The Thai armed forces have been major players in Thai politics since the 1932 coup which ended the absolute monarchy.

During the 1990s, some suggested that Thai soldiers were increasingly being by-passed by new societal forces, thus making the armed forces less relevant political players.

This study contends that during the 1990s the Thai military was not depoliticized. It has been argued that a ‘re-politicization’ of the Thai military occurred with the 2001 election of the Thaksin Shinawatra government. Thaksin brought a large team of persons with senior military backgrounds to office. By placing responsibility for military re-politicization at the door of Thaksin, some people indirectly fault him for the 2006 coup—in which the armed forces once again assumed direct political power.

In 2008, the military’s successes in helping oust Thaksin’s elected nominee government from office, and then building an anti-Thaksin civilian government, have resurrected its clout. However, these events have triggered broad repercussions for Thailand’s entire process of democratisation. That process had seen the country follow a trajectory toward greater pluralism and political space since 1992. The 2006 coup obliterated much of the democratic progress. The election of December 2007 seemed to breathe new life into pluralism, but the new democratic roots have been proven to be shallow. Only last years Thailand again saw the military willing and able to involve itself in unconventional, indirect political intrusions—to the point of removing two Thaksin-aligned governments.

In late August 2009, new rumors emerged of a possible military coup against the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. This gossip coincided with an attempt by Red-Shirt leaders to petition Thailand’s king to pardon Thaksin Shinawatra. It was a tense period during which violence might provide the necessary springboard for military intervention. There has been no coup, but such rumours underline the continuing popular perception of an extreme lack of civilian control over Thailand’s military. Discussion of these matters is important in a country where the army has proved that it will continue to exercise its role as a political arbiter.

This is an abstract of an article by Paul Chambers that appeared here on New Mandala.

1. Election Day in Thailand
2. Thailand: the end of a year of political troubles
3. Uncertainties in Thailand

In the past fortnight Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) decided to stop pulling its punches with some of the ‘ceasefire groups’ that share its territory.

The first of these ceasefires was agreed as the Communist Party of Burma fractured in the late 1980s. Since then, these agreements have become a consistent part of any analysis of Burma’s politics but, ultimately, they remain a wildcard in national affairs.

The groups that agreed to stop their armed resistance to Burmese military rule draw their strength—numerical and ideological—from the country’s major non-Burman populations. Along the haphazardly-guarded frontier between China and Burma these ethnic political-military organisations have built semi-autonomous economies on gambling, gems, timber and drugs. It is the drugs, both heroin and amphetamines, that have made some of the armies infamous. Big profits have allowed some groups to consolidate impressive military structures backed up by thousands of troops.

In late August 2009 there was fighting in the northern Shan State between the ethnic armies and the Burmese military government on a scale that hasn’t been seen for decades. According to Xinhua, tens of thousands of refugees from the Kokang region (controlled by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and also known as Shan State Special Region 1) fled across the border into China’s western Yunnan province. SPDC troops have now taken control of the former ceasefire region and some of those refugees have now returned. A good map of the area is available here. There is speculation that the fighting may spread to the eastern Shan State (pictures of the exact area available here), and even to the Kachin State. There is also a belief that the powerful United Wa State Army could be a target of any future SPDC offensive. Some voices are even muttering about a return to full-blown civil war.

Before we get carried away with the idea of a broader conflict it is worth considering the capacity of the ceasefire groups to defend themselves. The recent battles in the northern Shan State have already tested the resolve of those who have enjoyed such long periods of ‘peace’ and ‘development’ under the ceasefires. I would expect that many of the ‘ceasefire’ troops, particularly those from the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, have only limited combat experience. 700 of their men have reportedly surrendered to Chinese authorities. Others are now in hiding. Many United Wa State Army soldiers, on the other hand, have a fair amount of frontline fighting under their belts. Some of their units have maintained battle-readiness through their long-term deployments along the Thailand-Burma border. There is speculation that they could be drawn into a more general conflict.

One of the other issues that intrigues me about these battles in the northern Shan State is the possibility of an alliance of ceasefire armies that draws some of its strength from the connections made during the SPDC-sponsored constitution-drafting National Convention. During the National Convention, delegations from ‘ceasefire’ areas, such as this one, lived and worked together in Rangoon. It would be surprising if they did not develop some strong relationships. Of course, those are relationships that, in some cases, stretch back to earlier decades of open resistance to Burmese military rule. But before the opportunities presented by the National Convention many of the top ethnic leaders had spent their recent years relatively isolated in their border strongholds. In the meantime, non-ceasefire armies have been largely forced to make do with these kinds of mountain-top meetings.

