Thread: Thai elections 2011-Thai PM sets stage for tough election

Thai election makes history but can winners keep promises? - CNN.com

Thai election makes history but can winners keep promises?

By Sara Sidner, CNN
July 4, 2011 -- Updated 0413 GMT (1213 HKT)


Thailand picks first female PM

Bangkok (CNN) -- A roaring cheer went up the moment Yingluck Shinawatra walked out the front door of her Pheu Thai party's election headquarters.

In Thailand's fourth election in seven years, voters made a historic decision on July 3: for the very first time the country will be headed by a female prime minister.

Yingluck's party took a slim majority of the parliamentary seats needed to make her head of the government. Yingluck Shinawatra set to be Thailand's first female premier

"The first thing I want to do is help people on their economic situation," Yingluck said, refusing to declare victory until the official count was over.


Her main and biggest rival, incumbent Abhisit Vejjajiva, had conceded defeat minutes before she spoke.

Yingluck's headquarters was teeming with journalists on the inside, with most of her supporters celebrating on the outside.

Yingluck is the younger sister of one of Thailand's most polarizing political figures -- former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra -- who was ousted in a 2006 military coup.

Two years later he fled the country after being convicted on conflict of interest charges -- charges he still denies. Thailand politics timeline 2001-2011

Flags with his image waved in the sticky night air at the car port entrance outside the Pheu Thai headquarters. A child wearing a shirt with his sister Yingluck's picture on it walked right past trying to get closer to the celebrations.

Yingluck's critics worry she will simply do her brother's bidding, something she has denied.

But before she even gave her victory speech, her brother had shared his thoughts from exile in Dubai.

"Well, I would tell them that I really want to go back, but I will wait for the right moment and the right situation," Thaksin told the assembled cameras.

The Pheu Thai party is still fiercely behind Thaksin and want him back, though Yingluk for her part has been slightly more circumspect on the issue.

"I can't do anything special for my brother... we will follow the rule of law," she told CNN a few days earlier.

But the average voter in Thailand isn't so caught up with all of this. The main thing they want is for their leaders to shrink the gap between what they earn and the sky-rocketing cost of living.

"Free education is good, care for elderly is also good. In fact every party's policies are all good, the question is if they would ever implement them," Banorn Achriyawatkul, a food vendor, said as she worked outside a polling station selling snacks that smelled heavenly.

She has four children and has suffered being laid off as a secretary. She is now working as a food vendor in the streets and trying to make ends meet.

Despite the animosity between the two major parties, they have made very similar promises to the people: an overall better economy, free education, and a major increase in the minimum wage -- exactly what many voters want to hear.

But analysts say the extravagant programs will cost more than Thailand can afford.

Supong Limtanakool, of Bangkok University's Center for Strategic Studies, said both parties made big promises they just can't keep.

"It will be something that we have to spend somewhere between an additional 1.5 trillion baht to 7.5 trillion baht [US$49 billion to US$2.46 trillion] with all the extravagant programs, which is five-times the national budget.

"I mean we'll be broke in one year."

Originally Posted by robuzo

Hmm, I wonder if the enormous number of "spoiled" votes could have anything to do with the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final tally. Have to do some arithmetic.

I was watching the Thai TV late last night as they flashed constituency-by-constituency (showing the vote numbers but also the number of spoiled ballots), and from the ones I saw (many) - although the spoiled ballots were high in number they weren't enough in any that I saw to have altered the outcome.

Having said that, maybe somebody will take a close look at the tight/marginal/swing seats. I'm not sure how it would work on the Party List numbers.

Originally Posted by robuzo

^So (ignoring Flufferboy), the spoiled votes appeared pretty evenly distributed nationwide?

The spoiled ballots in the current election were about 5% (averaging between party list and constituency), for comparison here are the spoiled vote counts for the 3 previous elections. Looking at the numbers I don't see anything suspicious in the number of spoiled ballots in this election.


