A FEW months before Yingluck Shinawatra became prime minister, German spies in the state of Bavaria found themselves facing an exotic problem: her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was to be granted a royal audience. The crown prince of Thailand, Maha Vajiralongkorn, was already a familiar visitor to southern Germany’s Alpine foothills. But in deigning to greet Mr Thaksin on foreign soil, the prince was meeting not only a former prime minister but also a fugitive from Thai justice.
Little is known about what the two men discussed. The old Thai establishment represented by the civil service, the army, the judiciary and the monarchy despises them both. For Mr Thaksin and the heir-apparent personify the end of the old tutelary democracy and the beginning of Thailand’s political future: a European-style constitutional monarchy with the king as titular head of state. With it will come an end to the kingdom’s Byzantine court culture, which reveres rank and rewards status, and devalues electoral democracy.
The elites’ fear is well-grounded: In the words of a cable sent by America’s ambassador to Thailand in 2005, Mr Thaksin “long ago invested in crown-prince futures”. A Singaporean diplomat judged that the telecoms-tycoon-turned-populist-politician had been “pursuing a relationship with the Crown Prince by paying off the Crown Prince's gambling debts”. And the Germans knew of a gift that Thaksin gave the crown prince in early 2001: a Maybach, a €500,000 luxury car, which was subsequently integrated into the royal fleet.
Their next meeting on Thai soil is probably still one royal succession, a few elections, court rulings and perhaps a new constitution away. On May 7th Ms Yingluck is poised to become the third prime minister to be removed from office by court order since Thailand’s revolution of 1932 (another unlucky nine, including her brother, were simply kicked out by coup d’état). On May 6th she appeared before the constitutional court to defend herself against allegations that she abused the powers of her office in 2011 by transferring a national-security adviser. The speculation has it that, if she were removed by a court order, it could trigger a civil war—which would be the first ever in a modern, upper-middle-income country. (For anyone planning to keep score: in 2011 Thailand’s upper-middle benchmark of $4,400 gross national income per capita put it in a higher bracket than Ukraine, with $3,100; the World Bank regards that as the difference between upper-middle and lower-middle income brackets.)
So on May 2nd, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of the establishment political party, the Democrats, made an offer. He wants for a general election that is scheduled for July 20th to be scrapped; for Ms Yingluck and her cabinet to step down; and for the senate to appoint an unelected prime minister and a “neutral” government who would oversee reforms to be drawn up by the foes of the Shinawatra clan. Some of those planners include people who have been trying to topple the government in six months of street protests. The whole affair could take two years. Economic advisers were not consulted, apparently—they would have pointed out that Thailand’s grinding war of ideologies has already tipped the economy into recession. Mr Abhisit said that if his plan were successful he would not run in the next poll (leaving it to his critics to point out that he is anyway already barred from standing in it).
The government rejected his proposal as unconstitutional. It must have been hard for them to see how Mr Abhisit’s bid to dictate democracy differed from the ideas of the coup-mongering Mr Suthep, an ex-Democrat MP who is leading the street protests. Mr Suthep’s movement has been boxed into a public park in Bangkok since March. On May 4th village headmen organised against Mr Suthep and descended on the capital, forcing him to call off his six-month long siege of the interior ministry. Nevertheless, he issued another call, his ninth, for a “final battle” to rid the kingdom of evils, i.e. to topple the Shinawatra-led government.
Meanwhile, the election commission looks ready to prepare a royal decree for elections on July 20th, to be presented to the king to for his endorsement. Ms Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party won a poll on February 2nd. But it wasn’t much of a fight; the opposition Democrats had boycotted it and the constitutional court subsequently annulled it. Under the constitution a party that boycotts two consecutive polls faces the prospect of being disbanded. Since the most recent poll was annulled however, the Democrats can have another go at boycotting. They may well wish to. Parties loyal to Mr Thaksin have won six consecutive elections (2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011 and 2013).
The Democrat party, what the reds call “the king’s party”, says that this is not a battle over royal succession nor is it a case of the army, courts and bureaucracy defending the old order. Instead, on their view, it is about the “abuse of parliamentary power, majoritarianism and corruption”, in the words of a former finance minister and Democrat politician, Korn Chatikavanij.
They have a point. The government must confront corruption, stop treating the state as its cash till—and instead use its electoral mandate for the good of the country.
But the idea that majoritarianism lies at the heart of the mess in Thailand is silly. Majoritarianism typically involves an elected government that captures the courts, silences media critics and tinkers with the constitution to perpetuate its rule. In Thailand the opposite is true: the courts, the media, the bureaucracy, and the universities are extensions of the old Thai establishment, with the palace at its centre. The king’s advisers on the Privy Council are powerful. They oversee military appointments and then use their appointees to bless coups. After the coup in 2006 a military government abolished the constitution, which the advisers felt had made Mr Thaksin’s power unassailable. In its place they put a charter that gives the courts tremendous powers, making it possible for them to remove the head of an elected government on the slightest of technicalities.
