Political-Institutional Changes and De-democratization in Thailand

April 2011

Political-Institutional Changes and De-democratization in Thailand

Ake Tangsupvattana Faculty of Political Science Chulalongkorn University

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List of Abbreviation and Acronym

AP Authoritarian populism

MMD Multi-member district

MP Member of Parliament

NPKC National Peace Keeping Council

PAD People‘s Alliance for Democracy or the Yellow Shirt

PDG Participatory democratic governance

PM Prime Minister

PPP People‘s Power Party

PR Proportional representation

PTP Puea Thai Party

SMD-P Single member district - plurality

TRT Thai Rak Thai Party

UDD United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship or the Red Shirt

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Political-Institutional Changes and De-democratization in

Thailand1

In this paper, I will present the relations between political-institutional changes and de-

democratization in Thailand by referring to the changing of constitution and its electoral system and by

discussing dilemma of direct political participation between people‘s power versus mob rule in Thailand.

This paper is divided into 3 parts. First, I will delineate a brief history of political development of

Thailand in the context of changing from authoritarian regime to firm parliamentary politics or party

politics in representative democracy; from representative democracy to interval and short period of

movement towards participatory democratic governance (PDG) by the role of civil society; from interval

of PDG to authoritarian populism (AP). Second, I will give a picture of the changing face of party

politics, as a result of the change in the constitution and its electoral system from 1997 Constitution to

2007 Constitution. Third, I will discuss direct political participation in Thai politics by highlighting the

dilemma of direct political participation between people‘s power and mob rule. I will argue that direct

political participation in Thailand tends to lead to mob rule rather than creative political participation

leading to people‘s empowerment. As a result, instead of creating democratic deepening, the de-

democratization is a consequence. This makes Thai politics, in general, and party politics, in particular, to

retreat from democratic consolidation and from Western political party model.

A Brief History of Thai Political Development

Constitutional monarchy and democracy were introduced in Thailand after the overthrow of

absolute monarchy in 1932. However, during the early period, democracy in Thailand existed only in

name, not in practice. Instead of being a democratic polity, Thailand was in reality a bureaucratic polity

(Riggs 1966), linked to authoritarian regime. Politics then was dominated by the bureaucrats, especially

the military. Nevertheless, after the 1973–1976 students‘ upheavals, Thai politics was transformed from a

bureaucratic polity to that of a semi-democratic or semi-authoritarian system. This political formation and

1 This paper is based on and adjusted from the paper ‗Political Participation, Electoral System and the Stability of Party Politics: Thai

Experience‘, presented in the 1st International Conference of the Korean Association of Party Studies (KAPS), Seoul, Korea, on the 8th of

October 2010. The help of Professor Rob Stones in giving me suggestions to improve the earlier draft of this paper is appreciated.

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process evolved in 1980s under the 1978 Constitution during the reign of Prime Minister (PM) Prem

Tinsulanonda who did not emerge through the election process.

When PM Prem stepped down voluntarily, Thailand got a new elected PM, Chatichai

Choonhavan in 1988. This was taken as Thailand‘s move into full democracy because Thai people got

PM through electoral process. Nevertheless, many people still argued that this full democracy was more a

façade than a reality. Shortly, the military tried to stage a comeback to power by staging a coup in 1991

and ruled the country through military-controlled National Peace Keeping Council (NPKC). After the

1991 coup, General Suchinda who led the coup announced that the military would not hold power and he

himself would not seek to put himself in the premiership. Instead, Mr Anand Panyarachun, a respectable

businessman, was appointed by the NPKC as the interim PM. When Anand‘s interim government came to

end in 1992, a general election was called by the NPKC. The NPKC, conspiring with some political

parties, used strong tactics to hang on to its political power. General Suchinda Kraprayoon was nominated

by the parliament as the prime minister. The Thai people were displeased with this outcome as they saw it

as an act of betrayal by the military who had promised not to reign in power for themselves. This resulted

in mass demonstrations around the Democracy Monument. The Army was brought in to crush the

uprising in the heart of the city culminating into what was better known as the 1992 Black May incident.

At the end, Suchinda had to step down.

The most politically significant signal sent out in the Black May incident in 1992 reflected the

people‘s unwillingness to tolerate any more military coups and emphasized the end of bureaucratic polity.

It also led to a series of reforms culminating in the establishment of firmed parliamentary politics in

which power changes took place within electoral politics and power play within the parliamentary

processes by political parties. The importance of elections was underlined within such a representative

democracy. As the era of the bureaucratic polity came to an end, there was a reverse trend whereby both

national and provincial businesses gain more power over the bureaucrats.

National business-people, such as bankers, financiers, commercialists, industrialists and tourist

businesses could influence the governments‘ policies, due to their economic power and position (Pasuk

and Baker 1997: 25). At the same time, influential local business-people who were often closely related to

jao pho, local bossism, and people in its networks, in mutually profitable alliances started to exert their

power in Thai politics. They had informal power, itthiphon, without an official position, (Tamada 1991:

455-456) and derived their local power through the power bloc (Turton 1989: 86-87) of their clientele,

such as local economic agents, various mutually profitable alliances, ‗electoral machine bosses‘ (hua

kanaen) and gunmen. They used their black power to gain economic advantages, which, in turn, were

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used to support their political power at the next stage as ‗a complex intermeshing of political and

economic exchanges in patron-client networks‘ (Khan 1998, 10).

