A Chance for the New Leader to Break With Thailand's Past
Philip Bowring International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
HONG KONG The process was always going to be as important as the result. Ultimately, Thailand's electoral system will be judged by the character of the government that emerges from the Jan. 6 lower house elections, the first under its new constitution. But even before full results are available some pluses and minuses can be chalked up.
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The new electoral arrangements had two main objectives. The first was to reduce the role of money in politics. This was an end in itself, a way to improve the intellectual and moral level of members of the National Assembly, and also a means of reducing the need for politicians who had gained office from using it to reimburse the cost of getting elected.
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The second objective was to achieve greater stability by reducing the number of parties in the National Assembly and preventing members from changing party allegiance while serving in it.
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On the first point, at first glance nothing has improved. By most accounts, cash for voters was no less available at the constituency level than in the past, even if a slight effort was made to disguise it out of fear of the Electoral Commission watchdogs.
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It also seems likely that the heavy campaign spending by Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai party, which greatly exceeded that of the incumbent Democrat Party, was a significant factor in the result.
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Whether or not the Electoral Commission now disbars a significant number of successful candidates on grounds of vote buying, the impression remains that the process of reducing the role of money is at best painfully slow.
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However, even on this front there appear to have been some gains. It is less undesirable for a party to come to power through a nationwide campaign, however expensive, than through bribery at the constituency level. The poor results of well heeled provincial representatives of traditional parties suggest that many voters have taken money from all sides but still voted heavily for Thai Rak Thai because it offered a clear alternative to the Democrats and the possibility of a government that was more than just an unstable multiparty coalition.
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From that perspective the constitution drafters' goal has been a stunning success. It now looks as though Thai Rak Thai could have an absolute majority and that it and the Democrats between them will have two thirds of all the seats. That is quite a result, given that 37 parties contested the election and that in many areas local bosses affiliated to minor parties rule the roost.
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Mr. Thaksin was fortunate to attract many regional political figures away from other parties into Thai Rak Thai just in time before nominations closed in November. Under the old rules, this bandwagon effect would have been of little long-term consequence. But now these members are locked into Thai Rak Thai for the duration of the House of Representatives.
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Other Thai parties, apart from the Democrats, have always been unstable coalitions of factions. That has changed. At least for now, those who joined Thai Rak Thai owe their success to Mr. Thaksin, not vice versa. Similarly, as he was rich enough to finance a national campaign, he was not reliant on their money.
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Will Mr. Thaksin, the opportunist, now take the opportunity of this result to raise the quality of Thai politics, and appoint a government of people as competent as those in the outgoing administration of Chuan Leekpai? At first glance the situation is not encouraging.
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Mr. Thaksin is a former policeman who owes his fortune to deals with the government. He could in theory still be disbarred from office by the Constitutional Court for past hiding of his assets, although the scale of his victory now makes that unlikely.
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His early recruits to Thai Rak Thai included some of the sleaziest representatives of traditional politics. His election campaign was a mix of populism and support for taxpayer funded bailouts of deeply indebted big business. He is distrusted by the bureaucratic elite as well as by foreign investors. There is understandable concern that Thailand could be in for a repeat of the incompetent administration (1995-1996) of its last businessman-prime minister, Banharn Silpa-archa.
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Yet the scope of his victory, his few political debts and the new constitutional rules governing cabinet appointments as well as the conduct of legislators give Mr. Thaksin a chance to make a break with the past. If he has the vision to seize it he may, as he promised to the electorate, be able to provide Thailand with a government that is modernizing, decisive, clean and stable.

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