Will Thai poll bring change
In theory, the leader defeated in an election immediately hands in his resignation to the head of state, who, in turn, calls upon the leader of the winning party to immediately form a new cabinet. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin analyses the protracted process through which the Thai politicians have, once again, turned theory on its head.
HONG KONG (JP): Finally, former commander-in-chief Gen. Chavalit Yongchaiyudh realized his great ambition as he knelt before King Bhumipol on Nov. 29 and was installed as the 22nd prime minister of Thailand. Then on Dec. 1, the new Chavalit Cabinet of 49 ministers and deputy ministers was sworn in before the King at Chitralada Palace in Bangkok.
The installation and the swearing-in brought to an end a two- week scramble for power and position, following the six-week election campaign and the 19th Thai general election itself, on Nov. 17. These proceedings reflected badly on Thai politicians in general, on outgoing Prime Minister Banharn Silapa-archa, on Chavalit himself, and most of all on Thai democracy.
One saving grace has been that some Thais at least could respond with a touch of humor to the "jobs for the boys" image of Thai politics, as the huge and unwieldy Cabinet was formed. Once again, the old joke about Thai politicians being "the best that money can buy" is in circulation.
This was not a NAP-led ministry, said one wit, referring to Chavalit's New Aspiration Party -- this was a SOAP administration: Same Old Aspiration Party.
"ASEAN got it all wrong," was another quip. "This year's informal summit in Jakarta was held too soon -- before we had a fresh Prime Minister ready for them."
In point of fact, Thailand had two prime ministers as the ASEAN summit started. The most demeaning aspect of the last two weeks has been that the bitter rivalry between the outgoing prime minister and the incoming one continued to manifest itself, to the point where it clearly had a negative impact on the national interest.
Instead of gracefully accepting the verdict of the polls, and quickly making way for his successor, Banharn clung on to power. Epitomizing the utterly blatant way in which Thai politicians now advertise their corruption for all to see, Banharn continued to hold meetings of the old cabinet with the obvious motive of approving questionable projects in which he and other outgoing ministers had a financial interest.
Worse than that, Banharn insisted upon acting as if he was not a caretaker prime minister. Since Chavalit will be in charge of making Thai policy, at least for the next few months, the least Banharn could have done was to offer Chavalit the chance of attending the APEC and ASEAN summits and of hosting the state visit of U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Instead, with all the intensity of a provincial boy who, briefly had made good, Banharn cut a lonely figure as he attended APEC, where only three leaders (Philippines, U.S. and Taiwan) asked to have a bilateral meeting with him. When he returned from Manila he was particularly anxious to see to it that the Interior Ministry compiled a 12-page record of his achievements as prime minister.
Banharn somehow managed to appear in pictures as host for Clinton, even though Chavalit had been "appointed" the evening before, precisely to be the main host. The compromise over ASEAN was that neither prime minister attended but Deputy Prime Minister Amnuay Viravan went instead. To be fair to Banharn, Chavalit's desire to attend all three events was less than compelling. He was too heavily involved negotiating jobs for the boys.
The whole episode has done much to diminish Thailand's prestige. Once it was safe to assume that Thais could be trusted to place patriotism first. Domestic political differences would be put aside when foreign policy issues arose. Evidently that is no longer so.
At first sight, the general election result itself suggest modest progress towards a more relevant system of two nationwide parties dominating the political landscape. This was because both NAP and Prachatipat (Democratic Party) won well over a hundred seats, with the NAP narrowly winning 125 to 123. Additionally both parties won in every region, whereas in the 1995 election Prachatipat was the only party to accomplish this feat. However, NAP won only a single seat in Bangkok.
In the capital city a great deal of hope was placed on a Prachatipat victory, in large part because the Democrats were thought to be more capable of reviving Thailand's flagging economic prospects. So the party quadrupled the number of seats won there, and, when the NAP emerged from the polls slightly ahead, the Thai Stock Exchange index immediately sank by a hefty six percent, while subsequently recovering.
But the Prachatipat victory in Bangkok was based on the lowest turnout in the nation -- a miserable 48.97 percent. No other province sank below 50 percent. Despite Banharn's unpopularity, he still managed to romp home amidst a 76 percent turnout in his bailiwick of Suphan Buri. Prachatipat's strength was evenly spread throughout the nation, but it lost the election in Thailand's northeast, where it only won 12 seats.
Chavalit and his NAP, on the other hand, concentrated on the populous Northeast, which returns well over a third of all House of Representatives seats -- 137 out of 393. There, the NAP won a hefty 78 seats, a gain of 42 over 1995, while also making striking gains in both the North and the Central provinces.
In political theory, Chavalit's 125 seats ought to have given him a clear edge in any post-election coalition-building. He should have been able to create a new cabinet from a position of strength. But Thai politics often turns theory on its head. The more important fact than his 125 seats was that Chavalit was still far from attaining a simple majority of 197 seats, or a working majority of around 220.
His rivalry with Banharn made any reliance on Banharn's Chart Thai unwise as well as impossible. He was also limited by his election promise to institute a "dream team" of economic managers, which also meant that coveted political plums would be going to technocrats.
The "Banharn problem" was quickly "solved." Former Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan and his Chart Pattana party were only too willing to leave the opposition benches and join up with Chavalit. Chavalit was naturally willing to win over Chatichai's 52 seats and jettison Banharn's 39 seats. But this solution only created more problems.