It can be seen that politico-economic changes weaken the military‘s power in the political arena,

but cushion the strength of the parliamentary system. As a result, influential local businesses have come

to play a crucial role in parliament through the political parties. Since about 90 per cent of seats in

parliament were supplied for the provincial constituencies, local influential business-people, who

controlled positions in the political parties, could become an increasingly dominant element in parliament

and the cabinet (Pasuk and Baker 1997: 30-31). With this increased power, local businesses spearheaded

parliament to use its political power as corrupt power to protect their legal and illegal businesses. They

not only used this resulting power to maintain their status ‗above the law‘ in order to further their legal

and illegal business interests, but to compete with the ‗old elite,‘ such as the military and bureaucrats for a

share in ‗corruption money‘ (Pasuk and Sungsidh 1994: 52).

We can see that where modern formal political institutions, such as political party, parliament,

government and its bureaucratic instrument cannot perform their formal functions to efficiently serve the

needs of the people, patron-client exchange has a role to play in filling the gap. This easily leads to all

forms of corruption. In modern Thai politics, business forces, both influential provincial and national

business-people, choose to use the corrupt culture in Thai society for their own benefits. This is congruent

with their increasing roles in parliamentary and party politics of representative democracy.

Money politics and corruption had accompanied Thai‘s electoral politics. Crony capitalism was

another manifestation of Thai‘s embedded corrupt culture informed by the age-old patron and client

relationship. The case involving the collapse of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce was an excellent

example of the confluence of money politics and crony capitalism. The conspiracy between business

politicians and bankers from 1991-1996 in dishing out fishy loans resulted in the bank‘s non-performing

loans to the value of Bt77 billion (at that time US$3 billion), the highest loss in the world banking history

(Laird 2000, 129–130). With this corrupt culture in politics and business, the force of economic

globalisation also affected Thailand. By opening the Thai financial market to global finance through the

Bangkok International Banking Facilities (BIBF) was recipe for disaster as no proper market and

regulatory mechanisms were put in place. The result was the 1997 economic crisis. However, just before

the 1997 economic crisis, there were emerging pressures on the government to institute political reforms

to counter money politics and crony capitalism. There were calls for better regulation of politics and its

relations to business practices. A consequence of this pressure for political reforms was the 1997

Constitution, the people‘s constitution, which was announced not long after the advent of the 1997

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economic crisis. The 1997 Constitution and its impacts and its comparison to the 2007 Constitution in the

light of electoral system will be the topics that we will turn to.

From 1997 Constitution to 2007 Constitution: Changes and Impacts

I had an argument elsewhere that there were two complementary objectives of the 1997

constitution. Ultimately democracy would progress if the two objectives were deepened and managed to

complement each other. They were to strengthen political institution, especially political party so as to

create stable government, and to encourage people‘s direct participation in politics (Ake Tangsupvatana

2006). Ideally, a deepening of democracy would involve the deepening of these two objectives. The

strengthening of institutional politics was done under a system of representative democracy in which the

behaviour of individual politicians would be disciplined by the mediating structures of much strengthened

parties. This was also moving away from sham parties in which individual MPs felt they were to be

freelance as direct delegates of vested interests, via old fashioned patron-client relations, who could be

bought off in various ways. Encouraging people to participate more actively in politics would create

political processes beyond voting in elections, but within agreed and democratically functional

institutional forms. That is to say, the second purpose was an endeavour to create participatory democratic

governance (PDG) along with representative democracy. However, historical development of the first

and second was contingent and needed to be handled well, and within the rule of law, in order to be

effective. Let us go into the details of the consequences of the 1997 Constitution by referring to the latter

purpose of creating people‘s participation in politics towards PDG first.

By PDG, I refer to Giddens‘s notion of ―democratising democracy,‖ implying effective anti-

corruption measures at all levels, institutional reforms and the promotion of greater transparency in

political affairs (1999, 76). He continues to argue that the democratising of democracy need to have

strong, vibrant civil society and active participation from the citizens. Society should not be seen as only

comprising of two components—the state and the market place—but as a balance between the state, the

market place and the civil society. Only when these three sectors are similarly developed do we have a

real democratic society. An independent civil society can create a strong civic culture, which the state and

business will not do (Giddens 1999, 77–78)

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In Thai political, economic, social and cultural contexts, a model of more PDG should be adopted

alongside representative democracy. Democracy can be deepened or democratised by making political

reforms along the principles and guidelines embodied in the 1997 Constitution. Indeed, an intention of the

1997 Constitution, as mentioned above, is to encourage people‘s participation in politics. That is to say, it

aims to enhance and strengthen the role of civil society along with the state and business. Civil society

organisations have to galvanise and organise the people in different political and social movements. The

roles of civil society therefore need to be safeguard and actively promoted if a representative democracy

is to be simultaneously deepened towards participatory democratic governance.

In this context, we can see that orthodox representative democracy needs to be revised and added

with participatory democracy, or people‘s direct political participation, so as to fulfil the goal of true

democratic governance. Representative democracy can be deepened by promoting civil society to play a

part in public policy initiation and implementation. The roles of civil society must be strengthened to

allow it to create a strong civic culture that would demand accountability and transparency in all arenas.

Politicians, business-people, local business politician and metropolitan business politician alone cannot

create a strong civic culture. Indeed, they will not create it. States are not only problem-solvers, their

policy elites are also strategic actors with interests in, and of, themselves (Higgott 2000, 142). Meanwhile,

the ultimate end of businesspeople is to make profits. Worse, both local and metropolitan business

politicians tend to make and use politics-business collusion for their own vested interests. Therefore, what

we need is the intervention from civil society in the form of PDG so as to democratise representative

democracy and to create power equilibrium between state, business and civil society. Civil society can

bridge the gap between representative democracy and the more participatory or sustainable democracy,

something which business-politicians will not do.