Despite the expectation of Ms Yingluck’s imminent ousting, there is a whiff of futility about the larger effort to cement the old order in place. The Democrats, who were founded as a party on April 6th, 1946 (the coronation day of King Rama I, who established the Chakri dynasty in 1782) are looking oddly out of touch. Former military heavyweights have openly lobbied the Privy Council, the body Mr Thaksin refers to derisively as “the help”, to step in. Many of them were, like the men on the Privy Council, born in the days when Thailand’s army chose to support the losing side in the second world war. The consequence of that decision still looms large: unlike Japan or Germany, who were defeated by the Allies, for Thailand democracy is still a shaky concept.
So why now? Some supporters of the Shinawatras say this represents the old order’s last chance to secure its privileges and prevent royal wealth falling into public coffers. Many would have preferred the crown princess to her brother. But the palace recently made a decision that matters a great deal—and counts as a snub to the Privy Council. It named the crown prince as the new commander of the Royal Guards’ 1st Army Division and their 2nd Cavalry. These units, both headquartered in Bangkok, have determined the success of past coups and continue to be seen as indispensable for the pulling off of any future coup d’état. To give them to the crown prince is to pre-empt any fiddling with the royal succession. An adviser in Ms Yingluck’s government reckons this has made a coup in Thailand “less likely than at any time in history”.
The crown prince’s strengthened position, in effect an insurance policy against coups and meddling, was only made official in April. It had been initiated much earlier, before Mr Suthep began his “shutdown” of the capital. For as long as Mr Suthep’s sputtering revolution filled the streets of Bangkok, the military establishment held out hope that the government might be made to fall—while the possibilities for succession were vague. Now it is hard to see any way in which the crown prince’s path to the throne might be subverted. Which should make Mr Suthep’s antics that much less appealing.
Mr Thaksin, holding court in Singapore last month, summarised the state of play: “the help is trying to egg on the king, to take down this government”. Whatever happens next to Mr Thaksin’s sister, the Germans’ early hunch looks spot on. Thailand’s future seems to have begun in Bavaria.
A FEW months before Yingluck Shinawatra became prime minister, German spies in the state of Bavaria found themselves facing an exotic problem: her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was to be granted a royal audience. The crown prince of Thailand, Maha Vajiralongkorn, was already a familiar visitor to southern Germany’s Alpine foothills. But in deigning to greet Mr Thaksin on foreign soil, the prince was meeting not only a former prime minister but also a fugitive from Thai justice.
Little is known about what the two men discussed. The old Thai establishment represented by the civil service, the army, the judiciary and the monarchy despises them both. For Mr Thaksin and the heir-apparent personify the end of the old tutelary democracy and the beginning of Thailand’s political future: a European-style constitutional monarchy with the king as titular head of state. With it will come an end to the kingdom’s Byzantine court culture, which reveres rank and rewards status, and devalues electoral democracy.
The elites’ fear is well-grounded: In the words of a cable sent by America’s ambassador to Thailand in 2005, Mr Thaksin “long ago invested in crown-prince futures”. A Singaporean diplomat judged that the telecoms-tycoon-turned-populist-politician had been “pursuing a relationship with the Crown Prince by paying off the Crown Prince's gambling debts”. And the Germans knew of a gift that Thaksin gave the crown prince in early 2001: a Maybach, a €500,000 luxury car, which was subsequently integrated into the royal fleet.
Their next meeting on Thai soil is probably still one royal succession, a few elections, court rulings and perhaps a new constitution away. On May 7th Ms Yingluck is poised to become the third prime minister to be removed from office by court order since Thailand’s revolution of 1932 (another unlucky nine, including her brother, were simply kicked out by coup d’état). On May 6th she appeared before the constitutional court to defend herself against allegations that she abused the powers of her office in 2011 by transferring a national-security adviser. The speculation has it that, if she were removed by a court order, it could trigger a civil war—which would be the first ever in a modern, upper-middle-income country. (For anyone planning to keep score: in 2011 Thailand’s upper-middle benchmark of $4,400 gross national income per capita put it in a higher bracket than Ukraine, with $3,100; the World Bank regards that as the difference between upper-middle and lower-middle income brackets.)
