By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK , Feb 26 2006 (IPS)

Is democracy only about elections or is it much more? That question has come into relief as the countdown begins for a snap parliamentary poll that Thailand faces early April.

This mid-term poll, to be held three years ahead of schedule, comes after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra caved into the mounting pressure of anti-government protests on the streets of Bangkok, challenging his leadership. On Friday night, in a five-minute televised address to the nation, Thaksin dramatically announced that parliament had been dissolved and that fresh elections would be held on Apr. 2.

”Let me return the power to you so that the public will decide again,” said Thaksin, who, only a year ago, led his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) party to secure a second term in office with an unprecedented mandate. The TRT gained over 370 seats in the 500-member legislature, thanks to an estimated 19 million people that endorsed its policies.

”I will respect the decision of the public,” he said. ”The next election will be extraordinary. I ask my fellow countrymen to turn out in force in making this important decision.”

The late Friday announcement, which had been the subject of rumour earlier on in the day, was in some respects an admission of defeat by a leader who had gained notoriety for being caustic and dismissive about his critics. Weeks ago, he called the leaders of what was to snowball into an aggressively growing anti-Thaksin movement, ”stupid people”.

His detractors, a motley collection of high profile figures in the media, academia, the intelligentsia and non-governmental groups, focused their campaign on Thaksin’s questionable ethics, alleged corruption and suppression of media freedom, among others.

A defining moment – which brought thousands of citizens to swell the ranks of the anti-Thaksin brigade – was the discovery, in January, that the telecommunication conglomerate owned by the Shinawatra family, Shin Corp., had been sold to Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government’s investment agency, for 1.8 billion US dollars. It was a deal on which Shinawatra paid no tax.

That blot on the balance sheet may not trouble Thaksin at the April poll. ”We have no problem with this decision,” Pimuk Simaroj, a parliamentarian and deputy spokesman for the TRT, told IPS. ”The people can decide who they want as their government and what they think of the criticism.”

Others see it as a step in tune with what one expects in a democracy. ”It is a very astute move from the point of view of the Prime Minister and TRT by preparing to submit to the will of the voters,” Giles Ungpakorn, political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said in an interview. ”He is sticking by democratic principles for which he cannot be faulted.”

And why Thaksin and the TRT may be back at the helm in six weeks is largely because of the alliances he has forged, after being elected to power in January 2001, with the country’s poor, both in the capital and the provinces. His critics, by contrast, are largely angry middle and upper middle-class voters who are small in number and do not appear to reflect the sentiments of the poor.

”The elections will take the wind out of the sails of the opposition,” says Giles. ”This government has introduced measures that have genuinely benefited the poor. Thaksin’s strength is that he has chosen to show an interest in the poor despite leading a party that is openly capitalist.”

During his first term in office, Thaksin, a billionaire in his own right before becoming the leader of the government, delivered on a range of pro-poor policies, such as financial assistance to lift debt off farmers, providing an affordable universal health care scheme, introducing new initiatives to promote local handicrafts and giving some weight to strengthening the grassroots economy.

By the end of 2004, he had the statistics on his side, such as the number of those living in poverty dropping from nearly 13 million in 2000 to 7.08 million by 2004, in a country of 64 million people.

”The largest decline in the number of poor was seen in the northeast, home to half of the poor in Thailand,” states the World Bank in its 2005 ‘Thailand Economic Monitor’. ”The rise in household incomes, especially agriculture incomes, has contributed to the reduction in poverty.”

Between 2000 and 2004, the Bank adds, ”agriculture incomes have risen by 40 percent, higher than the rise in any other forms of income”.

Thaksin’s arrival on the political scene as the country’s 23rd prime minister in 2001 – and his continuation till February 2006 – stands in contrast to the political uncertainties that plagued his predecessors, some of whom were brought down mid-way in their tenure. None were reelected to successive terms in office.

Testimony to the long years of uncertainty are a legacy of 16 new constitutions and 17 military coups this South-east Asian country has endured over the past 50 years.

But as Sunai Phasuk, Thai researcher for the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch, explains, the problem with Thaksin ”arises from what he does after he gets elected. He believes that a victory gives him the power to stand above the law and not be held accountable.”

”He has misunderstood the meaning of democracy,” adds Sunai. ”The government must be subject to scrutiny and accountability at all times. It is more than just elections.”

Excerpt: