By Frank G. Anderson
UPI Asia Online
Column: Thai Traditions
Nakhonratchasima, Thailand — Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thailand’s new prime minister, recently appeared on front-page news in the local media looking a bit rattled and flushed despite his well-known ability to remain unflustered.
A deluge of sometimes-unanswerable questions had him and his Democrat Party caught rather off guard: Have Cabinet portfolios been sold for US$2.5 million each, as alleged? What is your government going to do about the economy? Isn’t your Cabinet already divided by disappointment over portfolios not handed out to those who expected them? Despite strong objections from opposition, as you still going to keep your controversial pro-People's Alliance for Democracy party foreign minister-designate?
Abhisit, however, caught up with the questions, denying cabinet portfolio payments and explaining that everyone who was qualified for a possible cabinet post could not be given one because of the supply-demand nature of positions vs. number of candidates.
He also began Obama-like pre-assurances by promising to deal with the economy and restoring the country’s confidence and reputation. He however, received an ambivalent clarification regarding rumored connections between the Democrat Party and the People’s Alliance for Democracy, when the latter warned the young premier that he would face expulsion if he tried to sell off state agencies like former administrations had attempted.
All in all, it looks like a rocky road ahead and not much different from the one, which Barack Obama, the new U.S. president, faces. However, Obama is likely to handle the pressure. One of his staff members told this writer, in early December after the elections, when asked about Obama facing a host of tough issues, “Yes, but he is up to the task.”
Is Abhisit and Thailand, in general, up to the task ahead? Can he restore confidence and save the country from ruinous economic decline? Will he be able to smoothen relations with “friendly neighbors” like Cambodia over the Phrea Vihear dispute?
Past records of Thailand’s political parties are not promising, including those of the Democrats. The party took the reins of national leadership between 1992-95 and again from 1997-2001, each time tenaciously holding together a weak coalition - and according to most observers - was nearly as corrupt and inefficient as past coalitions. With its monarchist roots founded in 1945, some say, the Democrat Party takes the national helm near the edge of a cliff with a dark bottom. Failure, everyone says, is not an option.
New government policy directives state that in the near future, it will create a new agency and appoint a new minister to run affairs in Thailand’s three southern-most troubled provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.
The powerful 59 year-old Democrat Party Secretary General Suthep Thaungsuban and currently one of three deputy prime ministers, is slated to oversee government policies and implementation in the region. His political record was recently referenced on Sondhi Limthongkul’s Asia Satellite TV with a citation that Suthep was provided heavy financial support by Thailand’s top retailer, the King Power group, currently chaired by Vichai Raksriaksorn.
King Power has been accused of violating a contract with Thailand’s aviation officials for unapproved expansion of its retail area at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. Reacting to government orders to vacate the area, King Power in January 2008 filed a Baht 68 billion (US$2 billion) compensation claim against officials.
According to Limthongkul, a former Thaksin Shinawatra business partner turned arch-enemy, the Democrats should be given the benefit of doubt, regarding the sources of funds and promises it makes, for two or three months after which performance can be verified.
However, from the past two years of proven shaky ability of the Thai government machinery to keep a party at the top of a so-called democratic electoral process, the benefit of doubt threatens to run shorter than an abbreviated honeymoon.
The public and the country’s ruling elite are in no mood for any benefit of doubt. They want stability – economic, political, social and diplomatic. Providing long-term stability however, involves certain fundamental changes to Thai society, which includes approaches related to its high institutions that the traditional ruling elite is not willing to develop.
What is the prognosis? Let’s celebrate the holidays first and then creep into 2009 with optimistic expectations and some reservations on the ease of solving complicated issues.
At the same time, political pundits are keeping track of the aging King’s health, movement of funds in and out of the country, and uneasy anti-democracy pressures both within and outside the Kingdom.
