Prem versus Thaksin: the Election
Posted on December 17, 2007
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By Damien McCrystal
With only days to go before Thailand’s first elections since the 2006 military coup d’etat, the battle for power is running in earnest and the accusations are flowing thick and fast. Only one thing is certain: General Prem Tinsulanond, President of the Privy Council and increasingly omnipotent controller of the ailing King’s powers, is determined that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra should not stage a comeback.
Samak Sundarajev, leader of the People Power Party (PPP) – a reformed version of Thaksin’s outlawed Thais Love Thais party – is now under threat of prosecution for revealing the details of leaked military memos urging officers to support the candidates put forward by the junta.
Acting Prime Minister Surayad Chulanont, widely seen as a Prem stooge, has admitted that the memos are genuine but argues that all the measures outlined were for the benefit of “national security”.
In documents describing ordinary Thai voters as the “lower units,” military officers are told to:
• mount a “news and information management operation” to “bring good people to the parliament”.
• “deter and reduce the efforts of the grass root people from participating in any political activities in Bangkok” by organising a “co-alliance of military and policemen to set up check points to deter any movement to the Bangkok area”.
• “restrict/limit political movement of core members of anti-government movements”.
• “allow other political parties to publicise their news/information. But for PPP, limit the news/report only to the negative scheme”.
But the military regime has also used its 15 months in power to launch plans which appear designed to suppress some political opponents far into the future. These strategic manoeuvres have been adopted by the Constitution Drafting Committee, a body which, like the Constitution Drafting Assembly, was not democratically chosen but appointed by the current powers.
Critics insist that the military regime, which continues to come under the unofficial but undoubted influence of former army commander-in-chief General Prem, has stacked the Committee and the Assembly with a disproportionate number of former military officers.
Most worrying is the proposal, adopted by the Committee, to strip Thai people of the right to elect the Senate. Under this proposal, Senators would be appointed by selection committees composed of judges and bureaucrats. Those Senators would ultimately have the power to remove the Prime Minister – a move which could have important ramifications for Thailand’s image in the rest of the world. In a country which has seen 18 coups in little more than 70 years, foreign investors and governments alike have limited patience for the removal of democratic powers by military means.
The junta’s critics have also been angered by plans to reduce the size of the Lower House of Parliament and the Senate by 20 per cent each, claiming that smaller legislatures would be easier for General Prem to control.
But the ploy which seems most calculated to strike long-term at Thaksin’s power-base is the proposal to redraw the parliamentary districts, reducing the voting strength of the 35 provinces in northern and north eastern Thailand which swept Thaksin to power with two consecutive landslide victories.
Thailand is not new to questionable election tactics. On Election Day in 1986, when General Prem was hoping to be returned as Prime Minister, the government turned off the power in Bangkok and when it was restored, Prem’s candidates surged ahead in the polls.
A survey by Transparency International after the 1996 election found that 30 per cent of Thai household heads said they had been offered money for their votes. In 2000, 43 Thai politicians and canvassers were murdered. It was partly as a result of the people’s dissatisfaction with such suspicion surrounding elections that they elected Thaksin, a self-made telecoms billionaire who promised an end to the old ways.
The strength of Thaksin’s continued popularity appears to be greater than was initially thought. Until recently, Thai pundits were predicting that Prem’s favoured candidates would scrape through by cajoling and coercing enough of the smaller parties to support them.
Now, the discussion has moved on to the question of whether the army would allow the PPP and its supporters to actually take power in the event of a victory. And the issue of vote-rigging has also reared its head, with government-employed election officials threatening to dissolve the PPP on the grounds that Thaksin – an outlawed politicians since the coup – has publicly endorsed the party.
The key to the ferocity of this battle for power lies in the declining health of the revered King Bhumibol, the longest serving monarch in the world. Beset with major medical problems and struggling to recover from a recent stroke, he has rarely been seen or heard in recent years. Increasingly, General Prem has spoken in his place.
The succession of the Crown is a matter of huge national importance in Thailand but many Thais – including, it is very widely believed, General Prem — dislike the Crown Prince, Vajirilongkorn.
Many Thai watchers are in agreement with Paul Handley, author of Bhumibol’s banned unofficial biography, The King Never Smiles, that Thaksin was deposed mostly because he was forging a relationship with the Crown Prince.
General Prem is believed to want the throne to go to Vajirilongkorn’s younger sister, Sirindhorn – who is loved by the Thai people – and has been grooming her military friendships for 20 years.
The military make-up of the new Constitution Drafting Committee would appear to support the theory that a swift change in the constitution following the King’s death could put Sirindhorn in her older brother’s place.
But an alliance of Vajirilongkorn, the legal heir, and Thaksin, the most popular politician Thailand has seen in years, would be a body blow to General Prem and his supporters. He will not give up easily.
