Thread: Divided Thailand seeks elusive 'normalcy'

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

In Thailand the only papers, radio and TV organizations are those that supported the party that had power?

plenty of both sides of the divide unfortunately we are restricted to the English language press .

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

Is there any source that is impartial?

doubtful , anywhere in the world .

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

When was the last time the Dems won an election?

long long time ago .

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

Is there any source that is impartial?

Certainly none within Thailand. Some individual commentaries and commentators are at least balanced, or make a specific point well, but you read a lot of repetitive and biased crap before you come across one.

Mid, I asked before why such a divide in the country north and south. Surely the poor are not only in the North? Why is the south so dominated with Dem support? can you or any other reader point me in direction to find understanding.

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

Why is the south so dominated with Dem support?

Because Suthep is a dem , in name anyway

Suthep Thaugsuban - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

you also have the problem of religion .............................

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

..MKP here it goes..

Famous threads I would of thought

Tom Sawyer and Sabang, you both have a good take on the situation.

More sense than the majority.

Originally Posted by Mid

Originally Posted by Sailing into trouble

Why is the south so dominated with Dem support?

Because Suthep is a dem , in name anyway

Suthep Thaugsuban - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

you also have the problem of religion .............................

Goes deeper than that. The 20 million Issarn people were originally Laos till around 100 years ago the French and the British divided up the place and gave the shitty land of Issarn and its poor people to Thailand. The land wasn't much of a bonus to Thailands ruling class, but all those poverty stricken peasants certainly were and still are today. They are the people who do all the low paid dirty jobs. They are the maids and prostitutes who serve the wealthy. Issarn people are easily distinguishable as a separate ethnic sub class to all Thais even today. Darker skin than the ruling class Chinese Thais and original central ethnic Thais. Different language dialect. Different food and other ethnic culture. Even today to call someone a "Lao-Thai" is akin to what it was like calling someone a "nigger" back in the 1960s in USA.

Thaksin realized the voting potential of this disadvantaged ethnic group under a democratic system and began to play to them with medical care and economic assistance as a means of gaining political power. And as Issarn represented almost one third of the Thai population he was very successful in doing so.
Unfortunately for the mainly Thai-Chinese ruling class they saw this rise in the political power of the formerly powerless Issarn peasants as a threat to their economic, political and social dominance. Such was the reason Thaksin was removed in a coup by the military which is an arm of the Chinese -Thai ruling class and the ongoing struggle between the two ethnic/political factions.

The problems in the South go back to the imperial British masters of a century ago also. The Brits carved off a chunk of Malaysia and gave it to Thailand. Only trouble was that the people who lived on that land were ethnically Malaysian and Muslim rather than Buddhist like the Thais who now ruled over them. And the trouble there has been going on ever since.

Hope this clears up things a bit. Its obviously a lot more complex than that. But thats the guts of it in a nutshell.

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

It is a sad irony for the Dem's, that with such an apparently biased media, controlled and cajoled, that they still failed to firstly, get their message across unhindered and secondly, that they couldn't stop Pheu Thai. One wonders just how such a thing occurred. I mean, we were all told just how bad it was. How did the normal people of Thailand manage to make a choice, when the information they had access to was so censored and biased. It is truly a great achievement.

Just imagine what the vote would have been if the media was not restrained and corrupted by Abhisits hit men.

An extremely resounding victory for democracy over tyranny in any case.

The people have spoken and their wishes are clear. Abhisit and his military thugs should hang their heads in shame. Instead they scurry away into the shadows like beaten dogs, ready to attack the populace once again when they can seize the opportunity.

Originally Posted by Panda

Just imagine what the vote would have been if the media was not restrained and corrupted by Abhisits hit men.

Not forgetting "hiring" peoples ID cards for a short while so they couldn't vote, burning ballot papers and f*ck only knows what happened in Bangkok?

The moral of the story....every little helps...only in this case it wasn't possible as Abhishit and his masters needed nothing short of a miracle!

Originally Posted by SteveCM

People can pick their own favourite reasons for why the Dems got thrashed. One of mine has been the major rise in the cost of living for all Thai

Could it be they got thrashed at the polls (despite corruptring the votes in the provinces where they are strong) because they simply shouldn't have been in a position of government in the first place and they would have got thrashed under any circumstances?

Originally Posted by SteveCM

One of mine has been the major rise in the cost of living for all Thai - without (for most) anything like a balancing rise in their income. Thai don't need to read or hear about that to know it - they see it every time they go to the market or store. For those on average incomes, it hits hard - and memorably.

it's a fact, but something Abhisit couldn't control

I doubt the new team will do better, if they want to stop inflation, it will have to come at the cost of growth and unemployment

not something to look forward to,

Originally Posted by The Bold Rodney

Originally Posted by SteveCM

People can pick their own favourite reasons for why the Dems got thrashed. One of mine has been the major rise in the cost of living for all Thai

Could it be they got thrashed at the polls (despite corruptring the votes in the provinces where they are strong) because they simply shouldn't have been in a position of government in the first place and they would have got thrashed under any circumstances?