Chatichai fancies himself as an economic administrator. Many Thais remember Chatichai's premiership in the late 1980s as the time of the "buffet" government when everyone helped themselves. Chatichai remembers the same period -- justifiably --- as the years of Thailand's fastest economic growth. Armed with this conviction, Chatichai wanted a piece of the economic action for Chart Pattana. So Chavalit's dream of installing a "dream team" of technocrats quickly became a political luxury which he could not really afford.
Reporters for The Nation quickly saw the ensuing struggle as one between a dream team and a "nightmare team." But Chavalit's nightmare also consisted of the fact that the Banharn problem had not been really solved. Chavalit had won his 125 seats in large part because a hefty faction of Banharn's Chart Thai party, correctly estimating their former leader's diminishing prospects, had defected en masse to the NAP well before the election.
Chavalit had no choice but to welcome them. He did not possess a disciplined cadre of young NAP members loyal to himself. Even if he did, he would not have won with them. Thai politics does not yet work in that way. In the provinces, the voters go for their man, often because he pays them well for doing so.
Party labels are, in a sense, clothes which the local personalities only wear when they get to Bangkok. Even then they may change suits several times.
So while the Chart Thai defectors had helped Chavalit realize his ambition, they too, just like Chatichai and Chart Pattana, wanted to be rewarded for their opportunism. Crudely put, placing technocrats in charge of sections of the pork barrel only wastes the pork barrel.
One way out of that problem is to place "real politicians" (that is opportunists) in a ministry as deputies, so that they can remind technocrats of what reality consists. Chavalit came to see the wisdom of this device. Amnuay Viravan only complicated life for everybody by initially insisting that he and his band of technocrats should have undiluted control of all the main economic ministries.
"Bankers Insist Amnuay Must Be Given Free Rein" read the (by now, ironic) headline in the Bangkok Post on Nov. 21. "If Chavalit wants to solve the country's economic problems, he must not bow to pressures from MPs in his party or those from the Chart Pattana party," one banker was quoted as saying.
But in the end, Chavalit bowed. The only leading remnants of the "dream team" concept were Amnuay as finance minister and businessman Narongchai Akrasanee as minister of commerce. Even so, they were both counted as part of the NAP "quota" of ministers because Chatichai so insisted. Rumblings of discontent can still be heard from loyalists and defectors who feel that their opportunism has not been sufficiently rewarded.
All in all, Thai politics threaten to sink into sleaze. Quite apart from the post-election shenanigans, there was the massive vote-buying in the election itself, coupled with a considerable amount of violence and intimidation. Corruption now threaten to get out of control, as the politicians seek a "return" for their "investment" in votes.
In theory, Thailand has just had an election to get rid of a corrupt government. In practice, the way in which the election was fought almost guarantees that the Chavalit administration will suffer from the same defects as its predecessor. The hope must be that Chavalit himself, having finally attained the position he has sought ever since he reigned as armed forces commander-in-chief just over six years ago, will somehow rise to the opportunity, and provide the leadership and direction which Thailand, and Thai democracy, badly needs.
THE THAI GENERAL ELECTION 1996
MANY MANOEUVRES, LITTLE CHANGE
TABLE ONE
1996 THAI GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS
--------------------------------------------- POLITICAL PARTIES PREVIOUS*** SEATS NOW
SEATS HELD WON --------------------------------------------- THE NEW RULING COALITION
New Aspiration 57 125
Chart Pattana 53 52
(National Development)
Social Action 22 20
Prachakorn Thai 18 18
(Thai Citizens)
Seritham (Liberal) 11 4
Muan Chon (Mass) 3 2
----------------
sub-total -- 221
THE NEW OPPOSITION
Prachatipat 86 123
(Democratic Party)
Chart Thai (Thai Nation) 92 39
Solidarity 8 8
Palang Dharma 23 1
(Power of Virtue)
Thai Party - 1
----------------
sub-total -- 172 ----------------------------------------- TOTAL 360 391
*** Seats won at the 1995 general election
TABLE TWO
1995 THAI GENERAL ELECTION RESULTS BY REGION
--------------------------------------------------------------- POLITICAL PARTIES CENTRAL NORTH NORTH- SOUTH BANGKOK TOTAL
-EAST --------------------------------------------------------------- THE NEW RULING COALITION
New Aspiration 21(7) 20(9) 78(36) 5(5) 1(0) 125(57)
Chart Pattana 10(8) 20(18) 21(27) 0(0) 1(0) 52(53)
(National Development)
Social Action 5(6) 3(2) 12(14) 0(0) 0(0) 20(22)
Prachakorn Thai 10(4) 4(2) 0(0) 0(0) 4(12) 18(18)
(Thai Citizens)
Seritham (Liberal) 0(3) 0(0) 4(8) 0(0) 0(0) 4(11)
Muan Chon (Mass) 0(1) 1(0) 0(0) 0(0) 1(2) 2(3)
THE NEW OPPOSITION
Prachatipat 14(7) 21(1 12(14) 47(46) 29(7) 123(86)
(Democratic Party)
Chart Thai 28(44) 6(19) 5(29) 0(0) 0(0) 9(92)
(Thai Nation)
Solidarity 3(2) 0(5) 5(1) 0(0) 0(0) 8(8)
Palang Dharma 0(4) 0(3) 0(0) 0(0) 1(16) 1(23)
Thai Party 1 0 0 0 0 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 92 75 137 52 37 393
(91) (75) (137) (51) (37) (391)
(figures in brackets are those after the previous general election in 1995).