A History Of Thailand

by Baker Chris

  Another theme of protest developed among businesspeople driven to bankruptcy. The IMF and much mainstream economic analysis blamed the crisis on the cronyism and inefficiency of ‘Asian’ capitalism, justifying its destruction and replacement by more advanced international capital. But local businesspeople rejected this interpretation and felt abandoned by state, Democrats, and technocracy. In early 1998, they formed new organizations, such as the Alliance for National Salvation; held street demonstrations; took delegations to Washington; and railed against the ‘neocolonial’ policies of the IMF.

  These efforts initially excited very little public support. But over 1998–99, the social impact of the crisis broadened, social divisions widened, and protests spread. Even leaders such as Anand Panyarachun, who initially counselled Thais not to reject globalization, welcomed a more self-reliant approach to managing the crisis ‘for the sake of the Thai way-of-life’.32 Various projects were launched to overcome the crisis by self-strengthening. A revered senior monk, Luangta Mahabua, collected donations of 2 billion baht, including 1.7 tonnes of gold, to offset the national debt. Themes of national defence surfaced in popular culture. In 1999, the film Bang Rajan became a huge hit by telling the schoolbook history of villagers defying the Burmese attack in 1767. Princess Suphankalaya, a semi-legendary sister of King Naresuan who won Siam’s ‘independence’ from the Burmese in the 16th century, became a popular goddess who could save businesses from the crisis. A ‘new nationalist’ group of academics and businesspeople hoped to ‘plant the love of country in every person in every corner of the country’ so that ‘the power to rescue economic sovereignty will grow of its own accord’.33

  In 2000, the economic crisis began to ease. But the shock of the event had thrown up powerful themes about national defence, self-strengthening, the neglect of rural society, the need for a new approach to development policy, and reassessment of Thailand’s position in the context of globalization.

  Thais loving Thais

  Ultimately, this period of crisis and debate ended with resurrection of the tradition of the strong dictatorial state – this time promoted by big businesspeople wanting the power of the state to manage the threats of both globalization and democratization.

  In July 1998, Thaksin Shinawatra founded a new political party. Thaksin had been one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the boom, building a net worth of almost US$2 billion within five years from a batch of oligopolistic telecommunication concessions, and from deft exploitation of the rising stockmarket. He flirted with politics in the mid-1990s, projecting the image of a modern, technology-aware businessman. His new party in 1998 attracted the support of other business groups that had been battered by the crisis but had survived. These included the biggest conglomerate, CP; the leading bank, Bangkok Bank; and several firms engaged in service industries oriented to the domestic market – the major segment of the economy still protected in various ways from foreign ownership. This big-business enthusiasm for politics reiterated the pattern following national crises in 1932, 1946, 1973, and 1992. On those earlier occasions, the enthusiasm had proved short-lived, but business now was much stronger, and the crisis had convinced many business leaders of the need to control the state to manage globalization. Thaksin presented himself as a successful businessman who would help both small and large firms to recover from the crisis.

  The new party played to the post-crisis mood. Its name, Thai Rak Thai (TRT), ‘Thais love Thais’, reflected the nationalistic reaction to the crisis. Its slogan, ‘Think new, act new, for every Thai’, and its manifesto promising to ‘bring about reform in the fundamental structure of the country in all respects, so that Thailand is strong, modern, and ready to face the challenges of the world in the new era’, embraced the theme of self-strengthening to manage globalization. The party contacted NGOs and rural activists to help compile an election programme of agrarian debt relief, village capital funds, and cheap health care that recognized the impact of the crisis on the countryside. The party’s programme adopted the localist vocabulary of community empowerment and bottom-up grassroots development. Prawase Wasi, Luangta Mahabua (the monk who had organized nationalist self-help schemes), and several rural protest groups endorsed the party.