Empirically, after the 1997 political reforms, Thailand had a good chance to move toward PDG.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) played crucial roles, with and without co-ordination of independent

regulators, in many cases. In my study with my colleague, we find that from the 1990‘s to early 2000‘s (at

the beginning time of Thaksin‘s regime) civil society had begun to make itself felt in policy making and

policy implementation circles, especially in critique of existing policies and formulating proven

alternatives to mainstream development strategies. CSOs also encouraged a more democratic system less

beholden to the money politics of business politicians that corrupts and makes unresponsive the

representative democracy system. (Prudhisan Jumbala and Ake Tangsupvattana 2011 forthcoming)

For instance, three high profile corruption cases exposed by civil society between 1998–2000

reflected the increasing impact of civil society on democratic governance in Thailand. Indeed, since 1997,

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analysts were optimistic that CSOs are helping moved Thailand‘s polity from representative democracy to

a more participatory democracy. It confirms the proposition that intensive civil society participation in the

political arena could lead to PDG. In the process, civil society also creates a new stronger political

culture, or in Giddens‘ term ―civic culture,‖ by inculcating the norms of participating in and scrutinising

state policy-making and policy implementation. Furthermore, this political culture together with the

channels and independent regulatory institutions created by the new constitution, such as the Election

Commission of Thailand, the National Anti Corruption Commission and the National Economic and

Social Advisory Council, served as watchdogs to any corruption or policy malpractice by politicians and

businessman.

Accordingly, civil society was gradually enabling itself to balance the political power of the state

and the market force of business (Prudhisan Jumbala and Ake Tangsupvattana 2011 forthcoming). Of

course, this did not mean that civil society will win every time on public policy issues. Nor was it certain

that it would be able to continue expanding its operations and activities. This is particularly because CSOs

do face resources and manpower limitations. However, it could be observed that, up to now, the political

opportunities structure has changed such that civil society can play roles in advancing PDG. Even though

Thai business-politicians were quite resilient and adaptive, at least they cannot easily engage in the same

old malpractices as they have done in the past (Prudhisan Jumbalal and Ake Tangsupvattana 2011

forthcoming). However, while we saw trends of move toward PDG in the early years after the 1997

Constitutional reforms, 5 years of TRT‘s government‘s reign seemed to have cancel the gains made in

PDG, and a reverse trend towards AP was emerging. So it is the turn now that we have to move to the

impacts of the 1997 Constitution by referring its first purpose.

In political science, it is evident that the thinking behind the drafting of a constitution is to use

the laws and legal means to create political institutions or structures, which, in turn, will inform political

behaviour in the political polity. In the case of Thailand, the 1997 Constitution was aimed at creating

strong or big political parties, leading to stable majority government, as the foundation of representative

democracy. The ultimate aim is to model after democratically developed countries such as the United

Kingdom and the United States of America, which have two-party systems. To build up a two-party

system is simultaneously to prevent the return of authoritarianism by the military and to confront the

influence of local business politicians in money politics, terrorising and de-stabilising Thai politics.

Following statements about vicious circle of party politics and unstable government in the context of

multi-party system in Thailand would show why the people drafting the 1997 Constitution wished

Thailand to have a two-party system rather than a multi-party system.

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As mentioned earlier, the 1997 Constitution aimed to break the cycle of creating unstable

coalition governments and to replace this by a more durable and policy-oriented government. This cycle

referred to these political barons‘ vote-buying, party-hoping, trading the votes of their political power

base for political interest and pork-barrel politics. This cycle produced parties‘ fight not only within the

coalitions they join, but also internally within each party. Consequently, not counting the authoritarian

governments supported by military, Thai governments from 1932–2001 had on average lasted six months

or so. (McBride 2002) In trying to break this vicious cycle, the 1997 Constitution called for Member of

Parliament (MP) to be taken off their seats if they switched from one political party to another. They will

also be disqualified from running in the subsequent by-election. MP switching parties after the dissolution

of the parliament will be barred from subsequent general election; MPs becoming ministers must also

resign from his/her positions (McBride 2002).

Most important, in order to create strong political parties, the electoral system was also amended.

Before the 2001 general election, Thailand used the multi-member district (MMD) representative system.

In this system, top 3 vote-getters were elected and the numbers of top vote-getters being elected,

depended on the size of districts or constituencies. In Thailand, provinces would be divided into

constituencies and each constituency could have no more than three MPs, and in the proportion of one

MP to 150,000 constituents. This MMD system was replaced by a combination of the SMD-P (or first-

past-the-post, plurality, system) and party list or proportional representation (PR) system. The total seats

in the parliament were now 500, with 400 seats being contested under the SMD-P system and 100 seats

allocated for the party-list.