That's part of my thinking - but I put it last for a reason. Whether it would have been enough without the earlier (IMO more important) issues I listed, I don't know - nor does anyone else at this point, I suspect. It would be interesting to see some good research done (i.e. not by ABAC and their ilk) on what the key factors for most were. And yes, before someone squawks about it, I am well aware that sizable numbers simply voted according to what the local boss ordained.

Originally Posted by SteveCM

And yes, before someone squawks about it, I am well aware that sizable numbers simply voted according to what the local boss ordained

If you speak to Thai politicians their understanding of their system is that vote buying is traditional and that the elected politicians are entitled to re-coup their initial expenditure later.

I read the arrogant posts of some supercillious pricks here criticising uneducated Thais (present company excluded ) when they are just as ignorant for different reasons. They don't understand the system or the reasons for why they rely on the heads to advise them how to vote.

(By the way..what's not considered "tradition" is hiring voters ID cards so they can't vote on the day or burning ballot papers because the boxes were supposedly full.)

It's laughable to read what some posters profess to know about or what they think they know about the system here. Of course they qualify that imaginary knowledge by bragging about how long they've lived here. But cruising farang bars, f*cking short timers or spending all day in a hot wooden hut doesn't mean they've gained a good knowledge of the Thai political system, nor does reading the BP or that comic TN!

Many farangs simply don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that Thai democracy doesn't mirror or translate to a Western democracy and probably never will.

Saying that it does have certain things in common with the USA justice and electoral systems... namely money!

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

How did the normal people of Thailand manage to make a choice, when the information they had access to was so censored and biased. It is truly a great achievement.

The more the reds were forced off the air and or were thown in jail the greater the resentment against Mark's Democrats become. The Dems started on a hiding to nothing as they were never liked by the North or North East voters.
As much as you hate Jatuporn there will be hell to pay if he is denied his party list position in the next government by the corrupt judicial system.

Originally Posted by DroversDog

The Dems started on a hiding to nothing as they were never liked by the North or North East voters.

That's a given. Dems were never going to make gains there - all they could do was try to hold on and limit losses. Just as the South was a given in reverse (though I did think they'd do worse in the Deep South).

It's what happened elsewhere (particularly Central) that's more striking - take a look at this:

Originally Posted by Bkk Pundit

....
4c. It is the Central Region, that is the big reason why the Democrats did so badly and Puea Thai so well. A 2 seat gap in 2007 has become a 16 seat gap now. Palangchon took 6 out of the 8 seats in Chonburi – Dems and PT shared the other 2 seats. Whereas back in 2007, the Democrats won all 8 seats.
Puea Thai even picked up one seat from Banharn’s stronghold of Suphan Buri (constituency No. 5).
...
4e. In Bangkok, compared with exit polls or previous polls, the Democrats will be happy with 23-10 although they did worse than in 2007. Looking at the party vote though, Puea Thai are only 50,000 votes behind the Democrats (1,143,533 to 1,090,392) for all of Bangkok and a number of constituencies, the results are quite close.

5. The Democrat’s campaign of going negative has helped them keep Bangkok, but BP think it has hurt them elsewhere. In the end, it it wasn’t all about Bangkok (in the sense that the result didn’t rest on Bangkok), but on the other hand given the Democrats had to focus so much on Bangkok it was all about Bangkok because their campaigning in Bangkok and the negative nature of their campaign + message to keep Bangkok helped Puea Thai (together with Puea Thai’s reconciliatory tone and Yingluck not responding to Abhisit) win a majority.

The last para supports what you're saying about hardening existing resentment against Abhisit (mainly North/NorthEast) - but it also suggests that while Abhisit's calculated reminder of last year's events may have held on to most of BKK it actually cost Dems a lot of soft support/undecideds elsewhere. Also, if many of the BKK results are that close, the Dem hold is actually quite precarious. No wonder Suthep is getting so antsy about the Dems' future - https://teakdoor.com/thailand-and-asi...ml#post1806717 (Yingluck Cabinet - 'No reds in new Cabinet') At this rate, they'll be a "South" regional party before long.

A Thai Spring? | PEOPLEUNLIKEUS

A Thai Spring?