Are conditions now changing? In the past week the ‘Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front’, with Wa, Kokang, Kachin and Shan members, released a joint statement (translated here) that gives some sense of the potential solidarity among the ceasefire groups. It remains unclear whether there is more to this grouping than noble words.

Crucially, this ‘Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front’ is only one possible alliance configuration. Could a broader grouping of Wa, Kokang, Shan, Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Mon, etc., get together to take the fight back to the SPDC? It remains an intriguing, but unlikely, possibility. Instead, is 2009 going be the year when the ceasefire armies will be ‘divided and ruled’ once-and-for-all?

This is a revised version of an article first published here by New Mandala.

Since June 2006 Nicholas Farrelly has co-convened the New Mandala blog. It specialises in mainland Southeast Asian politics and societies. He works in the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific.

1. Birthday blues in Burma
2. Burma in 2008
3. Imagining a new human rights strategy for Burma

Burma’s most recognisable political figure, Aung San Suu Kyi, turns 64 today. She will likely celebrate this milestone alone. Her captors, the military men who have kept her incarcerated for 13 of the past 19 years, do not share the world’s empathy with her plight.

They dismiss Burma’s Nobel Peace Prize winner as a ‘foreign stooge’. In the next breath they can be heard celebrating the glorious life of her father, Burma’s independence hero, General Aung San. With mind-numbing regularity the senior ranks of the Burmese military heap scorn on her political party; and her supporters are disciplined and punished to a point where many find life in Burma intolerable. Each year these supporters struggle to survive while the Generals grow richer and more confident.

Over the next year we expect that the Generals will seek to engineer a transition from absolute military rule to what they call ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’. In their preferred system—one they are willing to impose with jackboots and nation-wide intimidation—there will be no place for anyone with strong foreign ties. Aung San Suu Kyi’s marriage to the late Michael Aris, a British academic, means that she may never be allowed an active role in politics again.

Whatever sophistication they have acquired over their decades in charge the Generals generally retain their deeply xenophobic inclinations. They don’t trust foreigners or those who fraternise with them.

From that perspective the curious American aquatic intruder who interrupted Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest in early May 2009 was simply perfect. He gave them an opportunity to cast new doubt on Aung San Suu Kyi’s intentions. One particularly out-spoken Burmese government official broadcast the view that ‘we have no idea whether he is either secret agent or her boyfriend’. It seems likely that he was neither.

But this does not matter now that his peculiar intrusion has catalysed a renewed effort to keep Aung San Suu Kyi locked up. Her hastily arranged trial has been postponed, for the moment, to consider whether further defence witnesses will be allowed. There is widely-voiced anticipation that at the end of this judicial process she will continue her incarceration.

In this battle of wits and stamina both sides are unwilling to yield.

In this stalemate it can, however, be easy to overlook the fact that Aung San Suu Kyi versus the Generals is only part of the story. What is most telling about the current configuration of power inside Burma is that she is not the only anti-government force that the Generals are worried about.

Over recent months we have seen increasingly strong signals that many, if not all, of Burma’s major ceasefire armies will resist efforts to be co-opted as part of the government security apparatus. These efforts are integral components of the road-map to ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’. The Generals hope to out-manoeuvre and eventually dis-arm the more than a dozen other armies on Burmese soil.

To achieve this goal the head of the government’s military intelligence agency has been actively courting the leadership of armed groups across the length of the country. But some of the major ceasefire armies, like the Wa and Kachin, are voicing concerns about any political future that does not include their desires for substantial, and permanent, autonomy.

Since signing their ceasefire agreements a crucial part of their survival strategy has been the maintenance of their weapons and armed strength. It is a strategy that now sees some of the ethnic ceasefire armies in positions where they are, once again, contemplating open opposition to the government’s agenda. In recent weeks there have been reports of troop movements around the country’s borders that point towards a future resumption of hostilities.

If armed opposition to Burmese military rule escalates in the border areas there is every reason to expect that Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy movement will not be able to stay on the sidelines. The Generals will, of course, see any preparations for war from the ethnic armies as part of a foreign plot, with Aung San Suu Kyi at its apex.

Their fear is that without the strong and experienced hand of military leadership, Burma will fracture into a dozen, or more, separate ethnic realms. They have no faith in Aung San Suu Kyi’s ability to keep the country together. For the Generals it is the military alone that is capable of preserving national unity, peace and development.

