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THAILAND: Thaksin Down, Not Out

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Apr 5 2006 (IPS) - As Thais write another chapter to their unfolding political drama, one fact remains increasingly obvious: the main protagonist, Thaksin Shinawatra, is not about to leave the stage.

As Thais write another chapter to their unfolding political drama, one fact remains increasingly obvious: the main protagonist, Thaksin Shinawatra, is not about to leave the stage.

Thaksin’s place in this country’s political landscape has become the subject of intense speculation following two sudden developments. On Tuesday night, a visibly shaken Thaksin announced during a speech broadcast on national television that he will not accept the post of prime minister for a third term.

On Wednesday afternoon, he went on to inform the Thai public that he had decided to hand the reins of caretaker government, he has been holding since calling snap parliamentary elections late February, to Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasathidya.

Thaksin’s decision to give up the top political job, after a five-year stint, was the outcome of a meeting he had on Tuesday afternoon with this South-east Asian country’s revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who will celebrate his 60th anniversary on the throne in June.

”I would like to apologise to all of you for my decision not to accept the prime minister’s job when the new parliament is convened,” Thaksin said during the unexpected speech. Such a political sacrifice was being made, he added, to ensure that the country would not be divided when it celebrates the king’s longevity on the throne.

He also sought pardon from the estimated 16 million Thais who voted for his ruling Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai-TRT) party at the just concluded, controversial poll on Apr.2. ”I will continually perform my duties as an MP and as the Thai Rak Thai leader to push forward all the policies that I have promised to you.”

Thaksin’s Tuesday night announcement was an about-face from the combative tone he struck during a TV interview on Monday night. It followed the TRT’s triumph at the Apr. 2 poll that was boycotted by the main opposition parties, leaving the TRT’s critics to show their displeasure at the government by a casting a huge protest vote, marking ‘no vote’ on the ballot paper.

”Tell me how the country would be better off without me (as prime minister),” Thaksin was quoted as having said on Monday. ”There must be a good reason for me to stay or quit. The 16 million (who voted for the TRT) should be told how the country will be reconciled if I step down.”

There was little guesswork needed about what had made the difference: Thaksin’s visit to the seaside palace of the king.

”It appears like a win-win situation for Thaksin, since his retreat from power does not change the power equation that his party enjoys after Sunday’s poll,” Sunai Phasuk, Thai researcher for the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch, told IPS. ”He succeeds in getting his critics off his back by displaying a sign of compromise and yet he remains an MP and he retains control of the TRT like always.”

Others concur, given the nature of Thai politics and the pivotal role Thaksin has played in helping to build the TRT and leading it to two unprecedented parliamentary elections in 2001 and 2005. ”He has not left the stage; not even waiting in the wings. He has just moved to the side and it does not preclude him from returning,” David Streckfuss, a U.S. academic specialising in Thai political culture, said in an IPS interview.

The unexpected developments this week were only the latest in a series of twists in Thai politics that began with vigour two months ago, when thousands of anti-government demonstrators took to Bangkok’s streets to protest at the way the Thaksin administration was doing business. The catalyst in this outpouring of rage by a largely middle-class constituency was the tax-free sale of Shin Corp, a telecommunications conglomerate owned by the Shinawatras, to Temasek, the investment arm of the Singapore government, for 1.88 billion U.S. dollars.

The People’s Alliance for Democracy, a coalition of civil society leaders, a religious figure and a media mogul who led the anti-Thaksin crusade, also targeted the TRT administration for nepotism, cronyism, corruption and the suppression of debate and checks on its power.

The pressure Thaksin faced from these weekly street protests, some of which attracted over 100,000 people, offered a marked contrast to the ease with which he operated within the walls of parliament, where the TRT enjoyed an absolute majority. It had won 377 seats in the 500-member house at the February 2005 elections.

Thaksin’s electoral success were rooted in a large following the TRT had cultivated in Thailand’s provinces, home to the rural poor who make up the country’s majority. Analysts not only conceded that such policy-driven programmes were a new phenomenon in the country’s politics but also said that the TRT had sufficient power to alter the country’s political landscape like no other party before it.

By his fifth year in office, Thaksin, a billionaire tycoon before becoming government leader, had cemented his place in Thai history by two achievements that had been denied to his 22 predecessors. He became the country’s first premier to complete a full four-year term and also the first leader to be re-elected to a consecutive term in office.

That a third term was also his for the taking was the case following his party’s triumph at the snap poll on Apr.2 that Thaksin called as a way of securing electoral legitimacy in the wake of the anti-government protests. While the TRT got 16 million votes, which were nearly 60 percent of the ballots cast, the anti-government ‘no vote’ stood at nearly 10 million votes. It also meant that the TRT had largely held its voter base from the February 2005, when it secured 19 million votes.

Yet, the recent electoral triumph hardly mattered, say newspaper editorials here, since Thaksin’s abrasive manner and his administration’s questionable record, which created an image of abuse-of-power and conflicts-of-interest, had made him a contentious and divisive political figure.

Thaksin’s stepping down ”is a great source of relief for the nation, which is beset by an unprecedented divisiveness that has pitted mostly wealthy urban middle-class citizens against poverty-stricken rural masses,” said ‘The Nation,’ an English-language daily, on Wednesday. ”The avalanche of abstention votes cast by democratic-loving citizens was a resounding rejection of Thaksin, his Thai Rak Thai Party and the culture of deceit and corruption that they stand for.”