Populism triumphs in an emerging new Thailand

General News - Thursday December 20, 2007

ANALYSIS / THAI POLITICS

Populism triumphs in an emerging new Thailand

By THITINAN PONGSUDHIRAK

Whatever the results of the parliamentary elections on Sunday, the implicit but unmistakable winner of the pending polls will be the populism that underpinned the now-defunct Thai Rak Thai party.

All of the major political parties have adopted various shades of this proven and successful populism, with a focus on concrete subsidies, handouts and giveaways geared for grassroots constituents who form the vast majority of the electorate.

The Thai Rak Thai party, on the other hand, has been reincarnated into the People Power party, Puea Pandin, Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana and Matchimathipataya parties, which collectively are on course to win the bulk of the 480-member national assembly.

Thai Rak Thai is dead but its populist spirit is evidently alive. This populist spirit will win the day, and will indelibly change the Thai body politic, delivering it into the 21st century.

To be sure, populism in Thailand has become an object of abuse and a pejorative. It has been manipulated by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra while he lorded over Thai Rak Thai and used its wildly captivating populist platform to win elections time and again, the last valid poll in February 2005 by a landslide.

In turn, Mr Thaksin exploited his Thai Rak Thai vehicle and its instruments of populist rule to enrich himself and his cronies. The unscrupulous by-products of this abuse and manipulation are the litany of corruption charges and arrest warrants that have beset him and his family.

Mr Thaksin's tainted record in office also allowed his opponents to portray populism in a pejorative light. They deplored its handouts and giveaways, and belittled the lack of education and information among upcountry constituents. They patronised them for being unfit for genuine democratic rule, for being susceptible to government handouts, for their gullibility in worshiping Mr Thaksin like a cult, and for their desperation to embrace such sins as legalised lottery. Adherents of Mr Thaksin's populism were roundly dismissed by his opponents on these grounds.

Yet populism still thrives because times and conditions have changed. International benchmarks have been raised. Globalisation has fostered rising expectations. Democratic rule has become the only game in town.

Hence Thailand's coup-makers, their appointed caretaker government and the post-coup powers-that-be that have backed them have been unable to contain the forces that were unleashed during the Thaksin years.

Economic growth is stagnant, the government has proved incompetent, and the military has found out the hard way that seizing power was the easiest part. It has been all downhill for the ruling generals since.

Nor has the interim government's sufficiency economy platform made much headway in dampening public expectations of the opportunities, hopes and dreams they tasted during the Thaksin years.

Such is the reality because Thai Rak Thai's descendants are poised to win the election.

Notwithstanding its exploitation by Mr Thaksin and its condescension by his Bangkok-based opponents, the flip side of populism is that it has given the long-neglected grassroots electorate an undying voice, buoyed by the externally-driven imperative of democratic rule, which requires a constitution, political parties and elections.

As long as elections are held, the downtrodden majority of the Thai electorate, who are well accustomed to government corruption, will opt for contesting parties that cater to their needs and grievances the most.

Thai Rak Thai enjoyed the first-mover advantage in recognising this gap and filled it with its wildly captivating populist platform.

All parties are aping its success. That the PPP is the apparent front-runner is attributable to public perceptions that it is the most rightful and direct successor to Thai Rak Thai.

The PPP is campaigning on a track record of sharing the pie even as corruption, cronyism and collusion were rife, whereas its rivals are merely making populist promises.

Populism has brought with it a political predicament for the Thai people. It has created conditions that set the stage for a fierce struggle between Mr Thaksin and his opponents, with exploitation and corruption on the one hand, and Bangkok-driven ridicule and denial of the rural masses on the other.

But populism also can point the way towards Thailand's grand reconciliation.

Without Mr Thaksin, there would have been no Thai Rak Thai. The challenge for Thailand has become how to cultivate something like Thai Rak Thai and its populism that catered to the majority without Mr Thaksin. A greater challenge is how to entice the minority to go along.

Because the rural beneficiaries of populism represent the majority in Thai democracy, the onus is on the urban minority to take the first step. To bridge the disparity and heal rifts from a political crisis and confrontation of the last two years and counting, the opponents of Mr Thaksin must learn to accept and accommodate the populism under his Thai Rak Thai.

Without accommodation, there will be no reconciliation. Such is the uphill task for the incoming administration.

The writer is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

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