A bitterly divided nation

Although Thailand's premier, Yinluck Shinawatra has, in a bid to end the country's political crisis, dissolved parliament to pave the way for fresh elections, it is doubtful whether this move can heal the deep fissures in the country's body politic.  Tom Fawthrop explains the divisions.

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THE relentless fury and bitter polarisation of Thai politics - in the struggle between anti-government 'yellow-shirts' and pro-government 'red-shirts' - has once more paralysed traffic in central Bangkok and severely disrupted the government.

Only a few weeks ago democracy achieved a rare triumph in Thai history when both red-shirts and yellow-shirts unusually combined to defeat an ill-judged government amnesty bill. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra withdrew the bill in deference to popular indignation. It was a rare moment of unity, when the people's will triumphed.

But for the yellow-shirts this defeat of the government only emboldened them to expand their protest to demand the resignation of the government in the name of a 'people's will' based on a surge of die-hard protests largely confined to their stronghold in Bangkok.

Once again the millions of rural red-shirt voters who had put the prime minister in power were outraged that Bangkokians wanted to overturn the election result and bring down the government.

In 2010 the red-shirts had been the occupying force in Bangkok's city centre and for months had tried to bring down the military-backed Democrat Party-led government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. They also bitterly remember that their protest was brutally dispersed by the army and more than 90 people, the vast majority unarmed civilians, were shot dead in the final crackdown.

This time around, near-daily protests since November and the strategic occupation of several ministries by well-organised yellow-shirt groups have compelled Yingluck to dissolve parliament and set in motion the holding of new elections on 2 February.

In many countries bitter confrontations can be settled at the ballot box, with the voters making the final decision, but not in Thailand. The opposition - both the street protest organisations and the main parliamentary opposition party, the Democrat Party - are saying that without reforms to the political system, new elections cannot solve anything.

The street protests of the yellow-shirts have been led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy leader of the Democrat Party who has now resigned to focus on rebellion rather than the ballot.

At the heart of the Bangkok rebellion against the Yingluck government is an unswerving hatred towards the premier's brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon who himself ran Thailand from 2001 until he was toppled by a military coup in 2006.

Thaksin became the godfather of the rural poor in Thailand's north-east known as Isarn. Isarn people had always been looked down on by Bangkok's middle class and their interests largely ignored by all political leaders. Thaksin readily wooed them with populist policies based on an astute marketing strategy.

Before Thaksin, only the student movement and a group of dedicated rural doctors had campaigned for cheap or free healthcare for the poor and interest-free loans, but definitely not the traditional political parties.

These policies were subsequently hijacked by a new kind of leader in Thai politics - Thaksin the telecommunications tycoon. His plan to build a permanent political base in the vote-rich provinces of Isarn, now also known as the heartland of the red-shirt movement, has been so successful that it has generated a major faultline in Thai democracy.

As prime minister from 2001-06, Thaksin delivered on his promises of cheap healthcare and loans for thousands of Isarn villages. But he trampled on any checks and balances in the constitution; he intimidated and largely silenced independent media and abused his position to enhance his crony business interests.

By 2005 the protests of Bangkok's middle class had become a new feature of Thai politics, calling for an end to Thaksinism. In 2006 a military coup ousted Thaksin when he was on a trip abroad. The red-shirt movement felt cheated that the government they voted for had been removed not at the ballot box but at military gunpoint.

The coup gave birth to a new constitution and new elections in 2007, which the party loyal to the ousted Thaksin won easily.

Wind the clock forward to December 2013 and you have exactly the same players and the same forces at play.

Thaksin, from his position of self-imposed exile since 2006 after he was convicted of corruption in absentia, still exercises a massive grip over Thai politics, guiding his sister Yingluck, advising and sometimes choosing her cabinet ministers, and provoking outrage from the Bangkok middle class and yellow-shirt supporters throughout the kingdom.

So what do the protest leaders in Bangkok want if they won't accept elections on 2 February?

