Political realignments - backing and 'baramee'

THAI POLITICS

In view of the New Politics Party's formal selection of Sondhi Limthongkul as its leader, the political party scene has now undergone its most transformative realignment since the military coup three years ago.

Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, right, and Puea Thai Party leader Yongyuth Wichadit raise hands after the general applied for party membership on Oct 2, 2009.

Manoeuvres and movements among the other leading parties, featuring the Democrat Party (DP), Bhumjaithai Party (BJT) and Puea Thai Party (PT), indicate that the ongoing shifts in party politics is attributable not just to potential polls but also to corresponding political backing behind the scenes. Such backing and the role of what is known as baramee have never been so intrusive and protrusive in Thai politics.

For the NPP, Mr Sondhi has bit the bullet by going back on his pledge soon after he founded and co-led the four-year-old People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). His previously professed role as a selfless "watchdog" of the land has now been converted to a political party leader. By acknowledging that it is unlikely to win more than a handful of seats in the eventual polls, the NPP is not touting itself as a party of the masses. Its constituents remain a narrow column whose commitment and resolve are deep.

As a result, the NPP has stated its intention to hold the PAD in reserve as a street mob auxiliary. In effect, the PAD is now set to function alongside the NPP in a mutually reinforcing movement going in the same direction. The NPP would not have sufficient weight by going through electoral and parliamentary channels. Without the NPP, the PAD cannot make things happen the way it wants. It can bring down governments but it is not allowed to govern. A veto power in the streets is not enough. It now wants to directly dictate and determine outcomes.

Mr Sondhi's initial ambivalence towards a role in the cut-and-thrust electoral arena has given way to a new political direction. Having narrowly survived a gangland-style assassination attempt, and now being hounded by criminal convictions and ongoing lawsuits, Mr Sondhi has had to raise the stakes. His convictions have transpired just as politicians of many stripes, who jumped ship and joined the DP-led government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in time, have been acquitted on an array of charges.

The backing and protection Mr Sondhi had during the PAD's wrath and rampage last year is apparently not what it used to be.

Members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy raise their hands after electing Sondhi Limthongkul (centre) as leader of the New Politics Party, at Muang Thong Thani on Tuesday.

After the Abhisit government took power, the PAD has been increasingly neglected and bypassed. The ruling Democrats naturally had other plans to pursue and challenges to address. The army has lined up behind the BJT to prop up the DP-led coalition. The PAD can still make plenty of noise but not enough difference.

The NPP's logo and slogan are thus revealing. Its logo comprises four yellow hands set against a green background. The yellow hands appear somehow intended to work alongside the green, as the PAD has never been about environmental protection.

More revealing is its catchy slogan. The genesis of the PAD has been about anti-corruption on the one hand and the crown on the other, subsequently incorporating nationalism and xenophobia. To the PAD, fugitive PM Thaksin Shinawatra fell foul of both and was attacked for corruption and disloyalty to the monarchy.

But the NPP's slogan stipulates integrity, sacrifice, perseverance, and an ability to get things done. Integrity is aimed for Thaksin's ilk, whereas effective performance can be seen as a sarcasm for the DP. Sacrifice and perseverance are the staples of PAD foot soldiers in their repeated protests through rain storms and scorching sun, especially for much of last year.

The absence of a royalist rallying cry in its slogan is presumably not a manifestation of disrespect but a de-emphasis in a new environment. Having served its backers and achieved the ouster of the Thaksin-backed governments last year, the PAD's efficacy had reached its limits. The lack of backing it had last year explains the PAD's reduced baramee - the perceived and real sources of authority and power underpinned by simple courtesy and overt clout, translatable into preferences and outcomes.

The NPP is thus the PAD's logical way ahead.

Backing and baramee are still with Mr Abhisit and the DP. His tussle with the BJT over the police chief appointment suggests that the baramee is around rather than in him. The resignation of Niphon Phromphan as the PM's secretary-general, who is a quiet but quite effective operative with much baramee, is a blow to the DP going forward. The ruling party will increasingly be cannibalised by the NPP, which relies on the same urban-based, middle class-driven constituencies in Bangkok and the major provincial centres. The DP is worst off after the recent realignments.

Both the BJT and PT are in a holding pattern but in different directions. With firm backing from the army, the BJT has upside gains from defections of other troubled parties and politicians, and from the benefits of government largess. The distribution of public funds will gain votes and bolster its war chest for the next election. By jousting with the PM over the new police chief selection, the BJT has shown that it has ample baramee and backing to leverage itself as electoral kingmaker at a minimum.

Because it lacks baramee and backing, the PT has brought in Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh as party adviser. Gen Chavalit was prime minister during the economic maelstrom in 1996-97 and was seen as an inept, serial fumbler. His only credit perhaps was a willingness to resign from the army to enter the political arena in the late 1980s, thereby playing by the rules. Yet the PT does not have much left to turn to. Its main talent is banned after the dissolutions of its two predecessors. The PT's appointment of Gen Chavalit is intended to increase its baramee on the face of the party and in behind-the-scenes manoeuvres.

The recent political realignments and political party shuffles are also all about positioning and posturing ahead of the polls and political change that is to come. They represent a crucial juncture that will move Thai politics and transformation to the next stage. Backing and baramee still hover over the landscape. The stakes and attendant risks are growing for the protagonists in the political arena and for the backers beyond.

• The writer is Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.