For many of us, Aung San Suu Kyi’s 64th birthday is yet another sad milestone in her long and unjustified imprisonment. However, for the Generals it pales against their other worries for the year ahead as they attempt to make an inevitably difficult transition to ‘discipline-flourishing democracy’. For Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters the Generals’ current troubles, and their looming confrontations with the ceasefire armies, will be no consolation at all.

Whichever way you look at it, there is no happy birthday this time around.

Since June 2006 Nicholas Farrelly has co-convened the New Mandala blog. It specialises in mainland Southeast Asian politics and societies. He works in the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific.

1. Washington changes gears on Burma
2. What was achieved and not achieved through the elections in Myanmar/Burma
3. Burma in 2011: contradictory impulses

It is fair to say that Thailand’s Songkran festival—marking the traditional New Year— usually passes with a predictable mix of nation-wide chaos. Water fights, booze and huge crowds make for a heady and sometimes lethal combination, particularly on Thailand’s roads. It is a week of great frivolity and sadly for those caught up in the traffic carnage it is also a time of immense personal tragedy. In a normal year, Songkran is a mixed blessing: both happy and sad.

Songkran in 2009, which is celebrated today, 13 April, is far from normal. The government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had planned for a successful East Asia Summit to coincide with the traditional New Year festivities. In the Theravada Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia the annual celebration in mid-April is often called the ‘water festival’. It is a boon to tourist marketers everywhere. When Abhisit took power in December 2008, Songkran would have looked attractive as a time to host a peaceful, positive and popular get-together of ASEAN and friends.

The events of Saturday, 11 April, were not what he had in mind. The East Asia Summit venue was stormed by red-shirted anti-government protestors backed by his nemesis, deposed former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. Responding to these unprecedented and humiliating events necessitated calling off the Summit. Delegations from across Asia were helicoptered out of the venue and sent home. From the Australian end, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plane was turned around two hours out of Bangkok. In a country as ‘face’ conscious as Thailand, Prime Minister Abhisit suffered the indignity of seeing his big weekend on the global stage spoiled by a few thousand committed opponents. They literally pushed his inadequate police cordons out of the way.

After this ‘victory’ the red-shirted protestors immediately moved back to Bangkok where they embarked on another day and night of scarcely believable provocation. Armoured Personnel Carriers and other vehicles were commandeered, along with weapons from the security forces. The Interior Ministry was targeted. One of the red shirt leaders has called for direct attacks on the Prime Minister and his deputy. Events are rapidly spiralling out of control. A state of emergency has been declared for Bangkok and five surrounding provinces. There are reports of bloody pitched battles between protestors and the Army at one strategic intersection. The big news of Songkran 2009 is that Thailand has, once again, descended into an unpredictable and divisive street fight.

As a protest tactic, the storming of the East Asia Summit venue ranks alongside last year’s week-long siege at Suvarnabhumi Airport for its audacity. On that occasion it was the yellow-shirted protestors aligned to Prime Minister Abhisit’s royalist, establishment forces that prevailed. They are now on the back foot and Thaksin’s red-shirts are causing chaos across the capital. They are channelling years of frustration with the September 2006 coup and its backers against a Prime Minister they perceive as illegitimate and weak. Thaksin has seized the moment and is making flamboyant and increasingly confrontational ‘phone-ins’ from abroad, goading the inexperienced government into over-reacting.

Thaksin seeks revenge against those who toppled him in September 2006. He is apparently prepared to provoke a violent confrontation on the streets of Bangkok to achieve his aims. Many of his red-shirted supporters have seen the street-fighting success of the yellow-shirts and now want to try a similarly opportunistic play.

Will they succeed in bringing down the Abhisit government?

To begin answering that question we should not forget that during Songkran 2009 another colour-coded team is just coming into view. The green-shirted soldiers under the command of Army chief General Anupong Paochinda have yet to show their full intentions. After the security debacle at the East Asia Summit, Thailand looks pitiful and we must ask why its police were so under-prepared. Moreover, an already stumbling economy is about to take another huge hit as tourist numbers plummet, again. It is hard to see how the Army can tolerate Thaksin and his red-shirted brigades holding the country to ransom like this. The Army has announced its intention to clear the protestors, with force if necessary. Shots have already been fired. Dozens of injured red-shirt protestors have been ferried to hospital.

With this violence, Songkran events in Bangkok have been cancelled. And in other parts of the country it is inevitable that the joyousness usually associated with the holiday is now overshadowed by the bloodshed. Exactly how the Abhisit government plans to re-take control is unclear. It may be days before the situation is any calmer. And, particularly if more protestors are hurt, an even wider ranging revolt has become a distinct possibility. The government is facing emboldened red-shirts who sense that Abhisit is more impotent than they had anticipated.

