A Short History of South-East Asia

by Peter Church

  Within the military, however, opinions varied about the future of Thai politics and the military's relationship to government. At one end of the spectrum stood those keen to retain the autocratic discipline of the strongman years. At the other stood those who saw the development of democracy as desirable, even inevitable; clearly Thai society was now unwilling to be politically passive. In the middle of the spectrum, key military figures concluded that “managed democracy” was possible—an option which has remained attractive to military politicians ever since. Management could include a range of strategies: the maintenance of a Constitution which allowed for an appointed prime minister; appointments to other senior posts and a part‐appointed parliament; the nurture of political parties sympathetic to military interests; and the promotion of the military to the public as an efficient national institution more likely to deliver government in the common good than self‐interested (civilian) politicians. The strategy of managed democracy also seemed to require, however, that the military should retain the right to the ultimate weapon of political management, the coup.

  In October 1977, General Kriangsak Chomanand assumed the prime ministership, promising a new constitution and elections in 1979. He also offered amnesty to repentant insurgents, which hastened the collapse of an insurgency movement increasingly disillusioned by the falling out between Cambodia, Vietnam, and China, and by the revelations of the horrors of Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia. (Ironically it would be the Thai military, rather than the insurgents, who would develop a liaison with the Khmer Rouge after Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia in 1979.)

  Not long after the 1979 elections Kriangsak was succeeded by General Prem Tinsulanonda, whose particular form of managed democracy would attract the label “Premocracy.” Prem was an appointed prime minister (under the 1978 Constitution) but he took care to base his authority on parliamentary support, persuading MPs from a range of parties to back him. Generally, Prem maintained a reputation for being clean and making appointments to senior posts on the basis of merit. Military elements twice tried to overthrow him, in 1981 and 1985, but on both occasions he survived with the explicit support of the King and of loyal military forces.

  Prem retired in 1988 and elections brought to power a civilian prime minister, Chatichai Choonhavan, heading a coalition identified with civilian political and business interests. The Chatichai government was buoyed by economic boom conditions and, initially, by popular enthusiasm; the military took a wait‐and‐see attitude. Military leaders grew alarmed, however, when Chatichai manoeuvred to diminish their influence behind the scenes. Pro‐military media publicized with relish examples of his government's inefficiency and undoubtedly grave corruption. In February 1991, a quiescent public observed a well‐planned coup which overthrew Chatichai, parliament, and the Constitution.

  The principal figure behind the coup was army commander General Suchinda Kraprayoon. Other leading figures included the navy and air force chiefs and the deputy commander of the army. Their alliance dated back to their education at Chulachomklao Military Academy, where they had graduated as members of “Class 5,” a generation of cadets which had come to dominate many key positions of power. Suchinda was known to despise democracy. Nevertheless, the coup group—calling themselves the National Peacekeeping Council (NPC)—set out to explore new methods of managed democracy, promising another Constitution and elections and establishing an interim government headed by Anand Panyarachun, a respected businessman and former diplomat. The NPC's stance may have been prodded by more than domestic considerations. Many countries expressed dismay at the 1991 coup and international business registered some alarm at the capriciousness of the Thai political scene.

  As interim prime minister, Anand performed effectively but controversy grew over the new Constitution, announced in December 1991, which favoured the military by allowing for an appointed prime minister and an appointed upper house (the Senate) with power over legislation. The NPC leadership proved able, however, to command the lower house, too. Elections in March 1992 gave a narrow majority to a coalition of parties supporting, or willing to align themselves with, military‐dominated government. Only the question of a prime minister seemed to remain unresolved.

  The military's initial choice for prime minister, a civilian lower‐house MP, had to withdraw when the US government publicised his links to the drug trade. General Suchinda stepped into the vacuum—to the outrage of Thailand's frustrated democrats. Mass demonstrations began in Bangkok, led by the Buddhist ascetic Chamlong Srimuang, an ex‐military officer and former Bangkok governor. Chamlong had a reputation for incorruptibility. With his political party, Palang Dharma and its supporters, he now campaigned for clean, democratic government. In Bangkok and major provincial centres they enjoyed wide support.