To change from MMD to the combined systems between SMD-P and PR was to create a strong

political party because ‗electoral system has a major impact on the structure and on the relative strength

of parties, and therefore on the party system, both in the legislature and, indirectly, in the population as a

whole, whether this impact is deliberate or not‖ (Blondel 1999, 27). Party systems are influenced by a

result of the mechanics of electoral systems. First-past-the-post (or SMD-P) system strongly over-

represents or exaggerates majorities while it is not the case for proportional representation (Blondel 1999,

28–29)

In SMD-P system, if one candidate gets the highest vote, whether majority or plurality, in the

district s/he will win. The others will get no representation even though one may get less slightly vote

than the first, who passes the post. This is a reason why minorities is under-represented in this system. As

a result, ‗one by-product of the SMD system is a two-party system: generally speaking it is extremely

hard for third parties to win seats in SMD systems, so two major parties tend to dominate the political

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landscape (Mahler 1995, 84). This was a reason behind changing the electoral system from MMD to

SMD-P in the 1997 Constitution so as to create a big or strong political party, and this was also one of the

major reasons why after the 2001 general election, the TRT party of Thaksin emerged as the majority

government.

By contrast, proportional representation (PR) normally creates small political parties. This system

is not based on geographical district and the voters vote for particular party, not a candidate. Then, the

proportion of the vote that each party gains in election will be calculated as percentage, and translated to

proportion of the seats in the legislature. Accordingly, the PR system ―tends to be multiple-party

legislatures—since it is so easy for smaller parties to win representation—which means that they tend to

be more unstable and to contain more radical and extreme groups than SMD, two-party legislatures‖

(Mahler 1995, 85). As a result, the small political parties will be encouraged. However, under section 100

of the 1997 Constitution, the minimum of 5 per cent of the whole country votes must be received if any

party wish to have representation from this system. Consequently, there were only 5 out of 37 parties,

filing candidates under the PR system, and got representation in this system (Election Commission of

Thailand 2004). Because of this 5 per cent threshold only big parties could get seats in parliament under

the PR system, therefore, this system also reaffirms the purpose of the 1997 Constitution in creating

strong political parties.

As a result of these changes in the electoral system, it was in 2001 that Thailand had its first

majority government not connected to military rule. The TRT Party won 48 seats under the PR system

and got 200 seats from the SMD-P in the 2001 elections. This was a total of 248 seats, just three seats

from the majority. When Seritham Party and New Aspiration Party merged with TRT party, the party

achieved majority in the parliament by 286 seats. In the SMD-P system, while TRT Party only garnered

32.14 per cent of total popular votes, this was translated into 50 per cent of seats in the House of

Representative (Election Commission of Thailand 2004). Under the PR system, the small parties still

suffered. The threshold of 5 per cent eliminated four small parties, which were represented in the

constituency-based system. Only 5 parties got representative in this system. The result of 2005 general

election was also confirmed this purpose of the 1997 Constitution when TRT secured its political power

by winning 67 seats under the PR system and gained 310 seats from the SMD-P. Therefore, TRT won

377 out of 500 seats in this election. Again in the SMD-P, while TRT got popular vote about 61 per cent,

it was translated into 77.5 per cent of seats in the lower house. Also, under the PR system, there were only

3 parties gained representatives (Election Commission of Thailand, Statistics and Data of 2005 General

Election).

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However, in the complex reality of electoral politics, the strong show by the TRT Party could not

be explained simply by the changes in the electoral system. Cultural aspect of patron-client relationships

employed through election by vote bosses and local business politicians (Ake Tangsupvattana 2005;

2006; Prudhisam Jumbala and Ake Tangsupvattana 2011 forthcoming), and the old style of money

politics, combined with populism policy, continued to impact the political scene and contributed to the

success of TRT Party. Indeed, McBride aptly analysed that the rise of the TRT Party ―was bought rather

than built‖ because Thaksin Shinawatra, the Head of the TRT Party and present PM, allowed old political

operators to ally themselves with a rich and rising star. While he used political barons as a shortcut to the

top, he carefully stocked his party with fresh-faced activists and respectable technocrats (McBride 2002).

That is to say, Thaksin could incorporate old fashion money politics and integrate it with policy-

based aspect (of populism) and utilise them successfully through the combination of local business

politicians and new blood politicians. TRT under Thaksin Shinawatra was formed by consolidating both

influential local business-people and national capitalists. The corroboration between them and the

advantages they gain from increasing roles in Thai politics through representative democracy enabled

them to benefit from the corrupt system. Sceptics argued that ‗Mr Thaksin was just a dinosaur with a

marketing division, and predicting that he would distract the electorate with populist schemes while

furthering the interests of his business empire‘ (cited in McBride 2002).

However, when Thailand established a strong political party, leading to strong or majority

government, this strong political party did not encourage people‘s participation in politics, which was the

second intention of the 1997 Constitution (Ake Tangsupvattana 2006). As mentioned earlier, the

historical development of the two complementary objectives of the 1997 Constitution was contingent.

When TRT established itself as a strong political party, leading to strong and majority government, this

strong political party did not encourage people‘s participation in politics, which was also the intention of

the 1997 Constitution. This demonstrated that the twin objectives were non-complementary. While the

intention of the 1997 Constitutional drafters was to create appropriate political structures through political

reforms and institution-building, which would in turn lead to changes in political behaviour of politicians,

the outcome may not necessarily be exactly as intended. While the changes in the electoral system did

result in a strong political party coming to power, the idea that better efficiency and effectiveness of the

government could also lead to better participation by the people did not quite materialise. Instead the

result was a strong government led by a strong leader, Thaksin, who uses his economic wealth to further

consolidate his political power and vice versa, and, then, established authoritarian regime through

populism, or AP (Ake Tangsupvattana 2006).

