Bangkok Post : Down but not out

BOOK REVIEW

Despite official opposition, Thaksin Shinawatra still dominates Thailand's political landscape, inspiring anxiety, hostility and admiration in a chronically divided country. Three years after his ousting by military coup, the former prime minister is still in everyone's face.

Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit

In their first well-received volume on Thaksin (Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand) the veteran academic political sleuths Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker skilfully charted Thaksin's economic and political rise up to 2004. The new edition of their book, now simply named Thaksin, adds more chapters to chronicle the controversial leader's fall from grace and the political fallout that has followed. It is a tall order to cover nearly four-and-a-half years of rapidly evolving events and often labyrinthine politics in less than 150 extra pages, but the writers have met the challenge with their characteristic lean and punchy prose, taking us up to the dramatic days of April 2009, when Thaksin's red-shirted supporters challenged the Abhisit Vejjajiva government's authority in the streets of Bangkok.

Not surprisingly, the trajectory of the original Thaksin book has been changed by the force of events that preceded and followed the coup of 2006. Their first book (which ends on page 224 of this new edition as Part I) is framed around Thaksin's infamous statement that running a country was like "running a business". It charts the story of a Sino-Thai capitalist made by Thailand's economic boom who translated his ambitions into political success and transformed politics in the process. Thaksin gained power by electoral mandate on the back of a new party that took advantage of the provisions of the 1997 constitution. He offered salvation from Thailand's malaise and bruised pride in the wake of the financial crisis. His governing style was marked by nepotism, bullying, frequent intolerance of criticism and the subversion of due process. Critics complained, but he got things done. The book ended on Thaksin's high point of success, in 2004 (when only the southern insurgency was really bothering him). Significantly, the conclusion to the first edition ended with the authors' reflections on the big "unknown" in Thai politics - a new role for "the people" that seemed to be ushered in by Thaksin's fashioning of the electoral process as one involving the delivery of benefits. Like most of us, the writers could not then predict the massive polarisation that would ensue among "the people", or that once in exile Thaksin, never one to talk much about democracy (except in an instrumental sense), would morph into a popular martyr for lost democracy among millions of Thais.

From ruling Thailand as a company’s CEO to advising economic affair of the neighbouring country, Thaksin Shinawatra’s political career is second to none.

Thaksin's power and legitimacy, though apparently boosted by the gains of the 2005 election, began to wane by the end of that year. The story now becomes much more complicated than capitalism and the political process. Through 2005, claims of systematic corruption were fused with increasing rumours of Thaksin's disrespect for the monarchy among opponents in high places. Emboldened, the press swung against him. Thaksin's plummeting popularity among the middle classes after his sale of Shincorp shares to the Singapore-controlled Temasek company in early 2006 marked his fatal fall from grace: from hero to traitorous "seller of the country". The middle classes, a former base for his symbolic legitimacy as a moderniser and globaliser, became his greatest enemy, spearheaded by the People's Alliance for Democracy and its media vehicle, Sondhi Limthongkul's ASTV. In response to increasing opposition, Pasuk and Baker argue that Thaksin introduced a more thoroughgoing populism in his road shows and policies to shore up support in rural areas.

Thaksin's political hubris is one theme of the new second part of the book, but the story becomes complicated by the military coup and upsurge in royalist conservatism mobilised to destroy Thaksin and his party. Pasuk and Baker take us through the drama of the first military-led attempt at exorcising Thaksin's influence and networks from the body politic, which began with the coup of September 2006 and ran through to the national election in late 2007. The coup was a success for the army in more ways than one. Led by General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, who paved the way for the coup by sidelining Thaksin's Class 10 military supporters, the army reclaimed a political role not seen since before 1992. Just as importantly, it gained control of a massive budget, reversing a decade-long trend of decline. Empowered by the pronouncements of the Council for National Security, with a role consolidated by a new National Security Act, the army made a comprehensive effort to undermine Thaksin's electoral networks in the name of "security" in the lead-up to the 2007 election. However, the army failed to suppress support for Thai Rak Thai, reinvented as the People Power Party following TRT's judicial dissolution in mid-2007.

