Seeing politics via the Chuvit phenomenon

Seeing politics via the Chuvit phenomenon

Chuvit Kamolvisit turns up with a statue of a Chinese deity in a bid to expose police involvement in underground gambling. (Photo by Apichart Jinakul)
Chuvit Kamolvisit turns up with a statue of a Chinese deity in a bid to expose police involvement in underground gambling. (Photo by Apichart Jinakul)

As Thailand's popular rule is in deep freeze under an undisguised military dictatorship, few dare to speak out for fear of intimidation and temporary detention. One exception for all Thailand watchers to follow is Chuvit Kamolvisit. What he has been saying speaks volumes about the current state of Thai politics.

In myriad ways, Mr Chuvit makes an unattractive public figure. He is a walking controversy who amassed a considerable fortune from shady "massage parlour" businesses that are tantamount to organised prostitution in this country.

Over a decade-long political career, he ran for Bangkok governor twice and lost both times. The first time he became a party-list MP, the Constitution Court stripped him of his parliamentary status because he had not been a party member for the minimum 90 days. In the July 2011 election, his Rak Prathetthai (Love Thailand) party won four party-list seats in the popular vote but none on the constituency ballots. It was a protest vote from disenchanted segments of the electorate fed up with both the pro- and anti-Thaksin Shinawatra movements.

Mr Chuvit stands against corruption, especially graft in the police force. Yet he offers no real solution for Thailand, neither policy ideas nor prescriptions for future directions for the country. But he is the only political figure at this time in Thailand who calls a spade a spade with the kind of credibility no other politician can muster. Mr Chuvit has been critical of corruption in the police across all governments over the past decade. He has dished out scorn to government leaders across the colour divide. No one can claim he sides with either the Thaksin camp or its opponents.

With a flair for drama and antics, Mr Chuvit's Facebook postings are liked by the tens of thousands and followed by many thousands more. His maverick, swashbuckling style elicits laughter and gets to the point. People follow him because he says things and makes points they would like to make but cannot for various reasons. Mr Chuvit has money, muscle and principles he is willing to stand up for.

He questions authority unlike others, taking to task the governments of Abhisit Vejjajiva and Yingluck Shinawatra. Now, even under the military government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, Mr Chuvit is not afraid to speak out. As he recently said: "Abhisit just talked and talked, Yingluck talked without much sense, but now there is no talking."

When the People's Democratic Reform Committee shut down central Bangkok in late 2013 and early 2014, Mr Chuvit took its leader Suthep Thaugsuban to task for manipulating crowd sentiment for his own aims. This was a time when the PDRC was dominant and few stood in its way. The army even assisted it with a military presence in central Bangkok. The Yingluck government stayed away from it. Eventually, the PDRC got its way.

But not Mr Chuvit. When someone tried to prevent Mr Chuvit from voting in the subsequently nullified election in February 2014, which the PDRC tried to block, he resisted and a fistfight ensued. More recently, when an ex-PDRC leader wanted to join the police force, Mr Chuvit suggested she look in the mirror, implying that in her past deeds she may have undermined police work. When Mr Abhisit waded into the fray to suggest the police keep matters concerning investigations into the Erawan shrine blast internal, Mr Chuvit retorted that Mr Abhisit should have kept political matters within parliamentary parameters rather than letting them seep into street politics.

Few Thais are genuine and generous philanthropists. They don't give unless they get a lot of face or material value in return. Following the controversial eviction of tenants who would not leave his property, Mr Chuvit turned his land plot off Sukhumvit Soi 10 into a public park. It is not large but was sufficient to fetch well over one billion baht in land value. No other tycoon or property owner around here has given prime and prized land to the public the way Mr Chuvit has.

To be sure, Mr Chuvit's politics is slapstick and rambunctious. On first personal impressions, he comes across as neither nice nor mean but as someone to follow from afar rather than up close. He is against corruption and abusive authority but has yet to spell out a forward-looking agenda.

While Mr Chuvit can hardly be admired for his dubious past, many respect him for what he is doing now and what he might do to question authority in the future, and for having core beliefs and a sense of public interest and public service.

During the current coup interregnum, Mr Chuvit is Thailand's one-man opposition who outshines both the opportunistic and exploitative Pheu Thai Party and the morally bankrupt and lazy Democrat Party. His rise, role and appeal are testimony to the dismal state of Thai politics where few figures in high places have the courage to stand up and speak out on behalf of a public that has been shut up.


Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University

A professor and senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, he earned a PhD from the London School of Economics with a top dissertation prize in 2002. Recognised for excellence in opinion writing from Society of Publishers in Asia, his views and articles have been published widely by local and international media.

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