  With evidence of this growing support, Thaksin gathered the support of many provincial bosses who understood that the Democrats and their allies were likely to be defeated because of their association with IMF-mandated policies. Thaksin also spent an unusually large budget on a more polished, coordinated, and powerful election campaign than hitherto seen. At the polls in January 2001, Thai Rak Thai won two short of an absolute majority, and subsequently converted that into a majority of almost 300 out of 500 seats by absorbing two other parties (including that of Chavalit). The Democrat Party hung onto its base in the south and remained the only other major party (Map 7).

  Map 7: Electoral geography, 2001–11.

  Figure 24: Waving the flag. Thaksin Shinawatra declares victory in a war against drugs in December 2003.

  Figure 25: Red Shirt procession through Bangkok, March 2010.

  Besides this strength in parliament, Thaksin benefited from new constitutional provisions designed to strengthen the prime minister and create more stable and long-lasting governments. He also conducted himself as a politician of the communications age, delivering weekly radio chats about his activity, and dominating press and television news. The government implemented its electoral programme within its first year in office, cementing public support.

  Thaksin promised not just to extricate the economy from the crisis, but to leapfrog Thailand to first-world economic status. Principally this would be done by transforming the torpid bureaucracy into a support system for private enterprise. Thaksin stated that ‘A country is a company. The management is the same’. He copied Chatichai’s example of making wholesale reappointments in the senior bureaucracy and state enterprises to intimidate officialdom into submissiveness; set up an extensive structure of advisory bodies to take control of policy making away from the ministries; and overhauled the bureaucratic structure. Thaksin called himself a CEO prime minister, and bestowed the same prefix on provincial governors and diplomats who were summoned for retraining in their new role as promoters of economic growth. A programme for privatizing state enterprises was launched. Government financial institutions were ordered to provide credit to priority sectors and chosen firms. Foreign consultants were hired to propose programmes to increase competitiveness. Individual firms associated with the government benefited from debt relief and promotional policies. The growth rate improved from 2002 and the stockmarket index turned sharply upwards in 2003. Thaksin promised he would lead Thailand into the OECD, the club of rich countries, by his second term.

  This aggressive capitalism was linked with a new populism. The policies promised in the 2001 election campaign proved popular at the polls and even more so after they were implemented. In part, these policies provided improved welfare, especially a universal health care scheme. In part, these were schemes to extend capitalism down to the roots of the economy, transforming semi-subsistence peasants by better access to capital and markets. But Thaksin’s populism was not only a matter of policies. He cultivated a public presence and mass popularity in a manner totally new for Thailand’s political culture. He talked to the nation weekly on radio. He transported Cabinet meetings into the provinces. He toured villages with ministers and officials in tow, bringing instant government to the locality. He promised to eradicate poverty and conducted a pilot scheme in the poor northeast as a live television reality show. By 2005, the party’s slogan was changed to the intensely populist ‘The heart of TRT is the people’, and TRT fought that year’s general election on a platform promising government assistance from cradle to grave.

  In early 2003, Thaksin launched a ‘war on drugs’. Cheap methamphetamine pills from Burma had captured a market during the economic crisis. Pyramid-selling methods had extended their reach into schools. Thaksin gave police and lo
cal authorities three months to clear their areas. Over that period, more than 2500 died, mostly shot by handguns. Government claimed drug dealers were shooting one another to prevent grassing. Others feared police had been incentivized to kill people, guilty or innocent, to meet performance targets. When a UN official expressed concern, Thaksin snapped back, ‘The UN is not my father’. But opinion polls showed overwhelming support for the campaign.

  Thaksin was rewarded with unprecedented popularity for a Thai-elected politician. On his tours he excited scenes normally reserved for rock stars. But while his support among the mass broadened, his support among influential parts of the urban elite narrowed.

  Some of the disquiet arose from his business roots and his project to use state power to promote business. Before the 2001 election, he was accused of concealing assets that he had to disclose when a minister in the 1990s. He was acquitted, but in a judgement that was strange and possibly corrupt. Many benefits of his pro-business policies seemed to accrue to a small coterie of business allies. Several government decisions seemed to benefit his family business. His own family wealth tripled over his four-year term, largely through the spectacular recovery of the stockmarket, but also because of several government moves that flagrantly assisted his family companies.

