In the opposing camp is the anti-Thaksin crowd, who accuse him of amassing and abusing power, being corrupt and serving his own business interests, and undermining key national institutions.

To this disparate group, nothing short of his resignation and exit from politics will do. They reject fresh elections because Thaksin is likely to win; they dismiss all talk of compromise, because that would perpetuate a political status quo which they see as fundamentally flawed.

This clash of political world views was well-captured in a December 2005 paper by Professor Duncan McCargo of Leeds University, in the Pacific Review.

He points to how Mr Thaksin has systematically replaced Thailand's old traditional power network with his own, 'playing according to completely different rules and ideas, favouring a mode of leadership which left little space for rival players'.

-- Straits Times, 25 March 2006, 'Can Singapore
weather a Thai-style storm?' 
by Warren Fernandez

Other Straits Times writers have likewise called the conflict a clash of cultures, between the old elite and the new elite, but by doing so, they may have glossed over specific complaints by the anti-Thaksin groups.

For years, there had been charges that the Prime Minister had packed the constitutional court. There was the tawdry instance when he tried to replace an independent-minded Auditor-General, Khunying Jaruvan Maintaka -- unsuccessfully, it turned out, because the King refused for 2 years to confirm Thaksin's replacement nominee. Then too, there were widespread concerns about Thaksin's mishandling of the crisis in the deep south, through his arrogance.

He tried to bully the independent media into submission. The cancellation of Sondhi Limthongkul's TV talk show in November 2005 was what triggered the street rallies.

Among Thaksin's critics were also those who had faced death in the May 1992 revolution. They had been on the streets protesting against the military government of General Suchinda Krapayoon, when the army was sent in with guns blazing, killing at least 50 demonstrators (based on the US State Department's sober estimate, more according to others). The current democratic constitution, drawn up after wide consultation, is their legacy to Thailand. They, led by Chamlong Srimuang, brought this about with their blood and fortitude, and they saw Thaksin vandalising their ideals with his authoritarian style.

Most of all, however politically motivated the campaign was, at its core was a sense that Thaksin had forfeited his moral authority, for example in how he sold Shin Corp without paying any tax. The charge was that Shin Corp tripled in value during the period when he was in office, suggesting that the company benefitted from his political power, only for Thaksin to cash out and keep all the proceeds himself.

Thaksin's defence was that the law said share sales made through the Stock Exchange of Thailand were tax-free, and had been so for years. In other words, it was perfectly legal.

Thus, on the streets of Bangkok, the argument was between the legal and the moral.

Out in the northern and northeast provinces, Thaksin's rural voter based remained loyal. As the 2 April 2006 general election results showed, some 56% of voters supported the Thai Rak Thai party. The party got 16 million out of 28 million votes cast in the constituency elections -- about 70% voter turnout -- though this was 3 million fewer votes than a year ago. Only in metropolitan Bangkok and the southern provinces did TRT do badly, just like in the last general election held in February 2005.

As Nirmal Ghosh said in a report dated after Thaksin's resignation,

His easy credit schemes won him the gratitude of the poor, who were glad to be out of the clutches of loan sharks who charged 20 per cent to 25 per cent interest per month; far better to be in debt to government agencies for a fraction of that crippling interest rate.

His 30 baht (S$1.26) health-care scheme drew howls of protest from hospital administrators and doctors, who cut back on beds and budgets.

Mr Thaksin barrelled ahead anyway, and it proved one of his most popular policies. For just 30 baht, any Thai could go to a government hospital and receive diagnosis, treatment and medication.

Further on,

In his 2003 war on drugs, launched to rein in Thailand's huge amphetamine problem, police were given targets for arrests and set out to meet them. It turned out to be a bloody affair; the death toll was more than 2,000.

Some were innocents shot by mistake. Police said the rest were killed by officers in self defence or by other gang members as drug cartels imploded. But it was clear to observers that summary justice was being meted out - and not always to the right people.

The intelligentsia was appalled. When a United Nations envoy made a critical remark, Mr Thaksin, a former police lieutenant-colonel, famously snapped 'The UN is not my father.'

He was emboldened by opinion polls, which showed that Thais were consistently in favour of the war on drugs.

The Premier, with a firm grasp of his electorate's sentiments, knew human rights was not an issue for ordinary folk, who thought drug pushers were a menace.

-- Straits Times, 6 April 2006, 'Thaksin's strength
became his weakness' by Nirmal Ghosh

Reading the above facts, it appears that the Straits Times and perhaps our government establishment felt up until his "surprise" resignation that Thaksin's should be able to ride out the storm. After all, he had both constitutional legality and electoral majority on his side. He had delivered livelihood improvements to the common people while the protestors were harping on nebulous charges of "abuse of power".

Where you stand on this question rests on whether you think Mr Thaksin and his rule has indeed been as bad as his critics make out. As I see it, it has not. For all his faults, unseating him through protests in the streets will be a major setback for Thailand, as well as for democratic development in this part of the world.

-- Straits Times, 25 March 2006, 'Can
Singapore weather a Thai-style storm?'

We should note however, that the critics held the view that Thaksin was the one undermining democracy. To them, democracy was more than just legalistic behaviour, it was a question of respecting human rights and the spirit of liberalism.

* * * * *

What this episode shows is that we may be seeing politics in other countries through the lens of Singapore's own experience. Our government's style is a very legalistic one, meaning the debate stops at whether something is sanctioned by law or not. We don't go further and ask whether the use of the law is in keeping with the spirit of justice, or whether it is bad law in the first place. If you still need an example, just cast your mind to the ban on  podcasting with "explicitly political content". See the article Blogging during elections 2

We are too used to assuming that the selfish will always override the altruistic, that economic give-aways (upgrading of housing blocks?) will always trump concerns for the higher ideals of politics (e.g. not using all taxpayers' money for partisan advantage).

We think that an electoral mandate justifies everything, even using law for controversial ends (see box on the right), that vote-count means we don't have to worry about moral legitimacy.

Nowhere in our political experience do we have an episode like that of May 1992, when students and democracy activists in Bangkok faced the army's guns. Singaporeans don't take as much ownership of our political system as Thais do theirs, and so we may be failing to grasp the sense of betrayal on the anti-Thaksin side.

We may also be unfamiliar with the history of protest. You don't need to be a political scientist to see how history is changed by tens of thousands massing on the streets of a capital city. In the last 30 - 40 years, it has happened in Paris, Kiev, Manila, Teheran, Moscow, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Madrid, Jakarta.... sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, other times, no value judgment can be made.

* * * * *

It was the final twist in Warren Fernandez's article which I thought the most strange. He first wrote,

But no one can run a modern democracy without the support of key players in society - in parliament, the civil service, the unions, opinion shapers in the intelligentsia, academia, civic society and the media.

.... democracies need to be underpinned by practices, habits and norms which shape - perhaps even limit - the exercise of power and promote what Harvard professor Amartya Sen calls 'government by discussion' among various groups in society.

Then,

Would our political system fare better?

After all, the picture of political abuse that has been painted by Thai opposition groups - of populist leaders plundering the country and undermining institutions - sounds very much like the nightmare scenario that is often cited by political leaders here to explain the need for an elected president.

-- Straits Times, 25 March 2006, 'Can
Singapore weather a Thai-style storm?' 

Meaning what? That undermining institutions is a nightmare scenario that is not happening now? But may happen if another party takes over the government -– and that's why we need an elected president?

And also why we have stringent criteria for who may stand for election to be President, restricting eligibility to just a few hundred people belonging to the existing elite establishment?