  Disastrously, Suchinda ordered troops to use force against the demonstrators. Between May 17 and 20, at least 50 protesters were killed (several hundred according to rumour at the time) in scenes of mayhem and military brutality that shocked television viewers around the world. On May 20, the King intervened. A truce was negotiated which led to Suchinda's resignation as prime minister after he had declared an amnesty for “all parties” involved in killing and injuring demonstrators. Anand returned as interim prime minister, minor modifications were made to the Constitution, and fresh elections in September 1992 resulted in a narrow majority for antimilitary parties. From these, a civilian coalition government headed by the Democrat Party's Chuan Leekpai was formed, and this governed for nearly three years before collapsing in 1995 after a scandal over land‐reform rights on Phuket Island. However, Chuan was returned to power in 1997 during elections under a new, progressive Constitution and led the country until he was replaced in 2001, in a landslide result by one of the country's most successful business tycoons, Thaksin Shinawatra. Indeed, Thaksin liked to quip that he was the nation's chief executive officer, and the business savvy he brought to the role initially proved to be a refreshing change for many Thais, especially those in the rural areas who have traditionally benefited far less from economic development than their city‐dwelling counterparts. However, Thaksin had many (increasingly outspoken) domestic critics wary of his populist appeals and “one‐man‐band” leadership style, which they maintained was fine for running a company but not appropriate for running a whole country.

  Thaksin was reelected in 2005 via his Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thais) Party. A trigger for the unrest that eventually toppled Thaksin occurred in January 2006 when he sold his family's controlling interest in telecommunications giant Shin Corporation to Temasek, an investment company owned by the Singaporean government. The multibillion‐dollar sale alienated many Thais, not only as it was to a foreign company, but also because it was structured so that Thaksin received the proceeds tax‐free.

  Anti‐Thaksin protesters crystallised around a loosely based coalition, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), known as “yellow shirts” and who were seen as closely supportive of the monarchy. This group was largely made up of businessmen and the urban middle class. They demanded the prime minister's resignation. On the other hand, Thaksin's supporters, many of whom came from the poorer agricultural areas in the north‐east of Thailand and were known as the “red shirts,” saw these moves by the yellow shirts as antidemocratic. Thaksin was the first Bangkok‐based politician to pay attention to them and, having been ignored by politicians over decades, they were not going to have Thaksin pushed out non‐democratically.

  Following a series of PAD‐led antigovernment demonstrations, on September 19, 2006, a military coup (apparently with royal approval) overthrew the government while Thaksin was overseas. Martial law was imposed and a new constitution was drafted which was endorsed by referendum in August 2007. To the alarm of liberal critics, the new constitution weakened the influence of elected politicians and increased the power of the judiciary (which had been purged of pro‐Thaksin elements). Thaksin himself stayed in exile overseas, but was sentenced in absentia to two years in
prison in October 2008 for abuse of power, to be served should he return to Thailand. He was also accused of attempting to undermine the revered monarchy. His sizable assets were also seized by the Supreme Court in 2010.

  New elections were held in December 2007 and to the dismay of the military and the PAD, were convincingly won by a pro‐Thaksin coalition led by the People's Power Party (PPP), which was a reconfiguration of TRT, which had been banned. In November 2008, continuing protests culminated in a weeklong blockade by PAD supporters of Bangkok's two key airports that left 350,000 passengers stranded. The blockade was lifted in December after the Constitutional Court ordered the dismantling of the PPP, holding that its leadership was guilty of electoral fraud. The court also handed a five‐year political ban to the then–prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat (Thaksin's brother‐in‐law), who immediately resigned. Thaksin's allies then regrouped behind Pheu Thai, a new political party, and seemed poised to return to power. However, their plans were thwarted when a number of political leaders previously loyal to Thaksin defected to PAD‐aligned parties and the Democrat opposition party was able to form a new government in late 2008. The English‐educated leader of the Democrats, Abhisit Vejjajiva, became Thailand's third prime minister in three months.

