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Abhisit Vejjajiva, the current prime minister, is of course having a difficult time governing the country. He receives scant support on the one hand. On the other, he faces a traditional uphill battle between overpowering vested interests, corrupt ethical values and blinded pro-monarchy groups, who each fail to realize that Thailand’s greatest problem is not its recent divisiveness, but its historical unity based on subservience, acceptance and feudalism.
Seventy-five-year-old Snoh Thienthong, veteran politician and financier for the defunct Thai Rak Thai party, is already demonstrating that Abhisit’s hold on power is tenuous at best. He has already called for Abhisit to resign and allow a true coalition government to take over the kingdom.
That coalition, of course, would include many of the former Thai Rak Thai politicians still banned from politics, who are loyal to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as well as, Snoh hopes, Thaksin himself.
For further insight into Thailand’s aged politicians one may read “The Resilience of Dinosaurs,” by Roger Mitton, on Asiaweek.com. Old veterans like Snoh, Sanan Kajornprasert and 77-year-old Bahnharn Silapaacha, Thailand’s 21st prime minister, are well described – not for what they accomplished for the nation, but for their ability to cement alliances. This is, in essence, the good old buddy network so prevalent in other nations, including the United States. It sadly means that there is likely to be little change in the way things work, and instead only repetitions of past mistakes and feuds.
In a tragic sense, this justifies in principle what the Red Shirts are claiming to protest against – a corrupt and unjust society that only offers more pain for the masses and continued gain for the elite. The Red Shirt message is false, however, because the group really wants to restore Thaksin Shinawatra to power.
Thailand’s problem is not merely that dinosaurs head up its social and political systems. It is that the systems themselves promote the illusion of success through unity, of salvation through agreement, of Thai identity defined by loyalty to the monarchy. As for foreigners, they are praised when their interests are identical with Thais’ perceived interests, and cursed when they are not.
A good overview of the Thai political situation can be garnered from the speeches and interviews of “Thailand’s CIA,” Air Force Major Prasong Sunsiri. Though he is not a politician per se, the 82-year-old Prasong chooses his words with care and provides an excellent overview of Thai political reality. While a firm supporter of the Democrats and the Yellow Shirts, and perhaps Thailand’s first major anti-Thaksin advocate, this octogenarian brings focus into an area that few Thais or expatriates have been able to match.
In an interview with ASTV on Wednesday, reported in the same day’s edition of the Thai Post, Prasong foresaw another coup should current efforts proceed to modify the Constitution or to annul it and replace it with the more popular and Thaksin-friendly 1997 charter. Demands for a modification of the 2007 Constitution have been made for some time and are growing. Why?
Current demands for charter change are openly meant to clear the 111 Thai Rak Thai party executives who lost their positions because of the wrongdoing of a single party executive, and allow them to once again seek political office. It is also meant to restore Thaksin to power.
Thailand’s options at the moment are almost all unpleasant, as are actions now being taken by conservatives to put the brakes on needed sociopolitical change. For example, despite Abhisit’s promise to treat lèse majesté cases more fairly, the Thai army has been ordered to spy on citizens and prosecute any who are deemed to have crossed the line. People are being arrested or investigated almost every day for perceived slights to the monarchy.
The police and court officials claim that security and justice are improving in the country. Yet prominent media executive Sondhi Limthongkul was gunned down in the middle of Bangkok between army and police checkpoints, during a state of emergency. Sondhi has expressed reluctance to provide police investigators with a detailed account of what happened because he does not trust the police. This tells us a great deal about reality in present-day Thailand.
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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
