POLITICS-THAILAND: King’s Rebuke Adds to Premier’s Bad Week

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Dec 7 2001 (IPS) - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been facing some bitter political truths all week amid a string of criticism about the so-called “flawed” policies of his nine-month-old government.

These harsh words, which have dominated the tone of political discussions here this week, ranged from the Thaksin government’s questionable media policy and its still to be effective law-and- order policy to the lack of perceptible improvements in the country’s economy and disturbing social trends.

By far, the harshest reprimand of the prime minister came from Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej. On Wednesday, the monarch used the celebration of his 74th birthday at Bangkok’s Grand Palace to scold Thaksin about the “big problems” the country is facing.

“I think we all know that our country is not developing, but everything seems to be in decline,” King Bhumibol told an audience of more than18,000 people gathered at the palace, among whom was the prime minister.

The monarch singled out Thaksin by name, in one of his toughest birthday remarks in years.

“The prime minister has a long face now after I mentioned catastrophe,” he said. “But I’m telling the truth, because whatever we do, there seems to be big problems. The prime minister may appear to be happy, but deep down inside he’s definitely not.”

For Thai academics and political activists, the king’s speech was significantly different from those in the past, which touched on subjects like the country’s development or pressing social issues in general.

“The prime minister’s political honeymoon is definitely over,” says Withaya Sucharithanrugsa, a senior member of the Institute of Asian Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. “It was a pessimistic assessment of the country and a very rarely heard critique of the prime minister.”

Somchai Homlaor, secretary general of the Bangkok-based human rights lobby Forum Asia, says the Thaksin government will find it difficult to sidestep the king’s rebuke. “More so because of how specific it was, with Thaksin being singled out,” he remarked.

The monarch’s address has also been welcome among some quarters for another reason – it shows that the prime minister is not above criticism.

Such a sentiment stems from Thaksin being openly hostile to senior economists, government officials and sections of the media who have questioned or challenged his political and development agenda during his tenure in office.

“The prime minister hates criticism or opposing views,” declared the Thursday editorial of the English-language independent daily ‘The Nation’. In a commentary entitled ‘A speech that hit Thaksin hard’, it argued that “freedom to speak is one of the hallmarks of development.”

Even before the king’s comments, the week had already been a bad one for Thaksin.

The week began with the country’s opposition taking the prime minister to task for suppressing the media. Chuan Leekpai, Thaksin’s predecessor who heads the opposition Democrat Party, was quoted in the local media as accusing the government of “gagging” the media.

In support of his argument, Chuan referred to government officials attempting to shape radio news programmes to bolster the stock of ruling politicians.

Also troubling, according to Chuan, was the government’s monitoring of newspapers on the basis of their support or criticism of the Thaksin’s ruling Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thai) party and the selective way advertisements were being placed – with the regime-friendly media standing to gain.

Thaksin belittled these charges. But this is not the first time that the prime minister has been accused of media manipulation. In August, local journalists raised the alarm about the subtle way the Thaksin administration was attempting to step on media freedom and independence.

At the time, economic pressure, like selective advertising and direct interference in newsroom operations, were mentioned as examples of ways the government was trying to influence media. In one case, radio presenters from a station had been removed because their programmes were deemed “unfriendly” to the government.

A boycott Thursday by local reporters of a government-organised workshop on media reform is also indicative of the bad blood that still prevails between the government and a critical media.

On top of this was the dispiriting news for Thaksin from a nationwide poll, which revealed that the public’s faith in his policies was progressively thinning.

The poll, conducted in 22 provinces between Nov. 20 and Dec. 1 by a team from the local Assumption University, showed that Thais were satisfied only with two of the Thaksin government’s eight central policies.

While the Thaksin administration scored high marks on its public health care and village development fund programmes, it had not done as well in the other areas, ranging from solving growing unemployment, falling farm prices to enforcing law and order, the poll showed.

“The poll findings indicate the government is facing a lot of problems that may affect its credibility and stability,” the independent daily ‘Bangkok Post’ reported.

“This is hardly surprising, because Thaksin has been failing to keep his promises,” Somchai says of the prime minister whose party romped to power with 11 million votes that gave it a substantial majority in parliament.

“He cannot ignore what has been said all week,” adds Somchai. “He has to listen to his critics, the media, and he has to stop being arrogant.”