Four months after the military coup on May 22, it is emerging that Thailand will either end up with the most benevolent, enlightened and effective military-dominated regime of the country's political annals that will clean up graft and institute reforms like no previous government could, or an inevitable collision course between pro- and anti-coup forces.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha delivers a speech during a recent visit to Sukhothai to inspect flooding. Suppressing civil liberties may fuel public discontent preventing a soft and manageable landing for the junta. (Photo by Patipat Janthong)
With virtually absolute power and no public accountability, the ruling generals should avoid setting themselves up for political dead-ends and brick walls they don't need.
The day of the coup was the political zenith of the junta under the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). That was when they had supreme power and authority, backed up by force and the law in their hands. From that day on, it was all about descent.
If the generals are astute and effective managers of the coup, their descent will be gradual, leading to a soft and manageable landing, a smart exit strategy of sorts.
The generals could slow down the descent by tackling the corruption of politicians and officials without adding their own graft. They can make their descent gradual by delivering solid economic growth and instituting lasting reform. They can devise fair rules in an inclusive constitution-drafting process with public participation.
In short, the generals should do what they have pledged by suspending and reforming Thai democracy to strengthen it for good, once and for all, with better checks-and-balances and more transparency and accountability.
However, the descent of the new regime will steepen if its semblance of legitimacy in resolving the protracted societal conflict erodes and is overwhelmed by mistakes and missteps from policy mismanagement, exacerbated economic slowdown, creeping vested interests, and abuse of power.
A salient example of the past is the military's rapid political descent during the 1991-1992 coup. In the 2006-2007 coup period, the military was serendipitous because its coup was lacklustre, sharing power with and losing control to an ineffectual civilian caretaker government. The weak coup of 2006 ironically let its conductors off the hook because they were forced to step away after the 2007 charter was promulgated and elections held. Going further back, military rule in the late 1970s was smart at making concessions to share and eventually transfer power to elected civilians.
By holding immense and concentrated power, and by ruling the country directly without a technocratic caretaker administration, the current coup-makers are taking a huge gamble without a buffer or shared responsibility. Success demands managing their descent with selfless aims and policy wherewithal that we have not seen in previous military-dominated governments. Failure would increase major risks, not just for the generals but for Thailand.
At this stage, the NCPO has boxed itself in unnecessarily on several fronts.
The ongoing curbs on academic freedom are understandable but counterproductive. Suppression of academic freedom can only beget more suppression of academic freedom. It will take on a self-perpetuating logic. Shutting down debates and conversations, including criticism, does not make them go away. The longer academic freedom remains suppressed, the more difficult it will be to do away with suppression.
What the military-dominated government should be doing is urging constructive conversations, discouraging frontal and unfair anti-government criticisms, and actually engaging on merit-driven grounds: making the military's own argument and putting its views across.
This is difficult for a hierarchical organisation like the military, where chains of command and unflinching loyalty are paramount. Although the organisational culture of militaries generally is not conducive to open debate and discussion, the Thai military has to be more sophisticated if it intends to govern directly. We are passing from 2014 to 2015, not stuck in the distant past, however glorious and orderly it is seen to have been.
Stifling academic freedom is similar to maintaining martial law. The longer martial law remains, the harder it will be to lift it. It becomes a catch-22 situation. Martial law is akin to a lid on a kettle. Without release mechanisms, keeping the lid tightly on can only generate tension and discontent. Moreover, the military's unaccountable absolute power makes it difficult for the generals to touch base with the majority of the people they want to serve.
So the way ahead should be to relax martial law gradually wherever and whenever possible. The alternative is worse. Maintaining martial law indefinitely provides a false sense of security. When it is eventually lifted, the consequent grievances from repression are likely to be fiercer and more virulent than otherwise. It is better to live with limited insecurity than manufactured security.
Yet two other dead-ends are more alarming. These revolve around the role of elected politicians and the notion of populism.
The generals have rightly defined Thailand's corruption scourge as emanating from elected politicians. Indeed, most Thai politicians are corrupt in different ways but in a similar fashion. They look at politics like a lucrative business that involves cronies and associates in shrewd graft schemes at the expense of taxpayers, skimming from the national budget at will and skipping due payments to the state. Thailand is not alone here. Other developing countries suffer similar corruption problems.
The best way to tackle the menace of corruption is to strengthen democratic institutions and accountability and to cultivate and deepen an anti-corruption culture.
Demonising politicians will lead to brick walls as long as electoral rule is to return. Electoral rule cannot preclude elected representatives. This means the ruling generals will either have to come up with their preferred politicians to run in the next election, perhaps even their own political party. Either way, demonising politicians at large can only undermine the future of representative democracy and electoral rule in Thailand.
Related to corruption is the bad reputation that has been attributed to populism because it conjures up the worst images of politicians, epitomised by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. While repeatedly successful at the polls, his patronising brand of populism was often ill-considered and based on short-term personal gains rather than the longer good of the country. The costly rice-pledging scheme is a major case in point. It was aimed at electoral gains without fiscal prudence.
But making an enemy of populism is inadvisable.
All good governments are intrinsically populist because they serve people, address grievances, and cater to popular demands and expectations. Pro-people policies can be a good thing. What the generals should espouse is responsible populism that the Thai people can have ownership of and be connected to; a pro-people platform that is fiscally sound and does not mortgage the future of younger generations.
The NCPO can have instant gratification by suppressing basic civil liberties, but this will bring adverse consequences down the road. They can make quick enemies of populism and politicians now, but they will need their own populism and politicians later. Their short-term gains, in other words, may not serve their longer-term aims. And their longer-term aims of strengthening Thai democracy and returning it on time as pledged are what any good Thai citizen would want to see.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.