During Songkran 2009 the political fault line running through Thai society has become a yawning chasm. This year it is not just the tragic annual holiday road toll that should worry us. In this Songkran crisis the potential for a catastrophic showdown between the Army and the red-shirts looms ominously over the traditional start of Thailand’s New Year.

Nicholas Farrelly works in the ANU’s Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. He is the co-founder of New Mandala, a blog on mainland Southeast Asian affairs.

1. Ongoing struggles in Thailand
2. Uniting a divided Thailand
3. Thailand: the end of a year of political troubles

With the release of Melbourne man Harry Nicolaides from his Bangkok prison cell Thai authorities no doubt hope an archaic French legal term will fade from Australian memories.  Lèse majesté—the crime of insulting the monarch—has given the tourist-friendly “Land of Smiles” unusually bad press.

In recent months images of a forlorn Nicolaides, manacled and pale, have been broadcast into millions of Australian living rooms.  His crime was so petty and his punishment so draconian that many have asked: what is this law and why is it enforced?

The answer is not simple.  Lèse majesté is a political crime.  It is in place because Thailand’s royal family—supposedly above the political fray—does not want to defend itself from scurrilous public attention or offence.  In theory the law should quietly protect the king and the dignity of his family.

In practice things are very different.  Accusations of lèse majesté are regularly made against political opponents and some parts of the Thai bureaucracy see fit to challenge dissenters with the charge.  It is not just obscure Australian authors who fall foul of it.

Nicolaides’ case was meant, no doubt, as a warning to the writers, journalists, academics and others who comment on Thai political affairs.  At a moment of intense national uncertainty, at the end of a very long reign, it is only natural that the palace will be subject to more critical coverage.

It is probably also natural that the Thai establishment will attempt to stifle any real debate or discussion about what lies ahead.
Some Thais, mostly unheralded, are currently incarcerated for the same crime as Nicolaides. On this point there is almost no Thai reporting.  And what the international coverage usually ignores is that while Harry is free others still languish in prison hell.

The Australian government’s good efforts in securing Harry’s release will count for little if the law that saw him locked up is now quickly forgotten.  Unjust laws, whether in Australia or anywhere else, are a concern to us all.

Who are these unfortunate Thais?  There is Boonyuen Prasertying who was charged with lèse majesté for speeches she made at a political rally in Bangkok. Helpless, she turned herself in, pleaded guilty, and is currently serving a 6 year prison term.
Daranee Chancherngsilpakul, widely known as “Dar Torpedo”, also made political outbursts that have seen her locked up.  She has yet to go on trial.

Others who have been accused include Thanapol Eawsakul, the editor of Fah Diew Kan, a Thai magazine that has been brave enough to defy the law; Sulak Sivaraksa, a prominent academic who was most recently charged with lèse majesté in November 2008; Suwicha Thakor, an engineer who has been arrested for Internet postings alleged insulting to the monarchy; and Suchart Nakbangsai, who has reportedly fled the country to avoid arrest.

Then there is the case of Chotisak Onsoong, a young activist and social critic, who has been accused of insulting the king for refusing to stand during the royal anthem in a Bangkok movie theatre.  He then made a point of continuing a campaign against the law: “not standing, different thinking is no crime”.

And there is Anglo-Thai academic Giles Ji Ungpakorn who recently fled to the United Kingdom to escape his lèse majesté charge.  He is now actively campaigning for a Thai republic.  This past week he has made speeches in London, Oxford and Cambridge to ram home his message about Thailand’s incomplete democratisation.

Now freed of the constraints that curtail debate about the role of the monarchy in Thailand, Giles Ji Ungpakorn is becoming something of a celebrity for the cause of free expression. His case exemplifies what is muddle-headed about lèse majesté.  It merely attracts more attention, almost inevitably negative, to the royal family.  Even a cursory search of the Internet makes this plain.

Right now, commentators are not sure how many other lèse majesté cases are currently working their way through the system.  It is, however, very likely that others, given all the secrecy, have yet to come to public attention. Helpfully, information on many of these cases is becoming much easier to find through online guerrilla campaigns.  Nicolaides benefited from the power of the Internet to keep his case on the agenda.

Now that he has been pardoned his freedom is to be welcomed and celebrated.

But whatever royal mercy has been shown it is tempered by the lingering feeling that the whole episode was designed to send a message to the world about the limits of free speech in Thailand.