So on May 2nd, Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of the establishment political party, the Democrats, made an offer. He wants for a general election that is scheduled for July 20th to be scrapped; for Ms Yingluck and her cabinet to step down; and for the senate to appoint an unelected prime minister and a “neutral” government who would oversee reforms to be drawn up by the foes of the Shinawatra clan. Some of those planners include people who have been trying to topple the government in six months of street protests. The whole affair could take two years. Economic advisers were not consulted, apparently—they would have pointed out that Thailand’s grinding war of ideologies has already tipped the economy into recession. Mr Abhisit said that if his plan were successful he would not run in the next poll (leaving it to his critics to point out that he is anyway already barred from standing in it).
The government rejected his proposal as unconstitutional. It must have been hard for them to see how Mr Abhisit’s bid to dictate democracy differed from the ideas of the coup-mongering Mr Suthep, an ex-Democrat MP who is leading the street protests. Mr Suthep’s movement has been boxed into a public park in Bangkok since March. On May 4th village headmen organised against Mr Suthep and descended on the capital, forcing him to call off his six-month long siege of the interior ministry. Nevertheless, he issued another call, his ninth, for a “final battle” to rid the kingdom of evils, i.e. to topple the Shinawatra-led government.
Meanwhile, the election commission looks ready to prepare a royal decree for elections on July 20th, to be presented to the king to for his endorsement. Ms Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party won a poll on February 2nd. But it wasn’t much of a fight; the opposition Democrats had boycotted it and the constitutional court subsequently annulled it. Under the constitution a party that boycotts two consecutive polls faces the prospect of being disbanded. Since the most recent poll was annulled however, the Democrats can have another go at boycotting. They may well wish to. Parties loyal to Mr Thaksin have won six consecutive elections (2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011 and 2013).
The Democrat party, what the reds call “the king’s party”, says that this is not a battle over royal succession nor is it a case of the army, courts and bureaucracy defending the old order. Instead, on their view, it is about the “abuse of parliamentary power, majoritarianism and corruption”, in the words of a former finance minister and Democrat politician, Korn Chatikavanij.
They have a point. The government must confront corruption, stop treating the state as its cash till—and instead use its electoral mandate for the good of the country.
But the idea that majoritarianism lies at the heart of the mess in Thailand is silly. Majoritarianism typically involves an elected government that captures the courts, silences media critics and tinkers with the constitution to perpetuate its rule. In Thailand the opposite is true: the courts, the media, the bureaucracy, and the universities are extensions of the old Thai establishment, with the palace at its centre. The king’s advisers on the Privy Council are powerful. They oversee military appointments and then use their appointees to bless coups. After the coup in 2006 a military government abolished the constitution, which the advisers felt had made Mr Thaksin’s power unassailable. In its place they put a charter that gives the courts tremendous powers, making it possible for them to remove the head of an elected government on the slightest of technicalities.
Despite the expectation of Ms Yingluck’s imminent ousting, there is a whiff of futility about the larger effort to cement the old order in place. The Democrats, who were founded as a party on April 6th, 1946 (the coronation day of King Rama I, who established the Chakri dynasty in 1782) are looking oddly out of touch. Former military heavyweights have openly lobbied the Privy Council, the body Mr Thaksin refers to derisively as “the help”, to step in. Many of them were, like the men on the Privy Council, born in the days when Thailand’s army chose to support the losing side in the second world war. The consequence of that decision still looms large: unlike Japan or Germany, who were defeated by the Allies, for Thailand democracy is still a shaky concept.
So why now? Some supporters of the Shinawatras say this represents the old order’s last chance to secure its privileges and prevent royal wealth falling into public coffers. Many would have preferred the crown princess to her brother. But the palace recently made a decision that matters a great deal—and counts as a snub to the Privy Council. It named the crown prince as the new commander of the Royal Guards’ 1st Army Division and their 2nd Cavalry. These units, both headquartered in Bangkok, have determined the success of past coups and continue to be seen as indispensable for the pulling off of any future coup d’état. To give them to the crown prince is to pre-empt any fiddling with the royal succession. An adviser in Ms Yingluck’s government reckons this has made a coup in Thailand “less likely than at any time in history”.
The crown prince’s strengthened position, in effect an insurance policy against coups and meddling, was only made official in April. It had been initiated much earlier, before Mr Suthep began his “shutdown” of the capital. For as long as Mr Suthep’s sputtering revolution filled the streets of Bangkok, the military establishment held out hope that the government might be made to fall—while the possibilities for succession were vague. Now it is hard to see any way in which the crown prince’s path to the throne might be subverted. Which should make Mr Suthep’s antics that much less appealing.
Mr Thaksin, holding court in Singapore last month, summarised the state of play: “the help is trying to egg on the king, to take down this government”. Whatever happens next to Mr Thaksin’s sister, the Germans’ early hunch looks spot on. Thailand’s future seems to have begun in Bavaria.
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