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The advent of Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai (TRT) weakened the potential development and

deepening of these democratic objectives. This was due, firstly, to the unfortunate, and unforeseen,

combination of: the new constitutional safeguards; a majority party in government; and a strong

authoritarian leader of that party who was more interested in wielding the party for power than in

deepening representative democracy, and who had little patience for the give and take, the negotiation and

compromise, that is the very stuff of everyday democratic politics. Secondly, the same authoritarian

tendencies were exhibited in the form of an AP appeal to the people over the heads of the elites, the

organizations of civil society, and the democratically inscribed rule of law. Whilst the first development

prevented any deepening of representative politics, the second was antithetical to the encouragement of

the people‘s more active participation in politics, and this was because it was basically a specifically Thai

form of AP2. In other words, there is no a real commitment to PDG.

The Thai government under Thaksin not only does not encourage people‘s participation in

politics, but actually endeavours to intervene and control independent regulators and are quick to silence

their critics. Many media analysts consider the TRT government as one of the most powerful government

in Thai‘s political history, comparing it even with the military government in the past. In addition, the

government prefers to use extra-judicial means to crack down some criminal activities and problems in

society. When dealing with the drug problem, thousands of drug smugglers were killed. In dealing with

the troubled South dominated by Muslims, two major suppressions caused hundreds of life. These

showed the violation of human rights. Also, movements by people organisations were discredited and the

government intervened in the recruitment of representatives of independent regulatory bodies. Moreover,

Thaksin, himself, also did not take kindly to any criticisms. He was quick to make verbal retaliations and,

from time to time, intimidation of his critics. All these point towards signs of authoritarianism.

During the first four years term of the strong political party of TRT, democracy in Thailand

suffered a retreat rather than consolidation. There was no genuine desire to encourage political

participation. Instead, political power was concentrated around the TRT Party and its leader himself in an

authoritarian populist way. Accordingly, we can see that the TRT Party deployed populist tactics in

material aspects for gaining electoral support. Once it was in power, it further employed these populist

measures coupled with skilful political marketing to entrench the popularity and power of TRT party. As

2 AP here was basically a specifically Thai form of what Stuart Hall, referring to Thatcherism in 70s and 80s Britain, called ‗popular

ventriloquism‘. Popular ventriloquism is an authoritarian form of politics whereby a politician or a party appeals to the people over the heads of

vested corporate power groups of various kinds, but does so not in order to genuinely encourage the people to use their own voices and articulate

their own stories and interests, but in order to tell their stories for them, in a way that will best win their support for policies that the authoritarian

leader already has in their sights. In other words, it is nothing like a real commitment to PDG. I was indebted to Professor Rob Stones for his

explanation to this specific point.

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its power was entrenched, the TRT party had no qualms to use authoritarian measures to rule the country

with an iron-grip. In short, through a combined measure of imposition of social discipline from above

and of populist mobilisation from below, TRT party was moving Thai polity towards AP rather than

PDG.

This situation is continued and consolidated when the 2005 general election resulted in the

landslide winning of TRT. However, nobody would imagine that after TRT consolidated its power

through general election in 2005, the tide should turn against Thaksin. TRT‘s huge electoral victory was

no match for the people‘s power unleashed by a coalition of different groups upset by the creeping

corruption. A series of events after Thaksin and his TRT party consolidated its power in its second term

of government with 377 out of 500 seats led to the political stalemate, 2006 coup and further political

crisis.

On top of such seeming subversion of democratic institutions and values, Thaksin‘s second term

in office was also rife with news of corruption committed by TRT members. Instead of investigating

these allegations of corruption, Thaksin tried to keep the cases under wrap, and none of those involved

were properly punished or sanctioned. It was however the US$1.88 billion Shin Corporation sale to

Temasek involving Thaksin and his family that finally convinced many Thai people that ―enough is

enough‖. The Shin Corporation‘s transaction brought into the fore questions over conflict of interest and

issues over ethical and moral leadership, and led to an increasing tide of anti-Thaksin protests. The

movement initially led by Sondhi Limthongkul, a media tycoon that had fallen out with Thaksin, and,

later, gathered steam as other groups such as the People‘s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) or the Yellow

Shirt Part 13. Thai opposition parties, especially the Democrat, also joined in the fray demanding

Thaksin‘s resignation. At this junction, one could see that political parties, apart from participating in

electoral politics, joined the politics in the street too, and this caused confusion of political participation

between party politics in representative democracy and direct democracy of politics in the street in

Thailand along with the movement of PAD itself.

The PAD, a movement comprising many diverse groups in the society (ranging from students,

youths, to academics, farmers and social workers) was established in February 2006 amidst the growing

public outcry against Thaksin At the same time, his authoritarianism was growing leading to a decrease in

his moral authority to lead as he was alleged with power abuse and corruption. The PAD movement

linked some 99 organisations, groups and networks nationwide and therefore claimed itself to represent

3 By PAD Part 1, I refer to the PAD/Yellow Shirt‘s movement before the coup in 19th September 2006.

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the civil society movement in Thailand. However, this claim was very problematic whether PAD could

represent the third force of civil society. Moreover, when PAD moved itself from Part 1 to Part 24, the

PAD‘s claim as civil society was increasingly problematic and will be discussed in the last part.

The backlash against Thaksin‘s AP had created dramatic political chaos in Thailand from that

time till today. In reacting with the mass movement, Thaksin tried to save his political regime and hang

on to power by dissolving the parliament and calling for snap elections in April 2006. The major

opposition parties decided to boycott the elections so as to deny Thaksin the legitimacy that he was trying

to get through fresh elections. Though the Thai Rak Thai party secured 57% of popular votes in the snap

elections, Thaksin was forced to ―step aside‖ after the elections because of continued mass protests on the

streets of Bangkok. The snap election was also ordered the court to be cancelled.