With that message ringing in one ear we should not be afraid to point out that lèse majesté is a blunt instrument for protecting the royal institution.  The great irony of the law’s current enforcement is that it weakens the very family it seeks to protect.
Moreover, during Thailand’s current period of national transition there is surely a need for more open discussion of the palace’s role in society.  Thais looking to continue such a conversation are increasingly finding that they can only do so outside the country.  And even then…

Nicholas Farrelly is the co-founder of New Mandala, a blog on mainland Southeast Asian affairs.

1. Thailand’s Lèse-majesté laws: a potent weapon
2. Internet censorship: The iron firewall of the 21st Century
3. Uncertainty reigns over Thailand’s political and royal power

The celebrations by the yellow shirts at Suvanabhumi will be short-lived. The Constitutional Court has struck a blow against the elected government. Somchai has gone. Twelve cabinet members have gone.

But Thai Rak Thai, soon to take on its third incarnation, remains.

The parliament has not been dissolved and the government looks very likely to maintain its majority. The Democrat-except-when-you-can’t-win-an-election-and-then-a-judicial-coup-is-OK Party simply can’t muster the numbers. More blatant judicial or military intervention will be required to remove the government.

After the respectful lull for the king’s birthday, the People’s Alliance for Democracy will be back with new targets and provocations. But their yellow ranks may be thinner. Their international and national reputation is in tatters. Released from the cult-like hot-house atmosphere of Government House and Suvarnabhumi a good number of the ‘aunties with clappers’ may decide that dabbling in terrorism is not for them.

The greatest threat to the PAD is, of course, the formidable political machine that is Thai Rak Thai. It has proven to be an extraordinarily resilient party political force. Formed in 1998 by police lieutenant colonel turned telecommunications magnate Thaksin Shinawatra, it has survived concerted efforts to destroy its popularity and legitimacy. It has endured large-scale popular protests, a military coup, corruption convictions, a bloody record of gross human rights abuses, two dissolutions and the dismissal from power of three of its prime ministers. With the end of the People Power Party, the Thai Rak Thai cadre will now line up under a new banner, Peua Thai.

When it first won an election, back in 2001, the memorable Thai Rak Thai campaign slogan was “new thinking, new action, for all Thais”. Delivering on many of its promises to devote attention and resources to rural issues and the plight of the poor, it has been deeply unpopular with parts of the middle and upper classes. The Thai Rak Thai government challenged powerful players in the existing social and economic order while Thaksin helped himself and his family to some of the spoils of office. Thai Rak Thai has paid the price ever since.

Nonetheless all previous efforts to remove it from Thai political life have failed. If pushed it could mobilise crowds on the streets of Bangkok that would dwarf the anti-government forces. Of course, in the coming months, Thai Rak Thai 3.0 is likely to face even greater threats to its existence. It is clear that some people have staked their futures on a Thai political system where elections have a diminished role.

This is a future that former Prime Minister Thaksin and his populist tacticians are working very hard to avoid.

Cross posted from New Mandala

1. Thailand’s military: perpetually political, forever factionalized, again ascendant
2. Thai elections: The unseen hand
3. Thai Populism: A dead end route

Shutting down an international airport, particularly one as busy as Bangkok, is a big deal. By disrupting the ordinary bustle of global commerce and tourism it inevitably draws worldwide attention. As a protest tactic it also guarantees the inconvenience, annoyance and impoverishment of many. For protesters it is an audacious move; one that can only be contemplated by the irrational or by those with the confidence that powerful people are on their side.

Scenes of the ongoing siege at Bangkok’s new 4-billion dollar Suvarnaphumi Airport have, this week, been broadcast far and wide. Yesterday came the news that the city’s second airport, Don Muang, has also been closed. The world is now watching, with a degree of incredulity, as a group calling itself the “People’s Alliance for Democracy”, and basking in the reflected glow of the Thai king’s yellow, bangs its drum calling for the government to fall.

In an effort to take back control, Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat has now declared a state of emergency at the two airports. Everyone is talking about a reluctant coalition of the police, the navy and the air force coming together to disperse the protesters. It is hard to see how that can be done without a very firm hand. The last time the police tried to quell a protest in Bangkok scores were injured by exploding tear gas canisters. The protesters at the airports have declared their intention to resist. The army has, for its own reasons, decided to stay out of the immediate fray.