--
(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
A deluge of sometimes-unanswerable questions had him and his Democrat Party caught rather off guard: Have Cabinet portfolios been sold for US$2.5 million each, as alleged? What is your government going to do about the economy? Isn’t your Cabinet already divided by disappointment over portfolios not handed out to those who expected them? Despite strong objections from opposition, as you still going to keep your controversial pro-People's Alliance for Democracy party foreign minister-designate?
Abhisit, however, caught up with the questions, denying cabinet portfolio payments and explaining that everyone who was qualified for a possible cabinet post could not be given one because of the supply-demand nature of positions vs. number of candidates.
He also began Obama-like pre-assurances by promising to deal with the economy and restoring the country’s confidence and reputation. He however, received an ambivalent clarification regarding rumored connections between the Democrat Party and the People’s Alliance for Democracy, when the latter warned the young premier that he would face expulsion if he tried to sell off state agencies like former administrations had attempted.
All in all, it looks like a rocky road ahead and not much different from the one, which Barack Obama, the new U.S. president, faces. However, Obama is likely to handle the pressure. One of his staff members told this writer, in early December after the elections, when asked about Obama facing a host of tough issues, “Yes, but he is up to the task.”
Is Abhisit and Thailand, in general, up to the task ahead? Can he restore confidence and save the country from ruinous economic decline? Will he be able to smoothen relations with “friendly neighbors” like Cambodia over the Phrea Vihear dispute?
Past records of Thailand’s political parties are not promising, including those of the Democrats. The party took the reins of national leadership between 1992-95 and again from 1997-2001, each time tenaciously holding together a weak coalition - and according to most observers - was nearly as corrupt and inefficient as past coalitions. With its monarchist roots founded in 1945, some say, the Democrat Party takes the national helm near the edge of a cliff with a dark bottom. Failure, everyone says, is not an option.
New government policy directives state that in the near future, it will create a new agency and appoint a new minister to run affairs in Thailand’s three southern-most troubled provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.
The powerful 59 year-old Democrat Party Secretary General Suthep Thaungsuban and currently one of three deputy prime ministers, is slated to oversee government policies and implementation in the region. His political record was recently referenced on Sondhi Limthongkul’s Asia Satellite TV with a citation that Suthep was provided heavy financial support by Thailand’s top retailer, the King Power group, currently chaired by Vichai Raksriaksorn.
King Power has been accused of violating a contract with Thailand’s aviation officials for unapproved expansion of its retail area at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. Reacting to government orders to vacate the area, King Power in January 2008 filed a Baht 68 billion (US$2 billion) compensation claim against officials.
According to Limthongkul, a former Thaksin Shinawatra business partner turned arch-enemy, the Democrats should be given the benefit of doubt, regarding the sources of funds and promises it makes, for two or three months after which performance can be verified.
However, from the past two years of proven shaky ability of the Thai government machinery to keep a party at the top of a so-called democratic electoral process, the benefit of doubt threatens to run shorter than an abbreviated honeymoon.
The public and the country’s ruling elite are in no mood for any benefit of doubt. They want stability – economic, political, social and diplomatic. Providing long-term stability however, involves certain fundamental changes to Thai society, which includes approaches related to its high institutions that the traditional ruling elite is not willing to develop.
What is the prognosis? Let’s celebrate the holidays first and then creep into 2009 with optimistic expectations and some reservations on the ease of solving complicated issues.
At the same time, political pundits are keeping track of the aging King’s health, movement of funds in and out of the country, and uneasy anti-democracy pressures both within and outside the Kingdom.
--
(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
1 comment:
Abbhisit is a PAD sympathizer or the other side of the same coin. He as well as his foreign minister always think one day Thailand will reclaim or will take by force Prasat Preah Vihear back from Cambodia. Abbhisit is supposed to be a man of law since he got his law school degree from Oxford. Does he understand the 1962 ICJ ruling and the status of limitation for reclaiming Preah Vihear has expired long ago?. May be he is just another PAD playinng dirty politics of which Cambodia is a victim.
Post a Comment