Thailand after the Election

[hwinpp]

Thais Take Down a 'Dictatorship'


OPINION: Sunday's election is a victory for Red Shirts but more is needed

The Thai election results are a slap in the face for the dictatorship. They prove without any doubt that the majority of people have rejected the military, the Democrat Party and the royalist elites. Pheu Thai, the party closely allied to the Red Shirt movement, has won a clear majority.

The result is all the more remarkable, given that the election was held under conditions of severe censorship and intimidation of the democracy movement by the military and the military-installed Democrat Party of Abhisit Vejjajiva.

This election confirms that the Abhisit government never had a mandate from the people. It confirms that the 90 pro-democracy activists who were shot down by military snipers last year, were shot in order to keep the Democrat Party and the military in power.

Every single election since 2001 has been won by the Thai Rak Thai or its descendants, Palang Prachachon and now Pheu Thai. The latest results expose the lies of the military, the mainstream media, the liberal academics, the NGOs and the Democrat Party, all of whom claimed that the 2006 military coup was “necessary” because the majority of the electorate “didn’t understand democracy” or were “bought off” in election frauds.

The latest election is a vindication of the struggles and sacrifices of the Red Shirts and it proves the deep commitment to democracy among the majority of Thai citizens, especially the poor.

But the important question after the election is whether the Peua Thai government will match such commitments to freedom and democracy shown by those who voted for it.

If Thailand is to shake off the legacy of the 2006 coup and the subsequent destruction of the democratic process by the courts and the Abhisit government, this new government must take some immediate and important measures. These include:

1. The freeing of all political prisoners, including those jailed or charged under the notorious lèse majesté law.

2. The ending of censorship of all types, especially the internet and community radio stations.

3. The sacking of the Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha on the grounds that he sought to influence the outcome of the election and announced that he opposed Pheu Thai policies in the South. The army chief should be the servant of an elected government. He should never have special extra-constitutional powers to intervene in politics.

4. The indictment and trial of former Prime Minister Abhisit and his deputy Sutep, along with Generals Anupong and Prayuth on the grounds of murdering Red Shirt civilians last year.

5. The temporary re-introduction of the 1997 Constitution, instead of the present military constitution and the start of a process to rewrite the constitution to increase freedom and democracy.

6. The scrapping of the lèse majesté and computer crimes laws which prevent freedom of expression.In the long term,

Thai society must seek ways to totally reform the military, drastically cutting its budget and removing its control of the media. This will reduce its political influence.

The justice system, which has been plagued by double standards, must also be seriously reformed and measures should start in the process of building a welfare state in order to reduce inequality.

But it is doubtful whether the Pheu Thai Party will have any intention of carrying out these necessary changes. It will be up to the Red Shirt movement to push the government into making more radical reforms rather than doing secret and dirty compromises with the military and the elites.

Of course, the Red Shirt movement has many factions within it. This is normal for such a large mass movement. Some will want to wind down the movement and leave the business of politics to the new government.

This would be a serious mistake. The more radical sections of the movement must continue the struggle for justice and equality in order to bring about real changes.This election is only one step towards restoring democracy.

It will take mass participation of the Red Shirts in order to strengthen and speed up the process.


Giles Ji Ungpakorn is a Thai intellectual and writer living in the United Kingdom to avoid arrest in Bangkok on lese majeste charges.

www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3290&Itemid=442

The points 1 and 6 aren't visible in Thailand, they were censored.

[bixaorellana]

Thanks for this, HW -- most interesting.

I had to look up the issue covered in Point 1, as I'm pretty ignorant about Thailand. For others who might also be curious, here is Wikipedia's entry on the subject:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9#Thailand

I also found this article, written shortly before this election, that I found illuminating. You'll have to tell us if this is a reliable news agency, please.
www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=19499

[Deleted]

One thing I have to hand to the Thais (and also the Indians and a few other Asian countries) is their great interest and participation in elections, even if one cannot always have full faith in the accuracy of the results.

[hwinpp]

No idea if that news source is reliable but I would think so, it's from the Straits Times, an old Singaporean newspaper. One of the supporters is the conservative German Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

It looks like this election was quite clean. There have been few allegations of vote fraud or buying votes. And that despite the fact that the army chief warned the population not to vote for outside influences, meaning Thaksin Shinawatra, the PM who got couped out in 2006 and who's party has won the last 5 elections.

[hwinpp]

Another cooking show and swallowing defeat

PPT has been somewhat amazed at the way the mainstream media has been “handling” their election loss last week. The papers are full of sour grape stories.