July 6, 2011
Thitinan Pongsudhirak

BANGKOK – The thunderous results of Thailand’s general election on July 3 will seem familiar to anyone attuned to the political upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa. Entrenched incumbent regimes everywhere are under severe stress from advances in information technology, shifts in demographics, rising expectations, and the obsolescence of Cold War exigencies. In the absence of a willingness and ability to use violent repression, regime survival can be achieved only through concessions, accommodation, and periodic reinvention.

With 47 million voters and turnout at 75%, Thailand’s latest election results pose a decisive challenge to the country’s long-established regime. The Pheu Thai party, led by Yingluck Shinawatra, the youngest sister of exiled fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, secured a resounding triumph, winning 265 seats in the 500-member assembly, while the ruling Democrat Party mustered just 159.

The return to power of Pheu Thai is extraordinary – and not only because Yingluck will be Thailand’s first female prime minister. The establishment-aligned courts dissolved the party’s two previous governments, and banned scores of its leading politicians from office for five years.

Pheu Thai’s victory thus suggests that a previously marginalized electorate has been permanently awakened. A similar majority of the Thai electorate voted for Thaksin’s parties and their pro-poor populist platforms in January 2001, February 2005, April 2006, and December 2007, defying a military coup, a coup-induced constitution, judicial interventions, and army coercion and repression.

The recent election marked a profound break from the past. In the second half of the twentieth century, Thai elections seemed to alternate with military coups. Voters were bought and sold like commodities. After elections, voters hardly ever saw or heard from their MPs, who typically went on to engage in corruption and graft in Bangkok – eventually losing legitimacy and paving the way for military coups. A new constitution and elections invariably ensued. This vicious cycle of coups, constitutions, and elections defined Thai politics for decades.

That pattern reflected Cold War imperatives. The pillars of the Thai state – nation, religion, and <snip> – struck a unifying, collective chord, and the resulting stability enabled economic development. While growth was so concentrated that popular resentment simmered, communism was kept at bay. Challenges to the established order, with the military-monarchy-bureaucracy triumvirate as its anchor, were repeatedly put down.

Back then, Thai schoolchildren sang martial songs each morning, and Thais knew their place in the rigidly elitist pecking order, which was reinforced by socialization and indoctrination in classrooms and living rooms, where only state-controlled media could enter. Thais were more like obedient subjects than informed citizens. Dissenting views found little traction.

The rise of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party in 2001 changed all that. The party pursued a scientific approach to elections, relied on expensive polling by foreign experts, and offered a clear agenda and strong leadership. It was the first post-Cold War party to capture Thais’ collective imagination. The voices of neglected swaths of the electorate, particularly in the rural north and northeast of the country, began to count. Vote-buying became increasingly insufficient. A bond between party and voters – a bond based on policy – took root.

By 2001, the Cold War was long over. Political leaders who dissented from the status quo could no longer easily be jailed on communism-related charges. The advent of the Internet had made it harder for the authorities to shape Thai minds, as media sources multiplied and the resulting diffusion of information undermined the effectiveness of state propaganda. Moreover, new international norms had come to the fore: external powers that previously turned a blind eye to coups, military dictatorships, and repression now rallied around democracy and human rights.

Thailand’s demographics also changed. The Cold War curriculum of induced unity and stability has no relevance for today’s schoolchildren; indeed, most university students nowadays were born after the Cold War ended.

These factors fostered a new political environment, and Thaksin, who was a telecommunications tycoon at the time, was well positioned to seize the opportunity. He overhauled the bureaucracy, delivered on his promises to the poor, mapped out an industrial strategy, and re-designed an overstretched foreign policy agenda, among other innovative measures.

Of course, Thaksin’s rule had a dark underside: corruption, legislated conflicts of interest, cronyism, human rights violations, and abuse of power, among other evidence of misrule.

Such is Thaksin’s mixed legacy. The opportunities, hopes, and dreams delivered to the downtrodden and the vision and plans for Thailand’s future were enmeshed with his own venality. But, while Thaksin committed many infractions, his gravest “sin” was to have changed the way Thais think and behave. Some see this change as usurpation; others view it as Thailand’s deliverance into the twenty-first century.

Thaksin’s adversaries in Thailand’s entrenched regime were unwilling to accede to his policy innovations and populism. For them, doing so would be tantamount to admitting that most people in this hospitable, well-endowed kingdom had been kept poor by design all along.

For his part, Thaksin has sought to portray the recent election results as being all about him. But he is best viewed as a self-serving, unwitting agent of political modernization. It is these twenty-first-century dynamics and changes, underpinned by an increasingly assertive citizenry, with which the Thai establishment must come to terms if the country is to move forward.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

^
I'm really not into "says it all" and such stuff, but I will suggest that this piece is as good and balanced a summary of how things are - and why - as you're likely to squeeze on to one sheet of A4.

Originally Posted by SteveCM

nation, religion, and – <snip>

Is that a new national slogan?

