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THAILAND: Court Nullifies Polls in Blow to One-Party Rule

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 8 2006 (IPS) - Thailand’s Constitutional Court has put the brakes on a country sliding in the direction of one-party rule – a situation familiar enough in South-east Asia.

In twin decisions announced Monday afternoon, the court called for the controversial Apr. 2 parliamentary poll to be nullified, a judgement that is unprecedented in this country’s political history.

In an 8-6 decision, the 14-member bench deemed the April poll unconstitutional, and in a 9-5 decision, the judges ordered fresh general elections. ”The court found the Apr. 2 election date was inappropriate and unfair,” Paiboon Varahapaitoon, the court’s spokesman, told reporters. ”The organisation of the election by the Election Commission was unconstitutional.”

The judges found fault with the Election Commission, the independent body mandated to conduct polls, for lack of secrecy at the polling booths during the April ballot. Voters cast their ballots in booths that were open on one side, making it easy for prying eyes to gather who the voters had cast the ballot for.

”Democracy in Thailand has been saved by these verdicts,” Saiyud Kerdphol, head of the independent polls watchdog People’s Network for Elections in Thailand (P-NET), told IPS soon after the rulings. ”It has opened up the political space and is a message against those trying to create a one-party state.”

P-NET was one of the groups that submitted a petition against the April elections poll -another complaint was filed by university lecturers – that questioned the decision to have a rushed ballot after the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra dissolved parliament in February. The date for the snap poll, held three years ahead of schedule, was fixed for 37 days after the 500-member Lower House was dissolved.

”This creates a new avenue for Thai politics when the checks and balances mechanism in parliament is weak,” Sunai Phasuk, Thai researcher for the global rights lobby Human Rights Watch (HRW), explained in an interview. ”The public can place more faith in these courts after this to challenge strong governments abusing their power.”

Concern over Thailand’s fledgling democracy ending up as a one-party state like Singapore or communist-ruled nations like Laos and Vietnam moved centre-stage following the April ballot, where Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) party was the sole contestant in many constituencies after opposition parties boycotted the election. By the end of that ballot and subsequent by-elections, the TRT had won all but 10 of the 485 seats in the Lower House. (Elections for the remaining seats were suspended by the administrative court.)

Such a victory, for which the TRT got some 57 percent of the polls cast, followed victories at two previous parliamentary elections, in January 2001 and February 2005. After those two polls, for which opposition parties contested and lost, the TRT had 342 seats and 372 seats in the parliament respectively.

By February this year, criticism levelled at the Thaksin administration’s abuse of power on account of its huge parliamentary mandate – including charges of corruption, nepotism and undermining the country’s independent institutions set up to check government decisions – took on a new image. Anti-Thaksin demonstrators staged street protests in Bangkok, at times drawing 100,000 people, calling for Thaksin to step down.

The former prime minister responded by calling for a snap poll, consequently paving the way for a brush with the judiciary that took a turn for the worse for Thaksin and the TRT on Monday. The country’s three premier judicial bodies – the Supreme Court, the Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court – have been overwhelmed with cases filed by enraged citizens over the controversial poll.

Yet, analysts say that the predicament Thaksin and his TRT are in today would not have happened had it not been for Thailand’s revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who delivered a speech late April calling on the judiciary to end the ”mess” the country was in.

”The speech made it mandatory for the judges to do their job,” Chanida Chanyapate, deputy director of Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based thinktank, told IPS. ”Till then the courts had been reluctant, even rejecting petitions that had been submitted earlier about the elections. It meant people had no institution to turn to question the TRT or Mr. Thaksin’s abuse of power.”

Thai courts have traditionally been conservative and rarely ventured to make decisions that affect the country’s political climate. Political disputes over power has for decades been resolved by military coups since this country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

The TRT’s arrival on the political scene in 2001 and the grip on parliament it held over five years stands in contrast to what normally prevailed in this country. It has been ruled for years by weak coalition governments that, at times, never lasted an entire year in office.

”We can now start thinking about what kind of democratic system we want, with all players participating, rather than it being taken over by one party,” said Chanida. ”Reforms are also important to prevent a repeat.”