Illustrative of the lengths the losers will go is The Nation’s “story” reporting on a complaint lodged that Yingluck Shinawatra engaged in vote-buying in Korat by stirring a few noodles for the cameras. This is indicative of the kinds of media attack, couched as stories from “sources,” all unnamed, that amount to unsubstantiated nonsense.

Then there’s the stories that claim that the Puea Thai Party didn’t win the election, but the Democrat Party lost it because… you choose: they were inept at developing a campaign, Abhisit wrote his own speeches, they had no PR strategy, they waited too long before calling an election, etc. It just goes on and on, and never mentions the fact that the electorate spoke with a resounding rejection of the Democrat Party and a stunning acceptance of Puea Thai’s platform.

The Bangkok Post has a classic example, by Anchalee Kongrut, said to be a feature writer at the newspaper. She asks, as so many others have: “Why did the Democrat Party suffer such a crushing defeat in the general election? Was it a backlash against the military for the 2006 coup? Or were rural voters in the North and Northeast waging a class war on the bourgeoisie, a group that has long supported the Democrats? Or could it simply be that this 65-year-old political party is completely inept at PR and marketing strategy?”

None of those it seems and nor could it have been that the Democrat Party was the core of a regime that killed people, locked them up, played monarchism, censored and repressed. Nope, for Anchalee, it is “a testament to how successfully Thailand’s half-baked democracy has been married to advertising techniques.”

Note that Thailand’s democracy, following a Puea Thai victory, is “half-baked.” And it seems that all that was needed to thrash the incumbent government was branding and communication/marketing. Of course, the very deep and intelligent loser for the premiership doesn’t read marketing books, but Yingluck does. So that must be an advantage over the hapless Mark.

The damned party of the peasants – to be fair, those are PPT’s words – used a U.S.-like campaign team. Mark scribbled his own notes while the scheming Puea Thai “assigned people the specific responsibility of handling a public-relations campaign for Yingluck Shinawatra and writing speeches for her to deliver.” Why, even the Bangkok Post “revealed” that Yingluck’s “PR team choreographed … every move and posture; advising her when she should turn left or right to face the cameras, when she should swivel, or raise her index finger to make that signature No.1 gesture or flash that winning smile of hers.” Goodness, she even “came across as accessible, pleasant and likeable.”

Now how unfair is it! Fancy that nasty Puea Thai being professional about a campaign. Why didn’t the Democrat Party campaign in a professional manner? Too high-minded and intellectual? Too elitist even? PPT thinks that the defeated Democrat Party just thought they could stroll back to government. After all, they had killed people, locked them up, played monarchism, censored and repressed. And with the military and big Sino-Thai business on-side, it should have been a cakewalk.

Poor Anchalee is forced to reveal something: “I have to admit, though, that it was fun to watch Yingluck’s campaign.” Poor Mark just looked uncomfortable doing everyday things. He “came across as the epitome of an elite caste.” Abhisit, it seems, just didn’t understand that you have to give the masses dross and dough. He is said to have been “drawing up policies – not for what the people wanted, but for what he believed they deserved.” Too high-minded, but a good lad.

Of course, behind all of this professionalism and political-business acumen is the Svengali-like Thaksin Shinawatra who has “mesmerised by his … perennial appeal to the proverbial man on the street.” He’s got everyone under his trance and voters as consumers are “too tired to look for the remote to switch channels.”

The thing is, they did “switch channels.” They threw out the Democrat Party and now look forward to something different. They didn’t do that in a trance but as a deliberate and thoughtful attention to the events since 2006. They hope for a better Thailand. They rejected the military and the coup – recall they talked of pressing the reset button on Thai democracy – they didn’t like and took the country backwards in fast rewind.

Giving the electorate some credit just seems too difficult. It’s just impossible to see how “we” – those born to rule and who know best – could have been defeated by the decision of the dark, hot and sweaty masses. It can’t be admitted that the Democrat Party is a failed and essentially unelectable party, beaten this time by a party running its third-string candidates.

thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/another-cooking-show-and-swallowing-defeat/

The title refers to a now infamous incident where the PM after the coup (belonging to the party that had been in power before the coup) was removed by a court (the judiciary was the first victim of the coup, impartial judges being displaced by army loyalists) for winning 10USD for taking part in a cooking show...

[Deleted]

So, Mrs. Yingluck was finally designated prime minister today...

If she turns out to be more than just a puppet, this could be interesting.