ANALYSIS: Thai by-election results boost fugitive former premier

By Peter Janssen Jun 29, 2009, 8:54 GMT

   Bangkok - This month's two by-election wins for Thailand's Puea Thai opposition party have demonstrated, once again, the staying power of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

   Puea Thai candidates in Sakhon Nakhorn and Si Sa Ket provinces won landslide victories over their rivals in votes held June 21 and Sunday, respectively.

   The Puea Thai party is a reincarnation of the People Power Party, disbanded in December, which was a reincarnation of the Thai Rak Thai party - Thaksin's original party whose pro-poor populist policies clinched him a dual-term premiership from 2001 to 2006.

   The Thai Rak Thai was disbanded by a constitutional tribunal ruling in May 2007 when Thaksin and 110 of his party executives were also banned from politics for five years.

   The ban has not stopped Thaksin, who has lived in self-imposed exile since August, from being a central figure in the political chaos that has engulfed Thailand over the past two years.

   The victories of the pro-Thaksin party in the by-elections were the latest proof of Thaksin's ongoing popularity, at least among Thailand's poor.

   Both Sakhon Nakhorn and Si Sa Ket are in Thailand's north-east, also known as Isaan, a political stronghold of Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai remnants. It is Thailand's poorest region and home to nearly half the Thai population, on which Thaksin's popularity has been built.

   'What these by-elections tell us is that in this part of the north-east, which has been rock solid for Thaksin all the way through, nothing has changed,' said Chris Baker, the co-author of Thaksin - The Business of Politics in Thailand.

   That is both good news and bad news for the stability of Thailand's Democrat-led coalition government.

   The Democrats did not field candidates in the by-elections, but their coalition partners, the Bhumjaithai and Chart Thai Pattana parties, did.

   Prior to the by-elections outcome, the Bhumjaithai was looking well-positioned to attract politicians away from Puea Thai, which holds 198 out of 480 seats in the lower house of parliament.

   The by-elections were slated as a popularity test between Thaksin and Newin Chidchob, a classic provincial patron and the de-facto leader of the Bhumjaithai party, who was a former close ally of Thaksin.

   It was Newin's defection from the Thaksin camp that allowed the establishment of a Democrat-led coalition government in December with Democrat chief Abhisit Vejjajiva as prime minister.

   The Bhumjaithai defeat in Sakhon Nakhorn might have undermined Newin's efforts to attract Puea Thai defectors in parliament to his own party, observers said.

   'The results from the Sakhon Nakhorn and Si Sa Ket by-elections are going to make MPs who want to defect to the Democrats, Bhumjaithai or Chart Thai Pattana think twice,' said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

   Although a general election is not necessary for another two and a half years, it was widely anticipated that one would be held by early next year at the latest.

   In the short term, the by-election outcomes might have strengthened the resolve of the current coalition government to stop its internal bickering and try to stay in power as long as possible.

   But in the long term, the by-elections are bad omens for another Democrat-led coalition government in a post-general election period.

   The most likely post-polls scenario is a victory by the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai.

   'The by-elections outcome shows that the Thaksin phenomenon is alive and well despite the setback from the April riots,' Thitinan said.     

   In April, Thaksin supporters disrupted a regional summit of South-East Asian leaders in Pattaya, Thailand, forcing Abhisit to cancel the event. They then took their anti-government demonstration to Bangkok, where street riots led to an army crackdown.

   Thaksin was blamed for inciting his supporters to violent unrest, damaging the country's fragile stability, undermining its international image and deepening the political divide between his supporters and the Bangkok-based political elite.

   As the by-elections have demonstrated, that divide remains.

   The polarization is not going away,' Baker said. 'If anything, it's getting worse.'