Checks and Balances: Thai Style by Andrew Brooks

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s democratically elected Prime Minister, has become an increasingly controversial figure in Thai politics since his ouster in a recent military coup-d’etat. Before September 19th, 2006, Thailand had enjoyed 15 years of relative political calm after the coup of 1991, whose conclusion replaced an unwelcome military dictatorship with a democratically elected civilian government. Thaksin became Prime Minister in February, 2001. Over the course of the next 5 years, alleged corruption in the central government, social division, and growing ethnic and religious tensions in the diverse Southern provinces have become known as the most immediate threats to Thai stability. In spite of his role in the recent military take-over, coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin has promised to repair the failures in government that Thaksin has come to symbolize.

The former Prime Minister’s five years in office draws regional partisanship. While those in major cities have branded him no more than a corrupt businessman, using his post to enrich himself, his family, and his business partners, rural workers regard their former leader as a moral man working tirelessly for the Thai people. However many saw Thaksin’s popularity and disdain for the monarchy as a violation of a long-standing political tradition. Responding to intelligence that Thaksin had planned his own military power grab in Bangkok the same day of the coup, reports indicate that King Bhumibol ordered a military solution from loyalist generals that became the September overthrow.

The former Prime Minister’s political record is as mixed as his reputation, but offers a web of paradoxes that stray from the partisanship and rhetoric in public debate. While many see Thaksin’s economic policy as simultaneously pro-Western and self-interested, his health and micro-finance reforms have buoyed small rural businesses and the national economy, and have allowed access to medical care and insurance to millions of Thais who were previously without them.

However, Thai news sources have revealed that Thaksin’s reforms may not have been as benevolent or representative of the people’s will as they seemed. While rural and poor Thais have been able to receive medical treatment or any operation for less than a single US dollar under Thaksin’s universal healthcare program, that policy has bankrupted the public hospital system, thereby driving wealthier Thais to expensive private hospitals, many of which are owned by family members of the former Prime Minister. Despite popular support for tax breaks and incentives and micro-finance opportunities central to his economic policy, Thaksin was able to use loopholes hidden in broad economic reform packages to sell his family’s $1.9 billion stake in a major telecommunications firm tax-free. Whether or not allegations of corruption are true, these social-welfare programs allowed him to justify a pattern of alleged predation that crippled his legitimacy as prime minister.

Thaksin’s domestic security policy has also come under fire in recent years. His aggressive use of only military means to suppress Islamic insurgency groups in the Southern provinces had not made any progress. On the contrary, it has radicalized their religious underpinnings. The Mujahadeen Islam Pattani and the Pattani United Liberation Organization (PULO) are among militant Islamic groups fighting in a hundred-year-old struggle for separation from the Thai state. Weekly shootings, bombings, and kidnappings began to intensify in late 2003 and early 2004 and claimed the lives of over 1000 Southern Thais, to date, mostly Buddhists. Coupled with his anti-narcotics campaigns in Bangkok in 2003, in which the Thai military police shot and killed hundreds of innocent Thais, took bribes, and planted evidence, Thaksin’s hard-line “shoot first, ask questions later,” approach to security drew broad criticism, characterized as brutal and unconstructive.

While King Bhumibol has not been faced with such high-stakes policy decisions, he has built an enormous base of political support albeit outside the democratic system. Thailand’s ninth king in its current dynasty has cultivated an image comparable to that of a new Siddhartha; he is renowned for his benevolent influence on government and society. Though he has very little formal power and often speaks in proverbs, his words mobilize the populace like no politician can. The mere mention of traffic in Bangkok or passing question of a politician’s integrity will stir thousands within the government and public to action. He has used the royal purse, funded by donations from supporters, to embark on agricultural projects for poor peasants, social programs, and even flood-relief. Having eschewed formal politics, his enormous power has come almost entirely from his philanthropy.

In essence, the Thai military has removed one populist and replaced him with another. Due to the King’s military and popular support, the coup strongly favors the monarchy. It allows Bhumibol, who has close ties to coup leader General Sonthi and Acting Prime Minister Surayud Chulalont, to play a role in determining what form the new Thai democracy will take. Whether or not these three leaders are transparent in the process of addressing national concerns, rewriting the constitution, and rebuilding the government, will hold great bearing on the quality of democracy that results. Because he relies on a reputation of benevolence, Bhumibol has constrained himself and military leaders to achieving nothing less than success. They must restore a better, less corrupt, more representative, and more constructive democracy. If they do not, the power of the monarchy, the coup leaders, and the overall quality of democracy, will have taken a serious blow.