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CORRUPTION-THAILAND: Thaksin’s Anti-Graft Drive Challenged

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Sep 23 2004 (IPS) - On the eve of launching a battle against corruption, the Thai government is facing charges that this anti-graft drive may be a smokescreen to go after its political opponents ahead of a general election.

Such criticism has been shaped by the accusations of land fraud levelled by a powerful cabinet minister against a popular political figure, who has openly challenged the sincerity of the ruling Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) government in recent months.

On Thursday, the accused in question, Chamlong Srimuang, hit back through the media, saying: ”Don’t ever think that you can use your power anyway you want. The power belongs to the people, not politicians.”

Till early this year, Chamlong was regarded as Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s political mentor and a friend of the TRT.

In May 1992, Chamlong – a former Bangkok governor – led huge pro-democracy demonstrations against the military government of Gen. Suchinda Karpayoon. Democracy was restored in the country, on the intervention of the King, after scores of protesters were shot dead by the Thai military.

”The case being brought against Chamlong is disturbing. We are afraid the government may use the war against corruption to go after its political opponents,” Nirand Pithakwatchara, who chairs the human security and social development committee in the Senate, said in an interview.

This campaign will look good ahead of the elections, he said, since it is aimed to ”create an illusion” among the people that the government is attacking corruption.

”If they were really serious about corruption and bringing about change, they should not have waited till the end of the term,” he asserted.

The Thaksin administration’s four-year term in office ends in January next year and a general election is due to be held weeks after.

The fight against corruption was one of the pledges Thaksin made at the 2001 poll, but he has waited till late this year to pursue it. This drive to clean the country of fraud is to be launched on Sept. 30.

It begins two week’s after an anti-graft activist revealed that state officials, politicians and others had pocketed 1.2 trillion baht (300 billion U.S. dollars) through bribes and kickbacks for over a decade.

To that can be added a laundry list of fraud involving a broad spectrum of people in key institutions of the country. An academic from Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, for instance, has revealed in a study that the police force is the most corrupt state institution in the country.

In 2002, the police had taken in over 19 billion baht (475 million dollars) from gambling dens, 11 billion baht (275 million dollars) from an underground lottery, 3.4 billion baht (8.5 million dollars) from massage parlours and three billion baht (7.5 million dollars) from motorcycle taxis, states Sundsidh Piriyarangsan, the academic.

Just how it works was revealed last July after a falling out between the king of Bangkok’s massage parlours, Chuwit Kamolvisit, and the police. Chuwit said he had to pay 12 million baht (300,000 dollars) in bribes monthly to the police to keep his six palaces of pleasure open.

Two international watchdogs have also shed light on this South-east Asian country’s problem with corruption. In its 2003 report, Transparency International placed Thailand 70th among 133 countries on its corruption perception index.

Meanwhile, the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) gave Thailand a score of 8.55, close to the worst indicator of 10, in a review of corruption and 8.45 for cronyism.

Corruption also rears its head during elections, say researchers, pointing to the brazen manner in which candidates dish out money and gifts in their respective constituencies to buy votes.

Newspapers have estimated that close to 30 billion baht (75 million dollars) was spent by candidates in the eight weeks leading up to the 2001 general elections.

The country’s poor have felt the pinch of corruption when assistance meant for them through development programmes have not been fully transferred, Bantorn Ondam, a sociologist and advisor to the Assembly of the Poor – a broad network of rural grassroots groups – told IPS.

Farmers promised 100 head of cattle, for instance, have only received 50, he said. ”This is the work of the bureaucrats involved. They always cheat the poor.”

But Thaksin’s pledge to end corruption within the bureaucracy is not enough, say some analysts, given the new face of corruption that has evolved in Thailand.

”The old style of corruption, of bureaucrats taking a slice off a government project, is being outstripped by the new style of corruption – corruption by policy,” David Streckfuss, a U.S. academic researching Thai political culture, said in an interview.

By that he meant politicians linked with the country’s business empires pushing through policies where they stand to gain in the long run. ”This is very indirect, less crude and may be difficult to trace,” Streckfuss added.

Pasuk Phongpaicht, a Thai economist and one of the country’s authorities on the culture of corruption, argues like wise in a book and articles published recently.

It stems from the TRT being led by Thaksin, a telecommunication business tycoon, and having in its ranks big business families linked to the media, hotels, property, construction, infrastructure and finance, she said.

Thai-language newspapers like the ‘Post Today’ have argued in editorials that the government should not only punish civil servants but politicians who abuse power for their personal gain.

”Mr.Thaksin must also tackle corruption arising from abuse of state policy. This is often committed by politicians with connections to business interests,” the ‘Post Today’ commented on Sunday.