  The period from 2008 to 2011 was marked by often‐violent clashes between the yellow and red shirts. In the meantime, Abhisit managed to pass into law several major amendments to the electoral laws, transforming the constituency vote from multiple‐seats‐per‐constituency to single‐seat‐per‐constituency, reducing the number of constituency MPs, and increasing the proportional party list MPs. In the previous general elections in 2007, the Democrat Party had lost the constituency vote but won the proportional party list vote. Despite these changes, in the July 2011 elections, Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, led the newly formed party, Pheu Thai, to a landslide victory. Without any political experience, Yingluck was seen by many as a puppet leader for Thaksin to galvanise the electorate, especially those in the rural regions, in his absence.

  Yingluck was the prime minister for three years before she was forced to step down in 2014 by the court for abusing her power. A military coup led by General Prayuth Chan‐ocha took power and established the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to run the country. Yingluck was charged with negligence of duty over a controversial subsidy scheme that paid rural farmers above‐market rates for rice. She was subsequently banned from taking part in politics for five years.

  In August 2016, the NCPO held a voluntary referendum on the constitution. The referendum offered only semi‐democracy and was seen to tighten military rule in Thailand. Despite this it was seemingly approved by 61 percent of voters with a 59 percent turnout. A second proposal for the next prime minister to be jointly elected by senators and MPs and who need not be a member of either house was also approved. With the referendum out of the way, the military has indicated it plans to hold general elections in 2017.

  UNRESOLVED ISSUES

  The wave of domestic and international revulsion against the violence of May 1992 was thought by many commentators to have diminished the likelihood of further direct military intervention in Thai government, but the military coups of 2006 and 2014, and a crackdown on red shirts in 2010, have proved them wrong.

  Many years of military dominance have taught the present officer corps to expect influence, careers, and rewards beyond the strictly military realm. The military's political influence remains particularly strong in rural Thailand (which ironically is where Thaksin drew, and continues to draw, his most vociferous support), where the armed forces present an image of practical concern for development and for the needs of the poor. Meanwhile, civilian politicians still need to convince many Thais that they put clean, stable, and effective government ahead of their personal interests. Corruption is a spectre which hangs over both civilian and military politics.

  It must also be a matter of concern that the monarchy has had to involve itself in politics in the past two decades. The late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who passed away aged 88 years on October 13, 2016 (and at the time of his death had been on the throne for over 70 years), acted judiciously and maintained broad national respect, but royal intervention in politics presents risks for the monarchy and for social stability if a future intervention were to be misjudged. Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn is likely to succeed his father but, at the time of writing, arrangements have not been finalised.1

  One unusual aspect of the Thai legal system is that its lese majeste laws prevent any open discussion of the monarchy. The Penal Code states that whoever “defames, insults, or threatens” the King, the Queen, the heir apparent, or the regent is liable to be punished with a minimum of 3 years' and maximum of 15 years' imprisonment. This has remained virtually unchanged since the creation of the country's first criminal code in 1908, although the penalty was toughened in 1976. The law has also been enshrined in all of Thailand's recent constitutions, which state: “The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated. No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action.” And lese majeste complaints can be filed by anyone, against anyone, and they must always be formally investigated by the police. While public discussion of the monarchy is virtually totally absent from public discourse, in private the situation is very different.

  Today some Thais also fear for another traditional source of social stability—Buddhism. In premodern Thai society, Buddhism, as well as providing religious inspiration and solace, was probably the chief form of social cement. Buddhist temples were centres of education and social activity as well as of worship. Royal and aristocratic patronage of Buddhism ensured that the traditional social order enjoyed religious legitimation. In 1902, King Chulalongkorn formalized the administration of the sangha, in effect making it an arm of the state. Post‐1932 governments perpetuated this strategy; both Phibun and Sarit reorganised sangha administration at least in part for political purposes.