Please let's have sensible forum rules.

Originally Posted by SteveCM

For his part, Thaksin has sought to portray the recent election results as being all about him. But he is best viewed as a self-serving, unwitting agent of political modernization. It is these twenty-first-century dynamics and changes, underpinned by an increasingly assertive citizenry, with which the Thai establishment must come to terms if the country is to move forward.

Another excellent piece by Thitinan. One of the few truly remarkable academics (along with Pasuk) in this Kingdom.

Originally Posted by SteveCM

Thaksin’s adversaries in Thailand’s entrenched regime were unwilling to accede to his policy innovations and populism. For them, doing so would be tantamount to admitting that most people in this hospitable, well-endowed kingdom had been kept poor by design all along.

I'd say overall a pretty good present and past summary of thing's here in the land of smiles, it misses a out few things (for obvious reasons) but..."kept poor by design" the realisation of truth often hurts.

Thaksin’s Dreams Can End Thai Democracy - Council on Foreign Relations

Thaksin’s Dreams Can End Thai Democracy

Author: Joshua Kurlantzick, Fellow for Southeast Asia

Financial Times

Only a decade ago, Thailand was one of Asia's strongest democracies. Today, that democracy has fallen off a cliff, a worrying trend, which despite the optimism of the Arab spring, is increasingly being seen elsewhere in the developing world too. Now, with the election of the Puea Thai party, led by Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand risks losing a last chance to put its wobbly democracy back on track.

Thailand's democratic fall is relatively recent. Reformers took control after the failed military interventions of the early 1990s, passing a progressive constitution in 1997, and holding free elections.

“Thailand's freedom, openness, strength, and relative prosperity make it a role model,” US assistant secretary of state James Kelly declared in 2002. Growing divides between the middle and upper classes and the poor, however, gradually polarised Thai society, leading to turmoil, and a bloody crackdown in Bangkok last year that killed at least 90 people.

Mr Thaksin was at the heart of these tensions. First elected in 2001, he proved a revelation. For the first time here was a Thai politician who appealed to the poor – who, as in many developing countries, comprise the majority of the electorate. Politically engaged for the first time, they turned out in droves. Yet as he won mandate after mandate, Mr Thaksin – like other elected autocrats such as Vladimir Putin or Hugo Chavez – began to undermine the rule of law, enacting policies that favoured his family businesses, alarming Thailand's middle class and elites, the military and royal family.

The result saw a familiar pattern from angry middle class revolts from Venezuela to the Philippines, in which these groups disdained elections and fought back in the streets, toppling Mr Thaksin in a coup in 2006. Yet, now believing that their votes mattered, Thailand's poor were also unwilling to give way, leading to frequent battles with security forces. Now, in this election, they, and Ms Yingluck, have handed the establishment one of their worst defeats. Now Thailand's first female prime minister has a chance to put its democracy back together. Despite her surname, she may win acceptance on all sides, simply by not being her brother. Unlike him, she seems to understand the need for compromise, including a vow not to prosecute army officers for last year's bloodshed. But if she fails to take this chance, her country could again descend into civil conflict – foreshadowing similar implosions in other failing democracies worldwide.

Here the early signs have been mixed. In the days after the election, all sides called for calm. Rather than govern alone, Ms Yingluck chose to bring others into a coalition. Her primary mission, she told reporters, was “to lead the country to unity and reconciliation.” In response, Thailand's army chief, an arch-conservative traditionalist, has said the military will not interfere with her government.

But this detente is unlikely to last. Though Ms Yingluck has avoided discussing the topic, many in her party, who worship her brother, want him back. Puea Thai promised an amnesty during the campaign, and the Thai press reported on Tuesday that these plans were now being developed. Though he claims to want to retire, Mr Thaksin, an incorrigible politician never happier than in front of a crowd, has no intention of stepping back from the limelight. Even so, as by far the most divisive figure in the country, his return could spark major street protests by the middle class and elites, just the kind of unrest that could provide a rationale for military intervention to restore order.

In the longer run, both Thailand's urban middle classes and its poor must accept the need for painful change. The poor, and their allies in Ms Yingluck's party, must accept that they have to protect private property rights and the rule of law and also that they must not let Mr Thaksin back into Thailand, no matter how much they love him.

The middle classes, including their allies in the army and the royal palace, need to accept that if Thailand is to be a democracy, the will of the voters must triumph. Hardest of all, Mr Thaksin must accept that he really does have to retire, if he wants his country to flourish and his positive legacies – including political empowerment and poverty reduction – to stand the test of time. But if he and his sister insist on a comeback, he may yet have to take responsibility for the final fiery death of a once-promising democratic nation.

Joshua Kurlantzick is Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations