ANALYSIS: Thai demonstration raises democracy issues

By Peter Janssen Sep 5, 2008, 6:40 GMT

   Bangkok - Nattahan Sirichotphaisal, a Bangkok landlord, is an angry woman. She is one of thousands of die-hard members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) who seized Government House on August 26 and have been there since, transforming the once immaculate office compound of the state executive into a smelly public park.

   The PAD, a Bangkok-based movement born three years ago out of the growing public frustration with the self-serving rule of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, returned to the capital's streets on May 25 with a new goal - the resignation of current Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

   Samak, in a public broadcast Thursday, flatly rejected PAD's demands that he resign, claiming he had a duty to 'preserve the country's democracy.' The decision did not please PAD's self-righteous mob.

'I've been sitting on the hard ground for more than 100 days to force Samak out but he is more tough-skinned than pavement,' said Nattahan, bristling with fury. 'Thaksin sold the country and Samak is now his proxy. We will never leave until Samak resigns.'

   'Bangkok people know what's going on. The people in the provinces don't know,' said Nattahan, 50, a single woman who makes a modest income off renting a building she owns in the city.

It is an old adage in Thailand's established system of money politics that the provinces elect governments, but Bangkok rejects them.

The political maxim was challenged by Thaksin, who won his first election in 2001 on a host of populist policies that got him the votes of Thailand's urban and rural poor and gave him an unprecedented majority in parliament.

Taking advantage of Thailand's liberal 1997 constitution, which favoured elected politicians, and bolstered by his huge personal fortune as a billionaire telecommunications tycoon, Thaksin monopolized Thai politics during his six years in power like no other politician before him.

Things started to fall apart for Thaksin only in early 2006 when he pushed through the sale of Shin Corp, the telecommunication conglomerate he founded, to Temasek Holdings of Singapore.

The 2-billion-dollar tax-free sale of a conglomerate based on government concessions to a foreign entity turned Bangkok's middle class and political elite against Thaksin, galvanizing PAD-led mass protests that only ended with the military coup on September 19, 2006, and Thaksin's downfall.

After 17 months under a military-appointed government, Thailand held an election on December 23, 2007, that was won by the People Power Party (PPP), which campaigned on an openly pro-Thaksin, anti-coup platform.

Samak, head of the PPP and close political ally of Thaksin, became prime minister in February.

Seven months after coming to power Samak now faces a similar PAD-led political crisis as the one that eventually toppled Thaksin, but there are important differences.

For starters, Thailand is under a new constitution drafted by a military-appointed committee. The new charter is much less favourable to the political party system than the 1997 charter.

Indeed, it was Samak's moves to amend the constitution in ways that might have led to the return of Thaksin to power that first brought the PAD back to the streets on May 25.

The amendments have been delayed indefinitely, a victory for the PAD.

Secondly, Thailand's judiciary has been strengthened by the new constitution and has demonstrated its independence from the elected government of Samak.

Last month the Criminal Court found Thaksin's wife, Pojaman, guilty of tax evasion and sentenced her to three years in jail. The former first couple has fled to Britain where they are seeking political asylum.

Thirdly, the PAD's leadership, an odd collection of maverick gentlemen, has been exposed as a reactionary, conservative force, advocating a return to a governmental system that favours appointed officials rather than elected politicians.

And finally, the movement is openly breaking the law. Nine of its leaders have been served with arrest warrants, which they ignored, and by remaining at Government House they are flaunting the emergency decree Samak proclaimed on Tuesday, which prohibits gatherings of more than five people.

The disobedience has raised questions as to who is behind the PAD, a question on which no Thai politician or academic is willing to publicly speculate.

Ironically, the PAD's brinkmanship tactics and fuzzy politics has managed to make Samak, a 73-year-old veteran right-wing politician notorious for his crude language and undemocratic methods, look good.

'It's unfortunate the way things have turned out, with Thaksin and Samak becoming known as the champions of Thai democracy,' said Kraisak Choonhavan, a member of the opposition Democrat Party.

Even more unfortunate, at this stage, might be a PAD victory over Samak, even though his democratic credentials are dubious.

'It will lead to a worse situation, a non-democratic system,' predicted Chaturon Chaisaeng, a political ally of Thaksin's. 'It's a kind of coup already,' he noted.