  In the short term, this strategy enhanced social order. In the longer term, it has produced scepticism amongst many Thais toward established Buddhism and its conservative teachings. This has led in some cases to indifference, in others to the growth of movements and sects challenging mainstream Buddhism. Modern education and rising affluence have, of course, contributed to the diversification of attitudes toward religion.

  Instabilities in Thai society can be exaggerated, however. Despite the intermittent political crises at the top, Thai society has remained serenely stable when compared with some of its neighbouring countries. This stability has enabled economic and social development on a breathtaking scale. The political discord of recent decades may have reflected strains and tensions arising from rapid social change but to date it has not endangered Thailand's development more than fleetingly.

  For over three decades, Thailand achieved average growth rates of around 7 to 8 percent, reaching over 10 percent in the late 1980s. This figure has been a still‐respectable 5 percent since 2000 but it has since dropped to an average of about 2 percent in the last five years. The country has been a favoured destination of foreign investment, led at present by Japan and China, with Taiwan, the United States, and Singapore also posting significant shares. Meanwhile, Thai investment also flows to other countries of the region. What was once a rice‐growing mono‐economy before World War II, Thailand's economy is now much more broad‐based.

  The growth of manufacturing, however, has been the most spectacular aspect of the development. Negligible till the 1950s, manufacturing accounted for 29 percent of export earnings in 1980. By 2002, this had risen to 85 percent. Over the same period, agricultural export earnings fell from 68 percent to just 7 percent. With such growth, Thailand has become a key regional financial center and Thai business expects to play a significant role in the development of southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

  Within Thailand, other major changes have been taking place. The population stood at 38 mi
llion in 1970 and 68 million in 2015 (the growth rate is now down to 0.6 percent, however). Improved medical and other services have significantly reduced the death rate and the incidence of malnutrition, tuberculosis, and tropical diseases. In education, enrolment rates have grown at all levels, far outstripping population growth at secondary level (up fivefold between 1970 and 2000) and tertiary level (up eightfold). A trend to urbanisation, reflecting economic shifts, has meant that over 40 percent of Thais now live in Bangkok or provincial towns. In the capital and other urban centres, the emergence of a substantial consumer‐oriented middle class is strikingly evident. The old Thailand, where small royal, aristocratic, or military elites could dominate a quiescent population of subsistence farmers, has gone.

  Thai government must now grapple with an increasingly mobile, affluent, and educated society. Other problems loom as large. The agenda of issues confronting any Thai government today seems, indeed, disconcertingly long and urgent. On a macroeconomic level, Thailand must move on from industrial development based on cheap labour and foreign‐owned technology. Economic growth has produced extreme disparities of wealth, both vertically and horizontally. The affluent share the cities with workers on minimal wages and often work in atrocious conditions. In per‐capita terms, however, urban Thais are vastly better off than those in rural areas. Poverty is particularly pronounced in the north, north‐east, and far south.

  Poverty again became an issue at the forefront of national concerns following the sudden plunge in living standards brought on by the Asian economic crisis, which had itself been precipitated by the government's decision to sharply devalue the baht in mid‐1997. Soon afterwards, the currency went into freefall, and by early the following year its value had been halved and the stock market had fallen by 75 percent. These upheavals resulted in the loss of a million jobs and the number increased as the tough “shock therapy” prescribed by the International Monetary Fund to address the problems that caused the correction in the first place took effect. These structural weaknesses included an unsustainably large current‐account deficit, chronic public infrastructure problems (including some of the world's worst traffic jams in Bangkok), and high private‐sector borrowing for speculation in the property market. Thailand's system of corrupt “money politics,” whereby politicians rely on vote‐buying and favours from powerful regional strongmen, was also put under the spotlight. According to the World Bank, between the 1997 crisis and 2001, poverty rose from 11 percent to 16 percent of the population, though this is fairly low by regional standards. It has since fallen.