Bangkok Post columnist VoranaiVanijaka writes of protest leader Suthep, 'Understand that he has no qualms,no pretensions about democracy. He's calling for a nationwide uprising to overthrow a democratically elected government. He then wants to suspend electoral democracy, introduce reforms, "eradicate" the Thaksin regime from Thailand, and then return to democratic elections.'

The view from Bangkok is that Thaksin and his political operators on the ground in the Pheu Thai party are unscrupulous politicians who buy success at the polls and then recoup their 'electoral investments' with a hefty profit from corruption when in office.

This may be one side of the coin of truth but the other side is that Thaksinism has also become unbeatable at the polls because of its loyal support base and policies, which Suthep and the yellow-shirts play down in order to focus exclusively on the money politics.  

Former senator for the Democrat Party Kraisak Choonhavan admits that the real fight is against the monopolisation of power by the Thaksin political machine and his oligarchy. 'Before, democracy in Thailand revolved around competing oligarchies but when the Thaksin family dominates everything, then democracy has no meaning anymore.'

The other oligarchy, gathered around the landed class and closely aligned to the royal family, the massive crown properties and the Privy Council, have been able to derail several pro-Thaksin governments by using the courts and the military.

But now the judges and the generals have generally backed off from further involvement and partisanship. The last military coup failed to stop a resurgence of Thaksinism, and now the army is far too divided to attempt another coup.

Still Suthep is invoking some kind of intervention from the palace to select a 'people's government' to administer the country on the basis of a vaguely Confucianistic ethic of commitment to good governance.

In reality it would mean replacing one oligarchy with another without an electoral mandate.

In the July 2011 elections the pro-Thaksin camp mustered roughly 15 million votes, and the Democrat Party and their allies only 11 million.

However, former senator Kraisak told this writer, 'The credibility of Yingluck Shinawatra is cut to shreds. Her Pheu Thai party has been found guilty of faking documents by the Constitutional Court. They have abused their power steaming ahead with mega-flood control projects without proper parliamentary debate. They have lost their legitimacy as a government.'

Electoral victories have been achieved by many governments in the world that enjoy little legitimacy. From the first Thaksin government in 2001 to all the governments under the sway of Thaksin in exile, it has become almost a trademark that they ran roughshod over the checks and balances in the constitution.

That leaves Thai democracy as stillborn and trapped in a stalemate between the yellow-shirts, who in their extreme support for the monarchy veer towards anti-democratic solutions, and the red-shirts, who have no interest in protecting the rights of the minorities and have used thuggish violence to block the Democrat Party from campaigning in rural red-shirt strongholds.

The oligarchic orchestration of the red-yellow divide is becoming all the more intense with the declining health of the Thai king, who has been a grand symbol of Thai unity for over 60 years. Behind the current conflagration is a clear agenda for each side to increase its respective political power before a new monarch ascends the throne.

In the short term it may be possible to establish a council of senior advisers and outstanding leaders who would have the respect of both sides to set up an interim government. It would then be mandated to implement some reforms in order to restore a semblance of legitimacy and set standards of good governance that all parties must agree to prior to holding the next elections.

However, as long as one side cries for eradicating Thaksinism to the point of excluding all members of the family from any further participation in Thai politics, any compromise will be impossible.

Hardline monarchism on the one hand and Thaksinism on the other do however share one thing in common - a mutual intolerance, a colour-coded prejudice and contempt for anyone who disagrees with them.

'We are heading towards a black hole,' sighs former senator Kraisak, one of Thailand's more enlightened thinkers, 'but I just hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel.'

In South Africa the 'great liberator' Nelson Mandela created the concept of the 'Rainbow Nation' to transcend the colour divide. Thailand desperately needs to learn from such an inspirational leader to move the country beyond the red-yellow impasse.

Tom Fawthrop is a journalist and filmmaker based in Chiangmai, Thailand.

*Third World Resurgence No. 279/280, November/December 2013, pp 45-46