The situation of political stalemate remained till September 2006 when the military junta under

the name of Council for Democratic Reform (CDR), which later was renamed as the Council for National

Security (CNS), staged a coup in 19th September 2006 and ousted TRT government and Thaksin out of

the office. Not so long after the coup, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) Part 15

or the Red Shirt, or Thaksin‘s supporters plus people who did not agree with the coup played a crucial

part in protesting the military junta. Eight months later or end of May 2007, TRT was dissolved by the

Constitutional Court because of violating the election law in the April 2006 snap election. As a result, 111

members of TRT Executive Committee, including Thaksin, were banned from politics for 5 years.

However, the coup and, later, political struggles between Thaksin and his supporters, UDD and the Red

Shirt, on one hand, and military with alliance with old elite, Democrat Party and the PAD, as the Yellow

shirt, on the other hand, have generated extremely controversial issues, unresolved political dilemma,

social division, political violence, and, then series of political crisis in Thailand that had never ever

existed before.

Nevertheless, before we move to the last part of political controversies in Thailand regarding the

political participation and party politics amongst political crisis in Thailand, let us complete this section

by looking at the consequences of the coup in the context of the 2007 Constitution and its new electoral

system that had an impact on party politics in the House of Representative. The 2007 Constitution

replaced the electoral system of the Mixture between SMD-P and PR in the 1997 Constitution by mixing

between MMD and PR. The MMD, which was used before the implementation of the 1997 Constitution

4 By PAD Part 2, I refer to the PAD/Yellow Shirt‘s movement against the PPP (People‘s Power Party) after the general election in December

2007 and before the formation of coalition government led by the Democrat Party in December 2008. 5 By UDD Part 1, I refer to the movement of the UDD/Red Shirt after the September 2006 Coup and before PPP government in 2008.

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was revived. In the 2007 Constitution, a number of seats in the House of representative were reduced

from 500 in the time of the 1997 Constitution to be 480. The number of 400 seats in the district-based

election, changed to be MMD, was kept. Also, the PR system was maintained; however, instead of using

whole national area as one district and of having 100 seats as in the 1997 Constitution, this system

divided the nation into 8 large districts and each district had 10 MPs. Therefore, there were 80 MPs from

this system and the condition of 5% threshold of the 1997 Constitution was abandoned.

If the logic behind the change of electoral system in the 1997 Constitution in creating strong

political party was right, it could also imply the intention of the change of electoral system in the 2007

Constitution too. We can clearly see that one of the purposes of the 2007 Constitution is to weaken

political party and to prevent the stable majority government. That is to say, to change the electoral

system in the 2007 Constitution is to bring Thai politics to retreat the political instability of unstable

coalition government before the implementation of the 1997 Constitution. MMD, with no more than 3

MPs per constituency, opens a chance for candidates receiving second or third vote-getters to be MPs.

That means MMD opens opportunities for various political parties to get MPs in each district. At the

same time, when PR system is divided into 8 districts rather than using the whole national territory as one

district as in the 1997 Constitution, popular vote is turned to base on region rather than the popularity of

political party, which results in more various political parties gaining MPs from this system. Moreover,

the 5 percent threshold, which was a condition in the 1997 Constitution, was abandoned so now it was

perfectly compatible with the concept of PR that tends to create small political party.

As a result of general election in 23rd

December 2007, People‘s Power Party (PPP), the former

TRT, gained the largest number in the lower house at 233 (199 from MMD and 34 from PR) out of 480.

The Democrat Party gained the second largest number at 165 (132 from MMD and 33 from PR).

Therefore, one could see that the purpose of the 2007 Constitution in weakening political party and

creating unstable coalition government was working because, after the 2007 general election, there was

no party achieving majority in the lower house, and, then, no strong political party and no stable majority

government. This led Thailand to go back into the time before the 1997 Constitution – the political sphere

of unstable coalition government. At the same time, this unstable coalition government opened a chance

for the military and its alliance to intervene the formation of government. To de-develop political

institution by weakening political party, leading to unstable government, through the 2007 Constitution

was to exacerbate democracy and to bring Thai politics back to the time before the 1997 Constitution.

Worse, we can see at this point that the coup d'état in 2006 led to an important military role once again in

Thai politics, and this came from the changing of political institutions through the 2007 Constitution. The

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crucial point here was that the military and its alliance designed the 2007 Constitution in order to weaken

political institution, especially political party and especially TRT/PPP, and, then, created unstable

coalition government. This was evident in the changing of electoral system and in using political tactics.

Therefore, it produced double de-democratization. Firstly, the coup was oppositional to democratic

means. Secondly, weak political party leading to an unstable government was the retreat of

democratization, which was based on the people. Simultaneously, it opened a chance for extra-democratic

power to intervene.

In this context, certainly, PPP was the main target to be weakened by the military junta and its

alliances and by the 2007 Constitution. The outcome of the 2007 general election, resulting from the

changing of the electoral system, also confirmed this. However, due to the popularity of the PPP in the

rural area, PPP still won the largest seats in the lower house and was able to form a coalition government.

