What ails the Thai body politic ?

OPINION / BEYOND POLARISATION

What ails the Thai body politic ?

In 2008, another real test of Thailand's famous ingenuity in the art of muddling through is due again

By BOONRAK BOONYAKETMALA

While some political communities in the Western world have generously praised Thailand's general elections as fair and clean _ probably a sign of their relief that military rule would soon be phased out _ many concerned Thais are secretly keeping their fingers crossed in the hope that the country will somehow be able to avoid nasty, even catastrophic, consequences awaiting to explode somewhere. No matter who among the polarised forces succeeds in forming a workable government, political stability will be difficult.

Owing to the tricky numbers of representatives won by each political party, any petty conflict has the potential to break down the coalition. Actually, insiders have theorised that the alliance can fall apart even at the last minute when the House of Representatives is convened to endorse the prime minister _ because the 2007 Constitution allows for independent voting on this issue.

Consequently, the pessimists have propagated doom and gloom, even predicting a bloodbath as the only exit from the protracted polarisation between Thaksinites and their opponents.

Meanwhile, the optimists have pinned their hopes on the fact that Thais are pragmatists who are likely to do their best to avoid any escalation of conflict, by learning to reconcile with each other to reduce the price tag on each side. By and large, the mainstream discourse takes for granted that the ongoing polarisation is rooted in the conflict between individual personalities, a position loaded with the assumption that the fight can be stopped by sensible negotiations between those directly involved.

An alternative approach would rather attempt to probe deeper into the underlying systemic forces that are linked to the unresolved polarisation.

Though a constitutional monarchy was launched in 1932, its borderlines have never been clear-cut. The absence of clarity has created many political loopholes which the polarised forces have manipulated to their benefit by making irresponsible references to the monarchy in their politics.

On top of this fundamental issue, there is the problem of the newly-emerged business elite, who want a political vehicle to advance their interests. The Constitution of 1977 made room for them in the ''party list,'' i.e. the privileged members of a political party who usually, but not necessarily, do not have their own electoral constituencies but have managed to get to the top either on the basis of financial contributions, professional expertise or personal connections.

When Thaksin Shinawatra was in power between 2000 and 2006, much of the party-list membership was granted to a score of top businessmen, many of whom were virtually unknown in terms of their politics. Once in power, Mr Thaksin, himself a highly prominent business tycoon, and such friends formed the most business-minded government ever installed in Thai history. While there were obvious benefits in terms of administration, stepping on the toes of other men in business did not go unnoticed. The resulting exclusionary capitalism, a variety of crony capitalism, seems to have been the storm behind the winds of conflict dominant since 2005. When coupled with allegations of policy corruption exposed by the press, epitomised by the Temasek-Shin Corp deal, political instability became the norm.

In a way, the putsch of Sept 19, 2006 can be seen as a response of the relatively passive bureaucratic polity to the failure of the rather pro-active polity established by the Constitution of 1997.

Although the military-installed regime has legally chained the alleged culprit (the deposed prime minister) thereby legitimising its own existence, the fact that it took several months to do so, while putting in place certain self-serving laws, has confirmed the bankruptcy of the bureaucratic polity.

The whole country was in fact held captive for months with little productive activity as the leaders of the putsch searched for ways to handle one man _ who seems to enjoy haunting his opponents as a kind of hobby, such as inviting them to join his golf club when he returns to Bangkok.

Aside from the difficult confrontation between the bureaucratic polity and capitalist politics, a key question was how to engineer a peaceful transition from the ruins of turmoil.

Despite warnings of some well-informed, independent scholars, the general elections were hastily held on Dec 23, allegedly to get the hot potato off the lap of a government which had found the kitchen too hot for comfort. The scholarly argument that the country was not fully prepared for a smooth transition to democracy was ignored by the military elite.

So after the general elections Thailand faces another looming crisis today.

Even if Thailand has transcended the immediate crisis, finding the right species of competent political manpower can become an issue. Modern public life has become intricately complicated, with powers distributed to a set of diversified elite, such as the legal technocrats and political parties, the press and intelligentsia, the industrialists and investors, the labour unions and non-governmental organisations, including a large, expensive bureaucracy eating itself up.

Additionally, with an ever closer relationship to the world economy, concepts like democracy, good governance, human rights, press freedom, universal education and health care, economic development and growth, distribution of income and opportunity, international competition and cooperation have become paramount considerations in the art of administration.

In a society where the masses are deprived of the chance of functional literacy, reading is not a hobby even for the well-educated; so-called PhD programmes are commercially available on nearly every street corner and television is stubbornly superimposing irresponsible consumption, melodramas, game shows, mindless celebrities and empty ''hard talk'' as a kind of ''pop culture,'' aspiring politicians do not have to know that much to impress their constituents.

Under the circumstances, it is not easy for quality political human resources to emerge. Worse still, a relevant question in this context is whether or not Thailand's more modern political institutions are equipped to override the new challenges?

Take, for example, the so-called political parties. After nearly eight decades of development, albeit often constrained by sustained military interventions in politics, such institutions have remained weak in terms of organisational base, client orientation, innovation and vision, and policy development and ideological clarity. Thai political parties are scattered and organised around individual leaders rather than policy platforms. This is precisely why the wheeling-dealing in Thai politics usually revolves around bargaining for ministerial positions, and not the pursuit of strategic development policies.

Despite its initial business-like origins, it is remarkable that the Thai Rak Thai party has proven to be a model for other older political parties, especially in its populist orientation. Furthermore, after several months of political storms, it can still manage to win most of the votes in the general election which, theoretically, was designed to discredit TRT for policy-level mismanagement.

This fact alone reveals that Thai politics has been unable to re-invent itself after years of protracted conflict. What are the key explanations for the stagnation of our political parties? Or, are the voters grossly insensitive to accusations of abuse of power that they continue to vote for the same group allegedly associated with such high crimes?

It might be argued that it is grossly unfair to place the blame on voters, who are possibly too overloaded with their own day-to-day problems to concern themselves with corrupt activities, especially by those who successfully posed as their patrons.

In this sense, the phenomenon of vote-buying, especially when cleverly interwoven into the morality of poor communities, is part of the Thai social fabric with its elaborate client-patron structure, especially through its opinion leaders. Owing to such raw realities, voting behaviour among the poor will still be predictable for some time to come.

Right or wrong, the TRT populist formula has worked, sometimes at the expense of the politically-conscious urbanised middle class. Recently, this dual structure of Thai voters, the rural and urban poor groups, and the educated middle class concentrated in both state and private sectors, has served to rock Thai democracy, characterised by the view that the poor, by their sheer majority, can vote in a government, but sooner or later the middle class _ a minority by numbers _ will get rid of that government, even by resorting to a military coup.

Beyond the surface, the crisis facing Thailand is not only the struggle between individuals and social classes, but also the underdevelopment of a variety of political structures which are indispensable for a sustainable democracy.

Overcoming the immediate conflict by an effective reconciliation strategy is but a starting point in the long road to mending a deeper crisis in the brewing.

In 2008, another real test of Thailand's famous ingenuity in the art of muddling through is again due. Thai democracy cannot afford to zigzag back and forth any longer. The fundamental stumbling blocks in our political system must be peacefully cleared through public consent.

Whoever runs the country next must not be blinded by the immediate controversies but demonstrate the courage to forget the bitterness of the past few years, so as to recover the huge loss by working out another political reform from the roots _ a strategy that must be open to genuine participation by all concerned. This platform, almost by itself, can put Thailand back on the world map.

The writer teaches at Thammasat University.