  To stem rising criticism, Thaksin’s government reasserted tight control over the electronic media. Newspapers were cajoled with favours and threatened by the manipulation of advertising budgets. Thaksin’s family bought a controlling stake in the single independent station (ITV) formed since 1992. Other channels were ordered to broadcast only ‘positive’ news. Public intellectuals who raised their voices were fiercely attacked. NGOs were denigrated as protesting only in order to attract foreign funding. Local groups that continued attempts to defend their local interests were described as ‘anarchists’ and enemies of the nation. The Thaksin government also neutralized the new bodies set up by the constitution to act as checks and balances on the enhanced power of the executive. Thaksin said he wanted kanmueang ning, quiet or calm politics, and expressed open admiration for the political systems of Singapore and Malaysia. On the stump, he presented himself as the friend of the people, and claimed he had to struggle against attempts by the old elite to preserve their own privileges and obstruct his efforts on behalf of the mass. He argued that checks and balances, human rights, open debate, and even parliamentary opposition got in the way of his mission.

  In February 2005, TRT won a general election by a landslide, taking 67 per cent of the vote and 377 of the 500 seats, dominating the north, northeast, centre, and Bangkok. The opposition Democrats were reduced to their heartland in the south (Map 7).

  Electoral success and personal popularity brought its own problems in a country where monarchy had acquired a massive public presence at the climax of such a long reign, and where the military still harboured memories of its political role. Thaksin had set out to elevate business and elected representatives above an old elite of status and bureaucratic appointment. Earlier politicians had been careful not to intrude on the public space of the king. Extreme royalists viewed Thaksin’s popularity as a challenge. In his birthday speech in December 2001, with the Cabinet members in his audience, the king said ‘at present everybody knows the country seems to be facing catastrophe’, and attributed this to a ‘double standard’ that was a new phenomenon in Thailand.34 Shortly after, General Prem, head of the Privy Council, gave a speech advising people not to admire rich people unworthy of respect. Over 2003–04, some privy councillors repeatedly gave speeches attacking corruption and excessive wealth, often citing the words of the king.

  Thaksin was aware that the army could pose the greatest threat to his project to overhaul government. After all, a coup had ended Chatichai’s similar project in 1988–91. As a police cadet, Thaksin had spent a year in the Armed Forces Preparatory School and hence had old classmates who had graduated in Class Ten of the Military Academy. In the annual military promotions during his first term, some of these classmates were accelerated up the ladder. But as they, like Thaksin, were aged around 50, they were still remote from the crucial top rungs. To plug this gap, Thaksin also leapfrogged his own cousin, Chaisit, up the hierarchy to become army commander in August 2003, and made another cousin the permanent secretary of the Defence Ministry. However, Chaisit proved so incompetent that he had to be replaced in 2004. This blatant favouritism in military promotions angered those who were by-passed, and also angered prominent old soldiers like General Prem and General Surayud, who expected to have influence over such matters.

  The first move against Thaksin concerned the far south. In 2002, Thaksin had dismantled the old military command in the three border provinces and put the police in control. Police operations in this zone, including killings during the 2003 drug war, seem to have been the trigger for a new phase of violence. After the Narathiwat armoury raid in January 2004 (see chapter 8), these provinces became the scene of near-daily incidents of killing and bombing. Thaksin initially labelled the perpetrators as ‘forest bandits’, and relied on the police to eliminate them through clandestine arrest and killing. This strategy widened the conflict. Immediately after the 2005 election, two privy councillors publicly demanded a change of policy, citing the king’s advice to pursue a strategy of ‘accessibility, understanding, and development.’ Reluctantly, Thaksin established a National Reconciliation Commission.