2005
Invalid votes (total) 1,293,107 04.0%

2006
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SEATS
Invalid votes 1,680,101 05.8%

CONSTITUENCY SEATS
Invalid votes 3,778,981 13.0%

2007
Invalid votes (total) 3,157,531 08.8%

From Psephos - Adam Carr's Election Archive

^^
I think the panel membership is likely to change - some will plead they've been involved long enough and want/need to do other things. The more likely real reason will be that it's one thing to sit on a panel that everyone knew was going to get nowhere - and quite another to sit on one this late in the day that's likely to be given some teeth (subpoena powers, for example). Given where a properly-run inquiry is likely to lead, few of them would want to be in that hot seat with that hot potato.....

That said, I still don't see anything substantial happening anytime soon. Plenty of excuses for delays before getting properly re-started: review "progress" to date, select new members, bring them up to speed, prepare revised guidelines etc etc.....Not difficult to spin that out till the end of the year and see how things look by then.

Thaksin

Thaksin’s Sister Seeks Broader Mandate

By SIMON ROUGHNEEN
Monday, July 4, 2011


Phue Thai party's Yingluck Shinawatra gives Thai traditional "wai" greeting after a press conference at the party headquarters in Bangkok. (Photo: AP)

BANGKOK - Attempting to widen her incoming government's appeal, Thailand's Prime Minister-elect Yingluck Shinawatra today announced a five-party coalition that will control 299 out of 500 seats in the next Thai Parliament.

Her Puea Thai party won 265 seats in Sunday's election, enough to govern alone with a narrow majority. However, it appears that Puea Thai is seeking a broader mandate for Yingluck's incoming administration, perhaps seeking to diminish the perception that her government will be overly-influenced by controversial former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, her elder brother.

“I call for unity and reconciliation,” she said at a Monday afternoon press conference where the new coalition leaders sat side-by-side. The minority coalition partners are: Chartthaipattana with 19 seats, Chart Thai Pattana/Puea Pandin and Palang Chon with seven each, plus Mahachon with one seat.

The five party leaders pledged to work together, amid concerns regarding how factions in Thailand's divided society will react to Puea Thai's win in Sunday's election, which sees the youngest sister of former PM Thaksin assume the nation's top job less than two months after formally entering politics.

Speaking by telephone from Ubon Ratchathani—where Puea Thai won seven out of 11 available seats—Dr. Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at Ubon Ratchathani University, said, “People here are very pleased but are still waiting to see what will happen. They do not have trust, due to things that happened in the past.”

Thai Rak Thai (TRT), a predecessor party to Puea Thai, won elections in 2001 and 2005 before being removed from office in a September 2006 coup—the 18th actual or attempted military takeover since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

Thaksin's rule was anathema to the country's “establishment,” an informal coalition of military, aristocracy and Bangkok elites, some of whom in turn saw an existential threat to the country's <redacted>. Thailand is regularly beset by coup rumors and prior to Sunday's election, army chief Gen Chayuth Pran-ocha urged Thai voters to choose “good people,” which was taken to mean the incumbent Democrats and their allies.

Whether or not there are protests or military intervention against Puea Thai could depend on decisions taken outside Thailand. Reacting to his sister's win from Dubai, where he spends most of his self-imposed exile from graft charges relating to abuse of power while in Government, Thaksin ruled out any imminent return to his homeland by saying, “it is not a major priority”. However, he previously said that he would like to attend is daughter's wedding in December, a potential medium-term flashpoint in Thailand's political calendar.

Prior to the weekend's election, Somsak Kosailuk, a trade unionist and head of the New Politics Party, a breakaway faction from the Yellowshirt movement that helped oust Thaksin and his successors from office in 2006 and 2008, said that Thaksin's return to Thailand would spark protests.

However, with the Yellowshirt movement now splintered and lacking in public support, it remains to be seen whether Thaksin's return would have a galvanizing effect. Speaking yesterday at the Sawasdee School polling center where now-former PM Abhisit Vejajjiva voted, 34-year-old businesswoman Analin Buranisira said, “If Peau Thai wins, I will accept the result, but if they bring Thaksin back by illegal means, I might protest.”

In the near future, however, it seems unlikely that the country's politically-assertive military will intervene. Andrew Walker, a Thailand specialist the Australian National University, said, “the army will find it very difficult to act openly against Yingluck's government. She has a strong and unambiguous electoral mandate and her strong victory shows that the coup of 2006 has achieved nothing.”

