POLITICS-THAILAND: Thaksin Gov’t in Trouble Over Ethics

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK , Feb 3 2006 (IPS) - A year after his government was re-elected to power with an unprecedented mandate, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is facing a political storm that has the potential of bringing his administration down.

On Friday, there was bad news for Thaksin, when Culture Minister Uraiwan Thienthong resigned from the cabinet. ”The political situation is not good at the moment,” she said, at a press conference. ”What I care about is that political ethics be upheld.”

That setback appears to have shaped the tone to what many of Thaksin’s critics in the press and in academia expect to happen at a large protest rally to be held Saturday afternoon in Bangkok – the protesting thousands will demand the resignation of the premier.

Sensing trouble, the U.S. embassy here has got into the act, warning U.S. citizens to stay away from the venue of the anti-Thaksin rally, the spacious Royal Plaza located in front of the country’s ornate, old parliament building. ”Police estimate up to 100,000 people will gather (for the protest) headed by Sondhi Limthongkul, a prominent Thai government critic,” stated the embassy.

A newspaper published by the media company that Sondhi heads, warned Thaksin of the fate that awaits him in its Friday edition. ”Professors from throughout the country yesterday added their names to a growing list of academics and social activists calling for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to step down,” reported the ‘Thai Day’ newspaper in the latest of its anti-Thaksin broadsides.

Other more established publications, such as ‘The Nation,’ have also been baying for his blood, including running a front-page analysis on Friday comparing the animosity that has built up against Thaksin over the past two weeks to what Suchinda Kraprayoon, a military dictator, faced in May 1992. Suchinda was driven out of office by protesting Thai civilians angered by his anti-democratic measures.

The coming days, in fact, may determine if this political heat will reach boiling point and confirm a theory that some of Thaksin’s critics are articulating – that rage rising in Bangkok against a ruling government has the capacity of forcing it to resign. That was the case in 1992 with Suchinda and a previous military dictator in 1973.

Suchinda fell from grace because his moves were viewed by Bangkok’s citizens as a ”throwback to the past era of military dictatorships,” says Phil Robertson, a labour rights activist and a long time watcher of the Thai political scene. ”The public sentiment was that Thailand, in the early 1990s had become modern, and this image was at risk.”

What triggered the latest bout of protest is Thaksin’s family getting away without having to pay any taxes following a financial deal that has made them nearly two billion U.S. dollars richer. On Jan. 23, the Shinawatras sold the controlling shares they held in the telecommunications giant Shin Corp. to Singapore’s Tamasek Holdings for 1.88 billion U.S. dollars, making it the largest sale in Thailand’s corporate history.

Thaksin, who founded Shin Corp., had become a billionaire tycoon before he took over the reins as prime minister. Yet since his government’s first term in office in January 2001, he has been dogged by charges that he was helping to shape policies favourable to his company.

”The Shin Corp. deal is perceived as being fishy by the public, particularly since no taxes were paid after such huge earnings,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said in an interview. ”It reeks of double standards, because all Thais are being compelled to pay more taxes now and tax collection has become more stringent.”

The political uncertainty Thaksin faces has a precedent. In November last year, following public anger at charges of corruption, concerns about an insurgency in the country’s south spiralling out of control and accusations of media censorship, rumours spread of an impending coup.

Such talk was not out of character in a country that has witnessed 17 military coups since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. But Thaksin, whose Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) party holds 376 seats in the 500-member parliament, won the day.

And just as they said in November last year, this time, too, there are some academics who argue that Thai democracy would be the worse off if the government is deposed through extra-parliamentary means. ”This government was elected through a legitimate process and it is harmful to replace it with one that is not elected,” Giles Unpakorn of Chulalongkorn University told IPS.

Besides, there are other elements that may come to Thaksin’s rescue. Most noticeably, the widespread support he enjoys with the country’s rural poor, where the majority of Thailand’s 64 million people live.

”In the provinces they feel it is important to have close contact with the prime minister,” Bantorn Ondam, an advisor to Assembly of the Poor, Thailand’s largest grassroots network, told IPS. ”They still pin their hopes on him because he has promised them a lot.”