The courts and independent agencies (such as the Election Commission), formerly shaky institutions swayed by Thaksin's influence (mainly through senate appointments), had since 2006 begun to be purged to strengthen institutional defences against Thaksin's support networks. Their power was consolidated by the coup-maker's interim constitution and then the new constitution, narrowly endorsed by referendum in late 2007. The CNS established an Assets Examination Committee to investigate Thaksin and his family's financial dealings and transactions, eventually leading to Thaksin's criminal prosecution in 2008. In mid-2007 final judgements were brought down in cases against TRT and the Democrat Party for electoral fraud, where the latter was exonerated but TRT disbanded. In mid-2008, the successful case brought against Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej for hosting several TV cooking shows was a glaring example of judicial pedantry and power, and the rapid dissolution of the PPP shortly after the PAD's airport blockades in December 2008 demonstrated the unprecedentedly powerful role of the courts in engineering change in government.

THAKSIN (second edition, expanded) Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker Silkworm, 424 pp, 695 baht ISBN 978-9749511794

Pasuk and Baker document how the military failed conspicuously to engineer an election victory by anti-Thaksin parties in late 2007. TRT's successor party came to power and proceeded to move to dismantle the new constitution as a prelude for some sort of Thaksin return. With another military coup being out of the question, it now fell to extra-parliamentary forces and the judiciary to attempt a second political exorcism. The military stood aside for Sondhi Limthongkul and the PAD, and matters took their course, ending with the final demise of the Somchai government in December 2008 following a combination of illegal (but tolerated) crowd action and judicial efforts. Following the PPP's dissolution, the remaining parties in parliament brokered a coalition government with the Democrats at their head, joined by an improbable ally, Thaksin's former point man Newin Chidchob.

As this drama unfolded, Thaksin continued to engage in Thailand's politics, despite earlier statements that he would retire quietly. His prosecution by the courts and the freezing of his assets was entirely politically motivated, he claimed. He happily allowed himself to become de facto symbolic head of the red shirts as the movement gained momentum against the PAD yellow shirts in late 2008. How do we explain Thaksin's increasing self-projection as a champion of "democracy" and balance this against his clear self-interest in trying to regain his frozen assets? Pasuk and Baker link Thaksin's increasing stridency in condemning Thailand's traditional ruling elite (amart) to his looming assets case. The coordination between the red-shirt leadership and Thaksin in choreographing the large rallies in Bangkok from March 26 is not explained clearly by the writers, who focus more on Thaksin's rhetoric and recorded statements. They view the debacle that exploded into "Bloody Songkran" as ultimately a result of Thaksin's "dramatic roll of the dice" in confronting Thai authorities about his future, suggesting that "Thaksin may have been angling for a deal, but he sparked an uprising." But though they judge Thaksin as ultimately unprincipled and self-serving, the writers also stress that a movement was under way among ordinary (largely rural or working class) people for the return of full electoral democracy against the guided and supervised democracy being championed by the middle-class PAD and the military. Those of us who attended the red-shirt rallies can confirm this. Though the red-shirt "uprising" was crushed, this did not reduce their rage at a government and power structure they viewed as illegitimate.

Pasuk and Baker's Thaksin combines a rollicking storyline with some acute analysis of events and trends. It is not comprehensive in its treatment and details (particularly the March to April 2009 events), but it doesn't pretend to be. Given the pace of political events in Thailand over the past year, it had to be written on the run to keep up. Two key points stand out in the author's argument. First: Thaksin's political career and predicament have been the result of his confusion between wealth and politics (pp 352-57); and further: "As a man of no real principle, ethical or political, he has reflected the forces swirling around him." Just as important in chronicling Thaksin's rise and decline, the authors also show how the Thaksin period has unleashed forces that are now defining the nature of Thai politics and revealing more clearly than ever the conflicts that drive it and the forces resisting change - a middle class demanding that it be given the power to define and supervise the country's politics which it deems as long corrupted by unethical behaviour, vote-buying and patronage; a conservative elite and a military establishment ever sensitive to the possibilities of the threat to order and the balance of power; and a mass electorate of ordinary people (particularly in the North and Northeast) to whom Thaksin gave a taste of political empowerment through the ballot box. The divisions symbolised by the yellow- and red-shirt movements may continue to bifurcate, but, the writers suggest, the best possibility is that they become institutionalised in parliamentary politics. But then, anything can happen in Thailand, and their conclusion, like its earlier incarnation, might need revision later. As events since April have shown, Thaksin is down, but he is certainly not yet out.

Marc Askew is senior fellow in the Anthropology Programme, University of Melbourne. Among other books on Thailand, he is author of 'Performing Political Identity: The Democrat Party in Southern Thailand'.

Relate Search: Thaksin Shinawatra, The Business of Politics in Thailand, Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chris Baker