For the sake of calm, some Puea Thai supporters prefer that Thaksin does not return, as it may bode ill for the country's stability. Natthika Srisoottipong, 21, an accounting student at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said that she voted for Puea Thai but added that “Thaksin should not come back, it could cause war.”

However, Thaksin retains fierce backing in the Puea Thai heartland in the country's north and northeast, which is the stronghold of the Redshirt protest movement that camped out in two separate landmark locations in central Bangkok last year. On-off street fighting, as well as unexplained bombings and shootings, left more than 90 people dead and almost 2,000 injured.

Addressing the legacy of this violence will be another challenge for the Puea Thai-led administration.

Today, announcing the new coalition line-up, PM-elect Yingluck pledged to allow the reconciliation bodies established by her predecessor Abhisit to complete their work.

Conceding defeat on Sunday evening, Abhisit congratulated Puea Thai on its victory, before resigning as leader of the now-opposition Democrat Party, which has pledged to be a “constructive opposition.”

"I've decided to resign because I could not lead my party to victory in the election," he said.

Abhisit came to power in late 2008 after Yellowshirt protestors occupied Thailand's Government House and Bangkok's international airports. Puea Thai and the Redshirts alleged that the Thai military strong-armed erstwhile coalition partners of the People's Power Party (PPP), the Thaksin-backed successor party to TRT and winner of Thailand's 2007 election, into defecting to Democrat Party side and enabling Abhisit to form a government.

To some, the means by which Abhisit came to power proved to be his ultimate undoing, when put to the Thai electorate. According to Andrew Walker, Sunday's election demonstrated that “a great many people in Thailand simply did not accept the legitimacy of the way his government was formed with the help of the Yellowshirts, judiciary and military.”

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Thai Military Accepts Sweeping Election Win

By TODD PITMAN / AP WRITER

BANGKOK — Thailand's military eased concerns of renewed turmoil Monday by accepting the sweeping electoral win of toppled ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra's party, while his sister vowed to reconcile the deeply divided nation as its first female prime minister.

Defense Minister Gen. Prawit Wongsuwon said the army would accept a government led by Thaksin's sister, 44-year-old Yingluck Shinawatra, and vowed the military would not stage a coup.

"I've said this several times," Prawit was quoted as saying by several Thai newspapers Monday. "We are not going to intervene."

Meanwhile Yingluck told reporters that the first mission of her administration would be: "how to lead the country to unity and reconciliation."

"I myself, and Pheu Thai, are determined to serve the nation," Yingluck said, adding that her government would boost transparency and fight corruption.

Thaksin, her billionaire brother, was convicted of graft and lives in exile in Dubai to escape a two-year-prison sentence. Thaksin says the charges are politically motivated.

Speaking in Dubai on Monday, Thaksin hailed the electoral result.

"The Thai people spoke. They told the world, the whole country ... (that) the last five years, the country has gone nowhere."

"It's very clear," he said of those who cast ballots, "that they want to see reconciliation in the country, the end of the conflict ... it will be a big challenge for Pheu Thai."

Thaksin said he would stay in Dubai for the time being "doing business," and if his sister's party needs advice, he will give it. "If they don't need, I don’t have to worry. The Thai people will be in good hands."

Asked about his return to politics, Thaksin said, "I may be too old ... I really want to retire."

Thaksin and his proxies have won the country's last four elections. By contrast, the Democrat party — backed by big business, the military and circles around the royal palace — has not won a popular vote since 1992.

Thailand's democratic process has been repeatedly thwarted over the years, with 18 successful or attempted military coups since the 1930s.

Thaksin's overthrow was followed by controversial court rulings which removed two of the pro-Thaksin premiers who came after — one of whom won a 2007 vote intended to restore democracy in the nation of 66 million people.

Those events took place amid anti-Thaksin "Yellow Shirt" protests in which demonstrators overran the prime minister's office and shut both of Bangkok's international airports in 2008.

When Abhisit built a ruling coalition with the parties that remained in Parliament after the court rulings and what critics called the coerced defections of some lawmakers to his camp, pro-Thaksin "Red Shirts," composed largely of the rural poor, took to the streets in protest.

They overran a regional summit in 2009 and paralyzed Bangkok's wealthiest district for two months last year. Clashes that culminated in an army crackdown killed some 90 people and wounded around 1,800, mostly protesters.