This showdown at Bangkok’s airports has, however, motivated the Thai army chief, General Anupong Paochinda, to call on the government to dissolve parliament and hold fresh elections. He has also said that the protesters—who have not just shut down the airports but have also caused disruption and violence in other parts of Bangkok—should do their bit by calling off their provocations. This advice has been ignored by both sides.

It will take more than platitudes from General Anupong to end the current conflict.

Crudely, on one side are those, like the government and its millions of supporters, who see electoral democracy as the supreme vehicle for expressing the peoples’ will. Their embrace of a rough-and-tumble, cut-and-thrust form of politics is certainly motivated by a degree of pragmatism. These are the same people who have been on the side of repeated electoral victories born out of professionally orchestrated campaigns of a style unprecedented in Thai history. Notwithstanding their self-interest in supporting democratic processes, this side has shown a willingness to drive debates about issues that matter to the tens of millions of ordinary Thais who make ordinary livings in the provinces. Those who support this perspective, who often present themselves in red shirts, describe electoral politics as a way of distributing power and resources to the masses. They are uncompromisingly populist in approach.

On the other side are those whose wariness of corrupt, “immoral” politicians has encouraged them to undermine democratically-elected governments. In 2006 this side helped spark the September military coup. Today, the protesters at the airports speak of a vague “New Politics” where the voting franchise is restricted and/or the majority of parliament is appointed. They detest the current government and all the “darkness” it purportedly represents. Government efforts to change the constitution, and to “whitewash” the crimes of the government deposed in the military coup, are key motivations for their rebellion. Importantly, their side has, over the past few years, been increasingly associated with some members of the Thai royal family. It is that association, signaled by the royal yellow shirts that they wear, that is integral to any thorough analysis of Thailand’s current showdown.

What General Anupong’s call for fresh elections hides is the reality that in any vote the current government, even if it is disbanded and forced to again re-brand, would likely triumph over its opponents. Consistently since 2001, the campaigning machine built by deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and now at the disposal of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, has shown a capacity to win at the ballot box. The opposition Democrats would not need a big swing to be in a position to form government but, so far, they have demonstrated little inclination to pursue a vigorous grass roots electoral campaign. There is no reason to expect that the next election, whenever that might be, will derail the current government’s popular mandate.

But, right now, electoral dominance may not be enough to guarantee that Somchai stays in charge. Murmurs that a coup is imminent have increased as the brinksmanship of the protesters ratchets up day-by-day.

It is all coming to a head at a bad time.

As the global economy suffers continuing setbacks, and as many industrialised countries lurch into recession, Thailand is fracturing in a spectacular fashion. In a year when investors are exercising increasing caution, and when things are getting tighter across the board, the current crisis is inopportune. Disrupting the lucrative tourist industry at the beginning of the “high season” will also hit millions of ordinary Thais who rely on it for their survival.

And all of the international attention has only drawn more interest to the often unspoken role of the royal family in Thai politics.

Unless something dramatic happens in the meantime the immediate watch point is the king’s speech next week. Each year he uses the occasion of his birthday, 5 December, to address the nation. In most years it is watched closely and dissected by local and international observers. The alignment of the People’s Alliance for Democracy with members of the royal family will make it hard for the king to ignore some awkward issues this time around. Throughout the turbulence of 2008 he has remained very quiet, even as a group publicly identified with his “defence” has sought to precipitate the collapse of the government.

Exactly what he says in his birthday speech, if he indeed makes one, will be crucial. A siege at his kingdom’s main international airport is not, one must assume, the birthday present the king had hoped for.

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Nicholas Farrelly works in the ANU’s Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. He is the co-founder of New Mandala, a blog on mainland Southeast Asian affairs. On Thai political issues, he has a co-written op-ed in today’s The Age.

1. Thailand: the end of a year of political troubles
2. Harry free but others languish under draconian law
3. Ongoing struggles in Thailand

If you do the numbers it is clear that the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) leadership has chosen bloodshed over ballots.

The PAD has abandoned electoral politics. With no coherent or credible political platform their only hope is that sufficient blood will be spilt to prompt a military or royal strike against Thailand’s democratically elected government. But the army appears unwilling to act. The queen has publicly shown her support for the PAD, but the king himself has remained silent. And the international community, for its part, is standing firmly by the government.

Make no mistake, the PAD leadership wants blood on the streets and have rushed to turn the imagery of violence to their advantage.

The numerous well-intentioned statements and petitions that are circulating calling on “all sides to avoid violence” are missing this basic point. Violence is not an unfortunate by-product of the current political standoff. It is now the core plank in the PAD provocateur platform.