  The Bangkok middle class had initially welcomed Thaksin’s promises to grow the economy and jolt Thailand forwards. Only a liberal fringe had objected to his disdain for rights, freedoms, and democratic methods, and the conflict of interest with his family business interests. In 2005, however, his increasingly aggressive populism began to raise apprehension. Some feared the middle classes were losing political influence, and would find themselves paying for both Thaksin’s populist handouts and his coterie’s inflated business profits. After a Thaksin-allied businessman tried to buy (and probably silence) Matichon, the leading upmarket press group, the media rebelled against the government’s constraints and intimidation. Press criticism increased. One press owner, Sondhi Limthongkun, who provocatively criticized Thaksin on television, was thrown off the airwaves, and transformed his programme into a series of street-based demonstrations. Sondhi also increased the emotional level by claiming that Thaksin was a threat to the monarchy.

  Sondhi’s demonstrations fizzled out in late 2005. But in January 2006, Thaksin’s family sold their holding company, Shin Corp, to the Singapore Government’s Temasek Holdings for 73 billion baht without incurring one baht of tax liability. The government had altered several laws, and even reversed precedent-setting tax judgements, to make this possible. The sale provoked an outpouring of disgust. Sondhi joined with a clutch of old activists, including Chamlong Srimuang, to reactivate his demonstrations under the banner of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). Elements in the army began to contemplate the possibility of removing Thaksin by coup and seem to have coordinated with the PAD. The demonstrations concentrated on painting Thaksin and the TRT as a threat to the monarchy, claiming to unearth a republican plot hatched during a TRT trip to Finland, and accusing Thaksin of lèse majesté. The demonstrators adopted the king’s colour, yellow, as a kind of uniform. They called on the king to remove Thaksin but the king dismissed this idea as ‘irrational’.

  Thaksin responded by calling a general election in April 2006. The Democrats and other opposition parties resolved to boycott the polls. TRT swept to another victory but was accused of malpractice. The king summoned Thaksin to audience, after which Thaksin announced he would step back from the political front line. The king also called on the judiciary to take a more active role in order ‘to move democracy forward’. The courts annulled the election and another was scheduled for October. Thaksin re-emerged from his temporary eclipse and claimed ‘charismatic people and some organisations outside those sanctioned by the Constitution are trying to overthrow the government, rules and laws, Constitution and democracy’.
35 Speaking to troops, General Prem emphasized that the army ‘belonged’ to the king and that the prime minister was like a jockey.

  Thaksin’s ambitions in business and politics had brought strange bedfellows into alliance against him. Conservative forces in the palace, military, and bureaucracy, that were already uneasy about the pace of Thailand’s change under globalization, were galvanized into action by Thaksin’s sweeping schemes. Liberal reformers in the intelligentsia and middle class, who had long been critical of business domination in politics, were alarmed by the combination of business wealth, populist appeal, and personalized authoritarian rule. The reaction against Thaksin became a reaction against electoral democracy.

  The 2006 coup

  On the night of 19 September 2006, while Thaksin was in New York to address the UN, the army took power by coup. Although coups seem common in Thailand, this was the first time in almost 50 years that a coup carried out by driving tanks into the capital had been a success. Although the operation went smoothly, there had been struggles in advance. The coup leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, had become army chief in 2005 after the king had refused to confirm Thaksin’s candidate for the post. In the three months before the coup, Sonthi transferred over a hundred unit commanders in order to reduce the influence of Thaksin’s allies. The tanks were used to block the gates of Bangkok army units that might have been sympathetic to Thaksin. They were not there as decoration.

  The coup had a distinct royalist tinge. The coup leaders were professed royalists. Yellow ribbons were tied round the tank barrels and pinned on the soldiers. The group initially called itself the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy but dropped the latter part when it appeared this title implicated the king in the coup. General Sonthi’s choice as prime minister was General Surayud, his former commanding officer and now a privy councillor. The coup group tore up the 1997 constitution, and promised to write a replacement and restore elections within a little over a year.