This was very displeased by the military junta and its alliances because after technical suppression by the

military, after changing of the political rules and the electoral system through the 2007 Constitution and

after employing many political ploys, people‘s power, especially the poor, still supported the PPP and the

man behind PPP or ex-Prime Minister Thaksin. When PPP/TRT regained its political power back by

forming a coalition government, the saga of de-democratization in political power play went on in

creating the controversy between the people‘s power and mob rule that we will now turn to.

Direct Political Participation: People’s power versus Mob Rule

In modern democracy, it seems to be contradictory in the way to have political participation

because of a thin line between ‗people‘s power‘ and ‗mob rule‘. In a positive direction, John Keane

argues that there is a trend in moving from representative democracy to ‗monitory democracy‘, which

refers to the invention of different kinds of power-monitoring devices as watchdogs. These actors are

changing both the political geography and the political dynamics of many democracies, which no longer

attached much with the model of representative democracy that prioritizes elected parliamentary

representatives chosen by political parties. This monitoring democracy is the power-monitoring and

power-controlling devices having begun to extend sideways and downwards through the whole political

order. One of the main extra-parliamentary power-monitoring institutions is the institution of civil

society, which extends its roles into areas of life beneath and beyond the institution of territorial state

(Keane 2009, xxvii-xxviii). That is to say, ‗in contrast to those policy makers, activists and scholars who

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suppose that the fundamental choice facing contemporary democracies is that between accepting the

terms of Westminster-style electoral democracy and the embrace of more participatory forms of ‗deep‘

and ‗direct‘ democracy‘ (Keane 2009, xxix)

Keane‘s argument of monitoring democracy is related to the shift from representative democracy

toward PDG by having people‘s direct participation in politics, especially via social movements of civil

society organizations (CSO). It predisposed to be positive in deepening of democracy illustrated in the

early part. However, if a coin has two sides and a sword have two edges, thing being positive or negative

will depend on who and how to use it. The move toward direct people participation in politics without a

limit may bring negative consequences, especially when employed as political struggle to destroy enemy

who controlled political institution, such as government, for the sake of retaking political power for

themselves. In this way, it will lead direct political participation in Thailand to be a new regime of ‗mob

rule‘. This is extremely dangerous when oppositional party losing the election joined the fray. The

principle and spirit of democracy, that is, rule of law, is violated and negated so this is not the way to lead

to PDG and the deepening of democracy. There is only a political ploy, using by elite to destroy political

power of the opposition, without considering democratic development. Indeed, this showed that no one

cares much about democracy, and democracy in Thailand today is only in de jure, not in de facto, that is,

lip-service democracy. The mob rule, which is used and disguised under the people‘s power, is different

from PDG, associating with real people‘s power. Even though they are connected with direct political

participation, the PDG, with the involvement of CSO, does not aim to seize political institution to control

political power. The movement of CSO in itself is the empowerment of people‘s political power. In the

contrary, political participation as mob rule actually wants to occupy political institutions so as to use

them to control political power.

For me, when the PAD (Part 2) reunited and emerged again, it was different from the part 1. PAD

argued that PPP government was dominated and controlled by Thaksin so this government was biased to

protect Thaksin, who was a corrupted politician and was protested by PAD (Part 1). However, in part 2 of

the PAD movement, one could observe that its movement was very congruent with the military and its

alliances‘ movement. Therefore, some people considered that the movement of the PAD Part 2 closely

turned to be a movement as an alliance of the military. Accordingly, one could understand why PAD

could seize the House of Government, and, later, the Don Muang Airport, the exile office of the

government, and then Suvarnabhumi or Bangkok International Airport.

At the same period that PAD seized the House of Government, the Constitutional Court, again,

gave a verdict to the Head of PPP and the Prime Minister, Mr. Samak Sundaravej who has just passed

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away, that he was found guilty in violating the constitutional law. The Constitution basically prohibits the

members of the Executive branch to involve with any interest in private company or organization relating

to commercial purposes including being employed. However, what Samak did was that he was the emcee

of the cookery TV program by invitation, not employed, and received a very small sum of money for

transportation. This forced Samak to resign from the Premier position. Therefore, one could see the

tactical power that was utilized by the PPP‘s opposition.

After that, in the system of coalition government, PPP had to find a new Prime Minister. PPP

could secured coalition alliance and nominated Somchai Wongsawat, brother-in-law of Tahksin, to be a

Prime Minister. Again, the PAD having already seized the House of Government, moved forward to

occupy the Bangkok International Airport. At the same time, the Executive Board of PPP was brought

into the Constitutional Court because its member involved with electoral fraud. Again, PPP was given a

verdict to be dissolved and PPP‘s executive board, including Somchai, was banned from politics for 5

years. After that, because of the split of coalition parties and because of the convincing accusation that the

military came to intervene the formation of a new coalition government, Thailand got a new coalition

government led by Democrat Party and Prime Minister Abhisit since 17 December 2008. This brought the

Democrat Party to directly associate with the military, and, then, made Thai politics further entangled

with deeper problems. After PPP was dissolved, it was tactically renamed to be Puea Thai Party6 (PTP)

and became oppositional party until today.

Ironically and intentionally or unintentionally, the 2007 Constitution demonstrated its success to

create weak political party and unstable government. Only in 2008, Thailand had 3 governments; PPP

government led by Samak, PPP government led by Somchai and Democrat government led by Abhisit.

