Milestones and anniversaries are for marking. But few should overdo the focus on Thailand one year after its 12th successful coup in 83 years under constitutional rule. The past year is merely a large blip on a long political continuum that dates back a decade or even a century in which Thai society has been grappling with the form and content of a political order that is being contested between the forces of tradition and modernity.
Meanwhile, the months since the coup have laid bare a myth towards which Thais have collectively turned a blind eye for expedient reasons. It has also taken several critical turns that have raised the stakes for the major parties concerned and indicated that the military will remain in control for some time.
The murky months ahead will be marked by an enforced calm under virtual military rule, pervaded by gathering anxieties and fears about what is to come in the late twilight of a glorious reign and beyond. With serendipitous geography and a critical mass of economy and population, Thailand will regain its footing only when it can reshape its contested political order to rebalance an elite-driven monarchy-centred hierarchy with a mass-based electoral democracy through compromise and mutual accommodation.
The myth accompanying the coup should now be called out after a year. The military stepped in at that time supposedly as an honest broker to break the impasse between the ineffectual government of Yingluck Shinawatra and the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), led by Suthep Thaugsuban. After six months of virtual national paralysis from anti-government protests in the streets of Bangkok, some from many walks of life heaved a sigh of relief, while others just put up with it, when soldiers seized power and imposed martial law that lasted almost a year. Calm and order returned, and a functioning government took office under coup conditions. For many, it seemed a price worth paying at the time even at the expense of basic rights and civil liberties.
For the first few weeks, the military, led by Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha as army chief and head of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), appeared resolute and even-handed. It summoned and detained hundreds of big and small political activists and players of all stripes to army barracks for so-called attitude adjustments. It banned all major colour-coded broadcasts and enforced repression that martial law entailed. But as the weeks grew into months and the governing system under the coup revolving around the NCPO, the Prayut-led cabinet, National Legislative Assembly, National Reform Council, and the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) came into place, the ostensibly honest brokerage of the coup was betrayed. These related and mutually-reinforcing governing bodies were mainly from one side of the Thai divide, far from inclusive under a spirit of reconciliation.
But this post-coup aftermath was consistent with the military's partisan role in Thai politics over the past decade. Street demonstrations have repeatedly challenged the staying power of sitting governments, whether proxies of Yingluck's self-exiled brother Thaksin Shinawatra or the opposing Democrat Party under Abhisit Vejjajiva. We saw street occupations that pinned down governments in 2005-06 and 2008 by one side of the divide and 2009-10 by the other side. The military went along in 2005-06 and 2008 but dispersed the protesters in 2009-10. In 2013-14, military action achieved the same aim as the street protesters in ousting the incumbent government.
This fact of military partisanship is overlooked partly because the Thaksin side was always full of unscrupulous tricks and abuses of power. The 2013-14 PDRC uprising gained many adherents because of the Thaksin-Yingluck's amnesty gambit. Even Pheu Thai Party voters were not supportive of the amnesty bill. And the rice-pledging fiscal disaster added to the anti-Thaksin mood while the PDRC was at its height. All of this translated into widespread coup acquiescence but it should not camouflage the military's position on one side of Thailand's polarised landscape.
On the other hand, the coup has taken several consequential turns. First, unlike tried and tested arrangements, the NCPO chose to rule directly with few technocrats in cabinet. The coup leader, Gen Prayut, took up the premiership instead of delegating it to a capable civilian.
Economy-governing portfolios from commerce and transport to labour and education were allocated to four-star generals. For the first time, the foreign minister was another four-star brass instead of a career diplomat. Technocrats overseeing the economy as deputy prime minister and finance minister were holdovers from the previous coup administration in 2006-07, complaining of a lack of authority. Unsurprisingly, growth strategy and economic performance have been incoherent, policy direction scattered and hazy, and implementation sluggish.
But the generals' direct rule is deliberate. They see themselves as the clean-up crew to eradicate corruption, keep politicians in line, restore the old political order anchored around the military-monarchy symbiosis with the bureaucracy doing the handiwork of governance. It is as if Thailand has taken a few steps back and sideways to find a step forward in a new, unmarked direction. The generals do not deny democracy and globalisation but want to enmesh them with traditional Thai institutions and customs in the hope of producing electoral rule that can sit comfortably with the old political order.
To do so, the junta has kept politicians down. The second major outcome was the Yingluck impeachment, banning her from politics for five years. Because the bulk of the Shinawatra clan wants to live in Thailand, the Thaksin camp has stayed quiet and tame since the coup. But as military rule becomes increasingly contentious, Thaksin loyalists will no doubt manoeuvre to re-enter the fray when opportunities ripen.
The upcountry electoral forces that Thaksin unwittingly awakened while his political machinery won all elections in 2001-14, however, have not had much say in the face of martial law and absolute power. They are unlikely to be pro-coup, and will have to be reckoned with when a new political order is brokered down the road.
Finally, the generals have banked on a new constitution to chart a way forward. The CDC remains on course to complete the constitution in time for a referendum and polls next year. But the draft charter is problematic. Amending and approving it in a referendum are unlikely to lead to legitimate election results even if polls are not postponed.
The past year has cleared the streets, locked down Thai politics, and ushered in a long goodbye to a fading political order. Thailand is in a transition trap between authoritarianism and democracy when the interim is becoming indefinite. Anti-coup forces both within and beyond Thaksin's party machine will remain opposed to the putsch while the previously pro-coup coalition, led by the Democrat Party, will become increasingly fragmented and realigned against the military.
The military will be hovering in power during Thailand's prolonged holding pattern, giving way to clarity and settlement only after the twilight has passed. Around that time is when the Thai people will have to come up with the famous Thai trick of compromising in a muddling-through fashion to avoid implosion.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.