The Secret Battle For Thailand’s Throne
Posted on December 4, 2007
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By Damien McCrystal
As
But underlying the election carnival, out of the public gaze, lies one of the fiercest fights modern
Last month [November 5th] King Bhumibol, the longest-reigning monarch in the world, failed to attend the Royal Barge Procession, when 2,000 oarsmen rowed 52 gilded, ceremonial boats down the Chao Phraya River through the centre of Bangkok.
For 300 years, the Royal Barge Procession has marked great moments in
But the King was not there. He was too ill, having had what appears to medical observers to be a serious stroke (the Royal Household will not confirm this, but the symptoms leave no real doubt) on top of a lifetime of ill-health. As a young man he nearly died in a car crash which left him with only one eye and horrific, persistent spinal injuries. More recently, he has been dogged by major heart problems. Last year, he collapsed in the Palace grounds and broke several ribs. Even before the latest crisis, his public appearances had become excruciatingly rare.
Thais adore their King but even the most fervent among them must realise it is time seriously to consider the succession. If last month’s collapse did not put them on red alert, then his failure to attend the barge procession must have signalled that death or incapacity may be imminent. An inability to appear for his own birthday celebrations – planned to be the biggest public party in modern Thai history — will increase anxiety dramatically.
The succession is not a simple matter. The King’s only son, Crown Prince Vajirilongkorn, 55, is the legal heir to the throne but he is deeply unpopular with ordinary Thais. Most households are adorned with pictures of the revered King and Queen and the much-loved Princess Sirindhorn, but very few honour the heir apparent in this way.
In stark comparison to his father’s serenity, Vajirilongkorn is widely rumoured to have a hot-temper (a hideous disability in Thai eyes), a lurid love life and some sort of unmentionable, terminal illness. Some of this rumour is grounded in truth (though not, apparently, the terminal illness) but much has no doubt grown in the telling because, as with the rest of the royal family, the prince’s private life is protected from the media by draconian lese majeste law. Rumour is often the only source of information.
The slightly younger Princess Sirindhorn has, on the other hand, worked tirelessly on her father’s charitable projects, seems to have no love life and is commonly known as Phra Thep, or Princess Angel. More interestingly, she also has the patronage of General Prem, president of the Privy Council.
Senior business and media figures in
As the King’s health has waned over the years, so the influence of his closest adviser has tumesced. He is widely believed to have been the architect of last year’s coup because he saw as a threat Thaksin’s radical economic policies and subtle challenges to the King’s authority.
Prem’s crtiics can not speak out, however, because he recently extended the lese majeste law to cover himself. Penalties for breaking the law include up to 15 years imprisonment or being banned from the country – an impediment to objective reporting either by local or foreign media based there.
Prem, it is said, wishes the crown to go to Princess Sirindhorn. This would make her the first female monarch in Thai history. A constitutional amendment or similar may be required to make it possible, but that is by no means beyond Prem’s scope, particularly now when the country is divided by political factions selling their support to the highest bidder in advance of the elections.
Before he became chief Privy Councillor, Prem was a prime minister in the 1980s and before that commander in chief of the army. His influence with the army remains awesome and one can only admire his foresight in persuading Sirindhorn more than 20 years ago to become a Professor of History at
She has been a hugely popular teacher with the young officers, forming lasting friendships and, by coincidence, this year for the first time every senior commander in the army is a former pupil. In a country where there have been 18 coups since 1932, her links with the military will undoubtedly be a consideration for anyone who might oppose Prem’s plans for her.
However, the Crown Prince, himself a military officer, is unlikely to take this lying down. He is said to have established a loyal “palace guard” and is also on good terms with Thaksin. Indeed, that is part of the trouble. Bhumibol’s unofficial biographer Paul Handley (he and his book, The King Never Smiles, are both banned from Thailand) wrote of the coup last year: “There was a clear meeting of minds between the crown and the military, through King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s number one aide Prem Tinsulanonda, that they did not want Thaksin in a position to exert influence on the passing of the Chakri Dynasty mantle to Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.”
Despite living in exile in
The post-coup government installed by the military – by General Prem, in effect – has imposed martial law on Thaksin’s territories, barring meetings of more than ten people and all the usual paraphernalia of military dictatorship. Those people are about to be given a voice in next month’s elections.
So it is by no means certain that Prem will get his way. It will be an unfamiliar sensation for him if he does not, but the possible consequences of opposing the Crown Prince’s legal succession – collapse of the baht and the Thai stock market, panic among foreign investors (British firms like Boots and Tesco foremost among them), the risk of another military coup, extreme political unrest and more trouble from the opportunistic Islamic insurgents in the south – may be more than the old schemer can contemplate.