However, it was convincing that this weak political party and unstable government was not only

originated from alteration of the constitution and its electoral system, but also generated by the

intervention of military and its alliances and the mob rule. However, one could understand easily that to

change the 1997 to 2007 Constitution, especially the altering of electoral system, was to change the rule

to weaken political party, especially TRT/PPP. Therefore, in this context, the 2007 Constitution is the

direct political tool of political struggle between the elite; namely, TRT/PPP versus military and its

alliances and their nominee as Democrat Party. Again, this also demonstrated the double retreats of de-

democratization in Thailand, that were, the coup and the 2007 Constitution as direct apparatus of political

struggle rather than democratic consolidation.

6 Literally translated as ‗For Thais Party‘.

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This led Thai politics to the state of antinomy, engendered by using bad means (the coup and

malicious purpose in the 2007 Constitution) to handle with a bad guy (Thaksin‘s abuse of political power

and corruption, protected by TRT/PPP). The military and its alliances argued that there was a good will

behind the coup, that was, to terminate corrupted politician and its alliance out of the office. Therefore,

the coup might bring about ‗one step backward‘ for ‗two steps forward‘, or to retreat for the advance in

the future. Nevertheless, as in the notion of a ‗poison tree‘ always produces a ‗poison fruit‘, the coup, as a

poison tree, leads to de-democratization, as a poison fruit, because the gist of democracy that is the

principle of the rule of law is abused . This is perfectly compatible with the classic democratic proverb

that ‗there is no short-cut to democracy!‘.

It is evident today that Thai politics is conveyed downwards to the abyss of hell. The political

conflicts and violence by the UDD or the Red Shirt Part 27, with ironically coordinated by the Democrat

government, constructed the Bloody Songkran Days8 2009 and Bloody April-May 2010, sacrificing many

lives. This is a trap of Thai politics (intentionally or unintentionally) dug by Thaksin, but voluntarily

entrapped by the military and its alliance and nominee government because of their blindness in political

antagonism.

Worst, party politics was also entangled with this dilemma and gave rise to controversies in direct

political participation between people‘s power and mob rule. As explained above, we can see that while

the TRT/PPP/PTP is associated with the UDD/Red shirt, the Democrat Party is also connected to the

PAD/Yellow Shirt9, which, in turn, linked to the military and its alliances. This political phenomenon in

Thailand is completely coupled with the mob rule. When one loses the election or political game to the

political enemy, one prefer to mobilize own political supporters into the street to protest the enemy. Both

sides disguised their political intention and antagonism under the name of democracy and people, and

both sides camouflaged themselves under the people‘s power in direct political participation from the

mob rule.

This Thai politics episode created controversies and concerns among some political observers.

For the Red Shirt, there were concerns over the potential ramifications of the ―democratically-elected‖

7 By UDD or the Red Shirt Part 2, I refer to the time after the dissolution of PPP by court‘s rule until today. 8 Songkran Days refer to watering festival in Thailand between 13-15 April of every year. 9 However, the connection between TRT/PPP/PTP and the UDD/Red Shirt is clearer than the link between Democrat Party and the PAD/Yellow

Shirt. The UDD was formed by some members of TRT/PPP/PTP in association with activists, disagreeing with the coup, double standard in Thai

politics, and royalist. Thus, there was a clear link between TRT/PPP/PTP and the UDD, though all members of UDD are not related with

TRT/PPP/PTP. For PAD, there were some members of the Democrat Party joined the movement, including present Minister of Foreign Affairs

and some MPs, and mobilized the party‘s affiliate to join the movement, but the party itself tried to create the detached image from the PAD, so

the connection between PAD and the Democrat seemed to be political alliance rather than a close connection like between TRT/PPP/PTP and

UDD.

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being forced out of office by mass protests and the coup (and also the correlation between them). To some

people who believed in electoral process in representative democracy, it would be seen as democracy

failing to heed the people‘s voice and succumbing to mob rule. They also concerned about the non-

democratic power of military and its alliances that was disguised under the lip-service democracy of the

present coalition government. However, for the Yellow Shirt (part I and part II), they considered this

episode as the political maturation of the middle class in Thailand who insist on legitimacy over majority

seats in the parliament. For them, elections are not the only benchmark of democracy and they believed

that Thaksin and TRT/PPP/PTP have taken advantage of the weaknesses inherent in electioneering to

subvert democracy. This claim seemed to be convincing in PAD part I, but when the PAD had a close

affiliation with the military and its alliance in part II, the validity of this claim was negated. However, in

overall picture, both sides seemed to engage with the mob rule. This was empirically evident because, in

the elite‘s political game for gaining political interest and power, when one lost to another, s/he would use

direct political participation to mobilize mob to confront the oppositional enemy, who was the

government.

At the end, we can see that both representative democracy and direct political participation in

Thailand is problematic and in predicament. The former is abused easily by AP, while the latter is

practiced in a non-creative way or not as in the sense of PDG. Indeed, direct political participation is

negative and connected with the mob rule rather than real people‘s power. Constitution, election, and

electoral system, also, are used to be an excuse and an instrument of political struggle. Furthermore,

political parties seem to have no concern on this unconstructive political innovation, which scarifies

citizen‘s life. Perhaps, the Western idea of political party, as in Westminster model, seems not too bad if

we compare with the distorted form of direct political participation linked to the mob rule in Thailand. It

seems to me that Thailand and Thai people are hijacked and taken to be hostage of elite (whether old or

new) power play. Political conflicts in Thailand appear to relate to democracy as we can observe from the

name of the PAD/Yellow Shirt as People‘s Alliance for Democracy and the name of UDD/Red Shirt as

United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, but in reality democracy in Thailand is like a dust in

the wind and goes nowhere apart from being an excuse of the Thai elite political game.

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