What occurred last Tuesday is the inevitable result of a deliberate strategy that the PAD has pursued since early 2008. In the wake of the disappointing 2007 election, which returned a Thaksin-esque government to power, the PAD has abandoned any pretence of respect for electoral decisions. Their central ideological claim has been that the “tyranny of the majority” can only be overcome by extraordinary action. Just how extraordinary remains to be seen.

The “tyranny of the majority” is a bogeyman that has been effectively deployed by the PAD to create an impression of a government that enjoys a hegemonic dictatorship of democracy.

But how firm are the electoral foundations of the government’s so-called tyranny?

Let’s take a look at the December 2007 election results. In that election there were two electoral components – a constituency vote in which 400 seats were up for grabs; and a “party-list” vote for an additional 80 seats.

The government’s People Power Party (PPP) won 199 constituency seats with about 37 percent of constituency votes cast. It was a solid victory over the Democrats who won 132 seats with about 30 percent of constituency votes cast. And that is where the electoral difference lay. In the party list system the vote was virtually even, with PPP gaining only one more party list seat than the Democrats.

Overall, PPP won 233 seats, just 7 short of an absolute majority. They clearly won a right to govern and it is unsurprising that minor parties joined with PPP to form a coalition. It was, under all the circumstances, a solid PPP victory. But does the result really form a basis for electoral tyranny? Is now the time for opposition forces to abandon electoral hope? Does a 7 percent victory in the constituency vote justify a street rebellion? Is there no other way of changing an elected government?

Just think about the figures for a moment. On the face of it, if four out of every hundred constituency voters had cast their votes for the Democrats instead of PPP the political landscape after December 2007 would have been very different. If the Democrats had managed to win just 34 more constituency seats they would have been the largest party in the parliament with, one must assume, a very strong claim to government.

And there were plenty of constituency seats that could have been won. We’ve taken a quick look at the constituency results, and some of the figures are very interesting indeed.

We have identified 22 close constituency contests where a Democrat was the highest ranked unsuccessful candidate (remember that most consistencies elect more than one MP). On average, across these 22 constituencies, an additional 6381 votes would have put an extra Democrat into parliament. Some contests were very close. One Democrat missed out by just 36 votes, another by 539.  In many contests only a few thousand votes, less than a couple of percent of votes cast, were required for an additional Democrat seat in parliament.  There were 12 seats where a Democrat candidate lost by less than 5000. Just over 140,000 votes, in total, would have delivered an additional Democrat MP in all of these 22 constituencies. This represents just over 1.25 per cent of the total constituency votes cast in these contests. Hardly an insurmountable target.

Note that this is a very preliminary analysis based on cases where a Democrat was the highest ranked unsuccessful candidate. There are other cases (we have identified 6) where lower ranked Democrats could have succeeded with similarly modest increases in their vote.  Of course, there are also constituencies where PPP would have lost to minor parties with small shifts in voting patterns.

And, don’t forget, there is also a substantial percentage of the electorate (around 20 percent) that didn’t vote in 2007 that could probably be persuaded to enter the electoral fray by a well executed political campaign. Motivating just one in ten of these to get out and vote against the PPP could have an enormous impact.

The notion that the current government enjoys an unassailable electoral hegemony is simply wrong.

Like any elected government, PPP is electorally vulnerable and could be defeated. Its performance since the election has hardly been stunning. It has been pummelled by the courts and the media. It won’t escape the electoral backlash that follows the international economic crisis. Factions within the deeply divided PPP are flexing their muscle. Party dissolution and reformation will shift the political landscape yet again.

Plenty of parliamentary seats are there for the taking.

But the PAD leadership doesn’t want to embark on a broad based political campaign to unseat the government by electoral means, either in alliance with any existing party or independently. The PAD might not love the Democrats but they clearly represent a basis for an alternative government.

In October 2006 we saw Sondhi Limthongkul speak (at SOAS in London) about his plans for an education campaign to win over a vanguard of provincial middle-class voters as a counterweight to Thaksin’s populism.   It was an elitist vision, but still an electoral one. But Sondhi’s electoral stamina was short-lived. Now it seems that persuading a small percentage of the electorate to vote against the government is beyond the wit of Sondhi, the PAD and their formidable public relations machine. Instead they have adopted an electorally unsaleable “new politics” in which some parliamentarians (perhaps 70 percent) would be appointed.  There is simply no need for such electoral defeatism.

We can only conclude that Sondhi and the PAD leadership have deliberately chosen blood rather than ballots.

They will happily sacrifice the bodies of their hard-core supporters because they have neither the ability nor the will to shift the hearts and minds of even a small portion of Thailand’s swinging voters.

