Pad Thai is becoming the staple in Thai politics. Not the Thai's national dish, but the Thai's national disruption.
Six months into the breach, where everything appeared to have reached a stalemate with the Thai premier recently bunkered in Chiangmai, King Bhumibol Adulyadej remaining silent and Army Chief Anupong Paojinda sitting on his hands behaving as if the monarch's military is (ironically) the last bastion of Thai democracy, the judiciary delicately stepped in. Just like in May 2007 when the courts ruled that Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai should be disbanded.
The Thai court's decision to similarly disband Somchai's People Power Party and banning him and others from politics for five years, brought relief to the thousands waiting to leave Bangkok airports, and the thousands eager to fly back to Thailand's capital. Thailand's tourism was held hostage by the vindictively anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy which believed more in ochlocracy than democracy, and a government appointed, not elected, by them.
The state of Thai democracy is very tomyam, both spicy and sour. Since 2006 with the downfall of Thaksin sparked off by Temasek's laudable economic venture with spicy political consequences into Thailand's telco pie, Thailand is a case study of relatively democratic and strong leaders with popular rural support sourly brought down by an urban Bangkok-centred mob. The rabble is presumably funded by Thaksin's political-business rivals waiting to fill the political-business vacuum created by Thaksin's ouster. With Thaksin gone, Samak gone and now Somchai gone, all since 2006, the PAD has tasted blood and brazenly won't stop till a PAD proxy becomes the Thai premier.
Thaksin was corrupt on all accounts according to his adversaries, but his rule was stable and prosperous compared to what Thailand has gone through in the past two years. The same balance question is thrown up. Should we close one eye if the regime is not democratically perfect but they deliver generally? Looking at Thailand's democracy crisis, a cliche by now, the answer to the form and function of political change is still unfolding.
Comments (2)
Should we close one eye if the regime is not democratically perfect but they deliver generally?
The Thailand story suggests as though we should indeed close an eye.
Yet, if the same question is applied to singapore, where we are not democratically perfect and our leaders deliver spectacularly, what will be the answer?
Right now, the opponents of the PAP are demanding that we ought not to close an eye.
If the answer to the thailand question is yes, is the answer to the singapore question yes too?
To overcome this paradox. we need to remember that in thailand, the democratically-imperfect government was toppled by forces which sought not to ensure democracy but to subvert it instead.
In singapore, anti-government powers are headed by people who seek democracy.
So I guess that one should not distill the general question of whether we should ignore flaws in democracy from the thailand case study, as the article did.
Good article though.
Posted by Chee | December 4, 2008 4:05 PM
Hi Chee
"we need to remember that in thailand, the democratically-imperfect government was toppled by forces which sought not to ensure democracy but to subvert it instead. In singapore, anti-government powers are headed by people who seek democracy."
Touché!
But still, who knows? With the benefit of hindsight, in Thailand after Thaksin and before Samak, "the anti-government powers are headed by people who seek democracy" as well.
Lau Ah Pek
Posted by The Void Deck | December 7, 2008 11:59 PM