I have been able to see both the good points and the bad points of the Thaksin administration, so while I was no fan of it, neither was I enamoured of the campaign led by Sonthi Limthongkul to oust him.

However, I'm not here to discuss Thai politics; I am an observer but I don't have any special insight into it. What I'd like to do is to distill from Thailand's experience some general lessons that may be applicable for other developing countries.

There really aren't very many, in my view. Most of the factors that led up to the coup were quite unique to Thaksin Shinawatra himself or his opponents. Let me just list them in order to dispose of them.

Pattani unrest – Thaksin adopted a very subborn, uncompromising policy towards the Muslim insurgency in the extreme south of Thailand. Many thinking Thais thought he was making things worse, not better.

The sale of Shin Corp – the thing that really galled people was Thaksin's refusal, based on a legal technicality, to pay any tax on his massive capital gains. This reinforced the view of the Thai middle class that he was essentially dishonourable, a view not unconnected with the already prevailing opinion that his cronies were corrupt (but then most Thai politicians in previous administrations have been corrupt too). The Singapore angle to the Shin Corp issue was really secondary to the tax angle. It was because people were already upset about Thaksin's avoidance of tax that they tried to get at Temasek over the alleged violation of the rule that forbade foreign ownership above 49%.

People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) - Sonthi Limthongkul was instrumental in leading the rallies and sit-ins demanding that Thaksin resign. He had considerable success in attracting followers. The problem was that this demand was not well thought through. What would happen if Thaksin resigned, but the Thai Rak Thai party remained in power? Instead of pointing towards a way of resolving his constituents' unhappiness, the demand, if fulfilled, would have been destabilising. It raised temperatures without offering a tidy solution.

Tanks in front of Bangkok's Parliament House, 20 Sept 2006.
Source: either Reuters or AFP

 
The military's motive – latest information is that General Sonthi Boonyaratglin's [1] coup was really a last-minute response to an attempted power grab by Thaksin. The Nation newspaper reported that Thaksin's close aides, Yongyuth Tiyapairat and Newin Chidchob, were organsing "their supporters to create an ugly scene at the Royal Plaza" on Wednesday, 20 September.

Sonthi Limthongkul's PAD had planned to hold a massive rally to demand Thaksin's resignation that day, but the pro-Thaksin side was going to throw their supporters in. "During the ensuing commotion, there would be human casualties," the Nation reported [2]. "Thaksin would then have stepped in and declared a state of emergency, placing the country under martial law." 

If true, this would be reminiscent of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos' martial law declaration on 22 September 1972, in his case, rationalised with reference to a communist insurgency.

(It is of course possible that the Thai coup leaders are playing up this planned riot story to justify their own power grab.)

These particular factors, relatively unique to the Thai situation, came into play against a background of a dysfunctional political system, and this is where we may be able to see some general lessons.

The urban-rural divide - if you've ever been out of Bangkok and Chiangmai, into the small towns and villages of the central plains and Isaan, it would shock you how wide is the income gap. Consequent to it, there is also a gap in the quality or even availability of social services, such as schooling and health care.

When a country has such divergent voter interests because their worlds are so far apart, can democracy work? As many theoreticians have noted, a healthy democracy requires a large middle class and a spectrum of views amenable to compromise and coalition-building. How much middle ground can be found given such economic and social inequality?

Thailand is not alone with this problem. China, Indonesia, the Philippines and India, too. And potentially, Vietnam.

This wide urban-rural gap, coupled with the Thai Rak Thai's populist policies, e.g. the scheme capping all medical charges at 30 baht (US$0.80, S$1.20) per visit to the doctor, very popular with poor villagers, led to a situation where Thaksin could get an almost permanent electoral majority. Rural folk supporting him far outnumbered the middle-class urbanites who tended to oppose him.

In the January 2001 general election, Thai Rak Thai won 248 seats, 2 short of a majority in the 500-member House. With smaller parties joining in, Thaksin managed to obtain a majority soon after. Forming his first government and unleashing his populist policies, he increased his majority to three-quarters of the seats (375 MPs out of 500) after the February 2005 election. Thailand had never seen such a lopsided majority before.

Then in the snap poll of April 2006, called in an attempt to beat back Sonthi Limthongkul's campaign, Thaksin won 61% of the popular vote. This translated to possibly 460 seats, because the major opposition parties boycotted the election. However, this election was annulled soon after due to irregularities.

Nonetheless, one of the reasons why Thai politics was in deadlock for 6 months prior to the coup was that even if new elections were called, Thai Rak Thai would surely win again.

The general question to be asked is this: what happens to a democracy when one party has a lock on the majority of the voters? When its opponents see no electoral way to get in?

Furthermore, Thaksin translated his electoral majority into attempts to undermine the independence of the Constitutional Court, the Auditor-general, the National Counter-Ccorruption Commission, the Election Commission and many other supposedly independent organs of state. Some said he was out to protect his own ill-gotten wealth and that of his corrupt cronies, others said he was a control freak who disliked autonomous centres of power. Either way, the result was that the referees that are needed to make a democracy work became much less effective.

More and more, things moved towards a winner-take-all situation, which partly fuelled the anger of the Bangkok middle-class who were standing behind Sonthi Limthongkul.

The neutering of referees also meant that when the legitimacy of the April 2006 election was called into question, and no new parliament could be formed, there were no arbiters with credibility and independence to help restore a working democracy. The Election Commissioners themselves were told by the Supreme Court to resign. Thus the impasse was made worse.

Yet of course, in all political systems, finding the right balance between giving a government enough powers and freedom of action to be effective, and constraining them too much with checks until they are ineffective, is a tricky one. What the Thai situation shows us is that it is a question that's too important to ignore.

Sonthi Boonyaratglin (extreme right) gets an audience before King Bhumiphol. On Sonthi's right are the Navy chief and Air Force chief. Source: Thai government.

Many see the military coup of 19 September was a necessary evil: a step backwards in order to break the logjam, so that things can move forward again.

Personally, I am wary. Generals, once they have power in their hands, are seldom eager to give it up. Already, increasingly tight restrictions are being put on the media. Call-in programs have been banned. Television broadcasts may not have scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen displaying messages sent by SMS. Many community radio stations in the Chiang Mai area have been shut down. CNN and BBC programs were blocked when they discussed Thaksin's administration.

A website, www.19sep.com, set up to encourage Thais to air their views about the pros and cons to the coup was shut down within 24 hours of its establishment, reported the Southeast Asian Press Alliance.

How soon will democracy return? General Sonthi said there should be elections within a year. How much faith can one put in that? We can only wait and see.

© Yawning Bread