1. Thailand in 2010: When the royal rumble turned blood red
2. Ongoing struggles in Thailand
3. Election Day in Thailand

Note: Andrew Walker is Editor of the New Mandala blog, a wonderful resource for anyone interested in South East Asia.

With the brother-in-law of Thaksin Shinawatra now serving as Prime-Minister, Thailand’s democracy is set for another round of turmoil. However, sometimes it can be useful to step back a little from the day-to-day battles of political life. The battles that have convulsed Thailand’s political elites over recent months and years may lead many to conclude that Thailand’s democracy is in crisis. It would be easy to dismiss Thailand as a country where democratic institutions have shallow roots.

But perhaps there are deeper democratic currents that deserve more attention.

A recent paper by Robert Albritton and Thawilwadee Bureekul examines the “state of democracy in Thailand.” (A draft copy of the paper is available here.) Its starting point is the observation that “democracy requires mass approval” in order to function effectively. This approval is not sufficient for a sustainable democracy – especially in the face of “determined elites who have access to instruments of military power” – but it does appear to be a necessary condition.

Does this mass approval exist in Thailand? According to Asian Barometer surveys cited by Albritton and Thawilwadee, it does. Surveys conducted in 2002 and 2006 suggest very high approval ratings for democracy in Thailand. In 2002, 90.5 percent indicated that they were “satisfied or very satisfied with the way democracy works in Thailand.” In the 2006 survey, undertaken just a few months before the military coup and in a context of political turmoil, the figure was 83.8 percent. Results from several other survey questions point to “high levels of ‘consumer satisfaction’ with the status of democracy in Thailand.”

Asian Barometer conducts surveys in a number of East Asian countries. So how does Thailand compare? I have not been able to access their full survey results, but one research paper they have produced has some very interesting findings. Here is an extract (pp 12-13):

As the first panel in Table 2 shows, the percentages of respondents expressing dissatisfaction with democracy vary to a significant degree: from nearly one-half in Taiwan (49%) and the Philippines (47%), one-third in Korea (38%) and Mongolia (30%) to only one-tenth in Thailand (10%). Those expressing satisfaction vary considerably from large majorities in Thailand (91%), Mongolia (70%) and Korea (62%) to bare majorities in the Philippines (53%) and Taiwan (51%). When these negative and positive ratings are compared, it is evident that East Asians tend to see their current democratic systems in a positive light.

The second panel in Table 2 shows that the percentages reporting that the current democratic regime performs better than in the authoritarian past vary considerably across the countries: from an overwhelming majority in Thailand (91%), large majorities in Mongolia (66%), Taiwan (66%) and the Philippines (60%) to a bare majority in Korea (52%). Those perceiving that the democratic system performs worse than the old authoritarian system, on the other hand, constitute minorities in all the countries. The size of these minorities, however, varies considerably from a very tiny minority in Thailand (5%) to sizable minorities in Mongolia (23%), Taiwan (24%) and the Philippines (28%) and a large minority in Korea (39%). Overall, in all five East Asian new democracies, more people evaluate the newly installed democracy to perform better than the old authoritarian system.

Of course, there is always room for considerable caution when it comes to surveys of complex political sentiments. But there are some good indications here that Thailand enjoys a strong and deep current of popular support for democracy. Satisfaction with democracy appears to be significantly greater in Thailand than it does in some of its East Asian neighbours.

The current political crisis in Thailand has been engineered by opposition forces who are determined to paint Thailand’s democratic system as corrupt and ineffective. One of the main goals of their recent political protests has been to create an atmosphere of political crisis that undermines local and international faith in Thailand’s democratic processes. The way the government has responded to some of these political challenges has made the discrediting job of the opposition forces that much easier.

But perhaps the “crisis” in Bangkok is taking place against an often unrecognised backdrop of satisfaction with the way the Thailand’s democratic system works. Of course there are other political sentiments. The paper by Albritton and Thawilwadee argues, at length, that there is a culture in Thailand “that promotes inequality as the foundation of the society” and which consistently paints democratically elected governments as lacking in moral virtue. These are the sentiments that the PAD taps into so effectively. But the broad-based satisfaction with democratic processes documented in the Asian Barometer surveys helps to explain why the PAD’s authoritarian “new politics” has such limited electoral appeal.

Democracy seems to be very popular in Thailand.

1. How is Indonesia’s democracy doing?
2. The destruction of Thai democracy
3. Kurlantzick’s distaste for nouveau riche democracy