THAI POLITICS
MATTHEW B ARNOLD
Thailand has been in the international news headlines extensively this past week because of the PAD's latest attempt to remove an elected government from power. Being resident in London, it has been interesting for me to read the news about Thailand's latest bout of political instability, given Thaksin Shinawatra's exile here.
The international press has had the challenging task of explaining to a foreign audience why Thailand is once again in political turmoil. Indeed, why it is that a protest movement called the People's Alliance for Democracy has taken over the prime minister's office in order to push demands that democracy actually be rolled back to the point whereby only 30% of the parliament is elected.
Most of the international press' explanations for the crisis have done a pretty good job summarising the situation, describing the background of the present crisis being the PAD protests that started in early-2006 and ultimately provoked the military coup that deposed Mr Thaksin.
Needless to say, foreign readers can only but be left confused by Thailand's politics. The crux of the confusion is why a country that has had a string of successful elections despite a history of military coups, including one just two years ago, is again seeing political upheaval provoked by a civilian group demanding the effective return to non-democratic government and the disenfranchisement of the rural majority.
This goes against the general progression towards democracy in much of the world, notably as witnessed by Thailand's own December 2007 elections, and contrasts starkly with the stability of neighbouring Indonesia's modern democracy and commendable attempts ongoing in Malaysia to push its democracy forward.
As the current PAD protest descends into a stalemate with the Samak government, the problem for Thailand is that the PAD's prominence to its political processes is a damning embarrassment for the country. It leads foreign governments and public to question the political gravitas of a country that has military coups with smiling soldiers waving flowers, followed by protesters with pro-democratic names storming government buildings attempting to overthrow a government that has been democratically elected.
There is obviously more substance to Thailand's political processes, but observers from afar can only reasonably be left wondering what Thailand is doing to itself when a self-righteous reactionary group like the PAD can take such a definitive role in its national politics.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was right to rhetorically ask of his fellow parliamentarians in the special debate on the PAD-provoked crisis: ''Don't you feel ashamed? Our image as far as the rest of the world sees us will be destroyed.'' If the PAD succeeds, this will be because the world will see that Thailand's democracy is so shallow and its institutions so weak that it is incapable, and indeed unwilling, to prevent a small minority of maniacally aggressive citizens from bringing the country to a halt and dictating what political outcomes are acceptable or not.
Indeed, the current empowerment of the protesters leads one to believe that the precedent of the PAD's 2006 efforts and possible success in 2008 will leave the PAD as a ''fifth column'' in Thailand's democracy _ raising its proverbial hand to determine what governments pass its test and otherwise resorting to protests to hijack the country.
One of the ironies for the PAD, however, is that they have done much to rejuvenate Mr Thaksin's image abroad, especially in Britain. When questions are raised with his application for political exile in the UK, Mr Thaksin's image can only be helped when people here ponder: ''If these protesters are his enemies, maybe he really isn't so bad!''
It had been easy for some of the UK press to label him as a corrupt billionaire with authoritarian tendencies. Yet, this has been harder to maintain when the PAD is blatantly trying to force another government from power and demanding the end to full democracy in Thailand.
Mr Thaksin's reputation is inherently strengthened by the PAD's current efforts because, after all, he too had suffered such attacks.
Thailand already made a mistake once before about the PAD. Back in 2006, too many people were willing to give a ''civil society'' actor with an altruistic name the benefit of the doubt. It should be no surprise that the PAD should reassert itself in the same destructive manner given its previous successes. The only ''good'' thing about the PAD this time around is that they are being more honest, making it clear that they aren't for democracy at all and want to curtail suffrage in the country and seek an effectively non-democratic form of government.
Ultimately, is Thailand waiting for the world to see still another government succumb to undemocratic means? It would be a disaster for the country's international reputation to see, yet again, a government falling to a self-righteous mob of protesters pushing the country away from democracy. Even those who disdain Mr Thaksin, and Mr Samak as well, should be troubled by the PAD entrenching itself as the final judge of Thailand's democratic political outcomes. Indeed, they should be embarrassed by the PAD. The real shame is that while Thailand had such a turbulent period in 2006 and 2007, its international reputation as a stable, democratising nation had greatly improved since the last elections. The more the PAD asserts itself, the more Thailand will be in international headlines and the more it will suffer for it.
Matthew Arnold has been a visiting scholar at Chulalongkorn University.
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