Thailand’s surreal politics

S P SETH

In the last few months, Thailand has been going through a slow moving political thriller with the audience waiting how it ends. It all started with the passing of a law in the country’s legislature in October, effectively granting amnesty for the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, without having to serve a two-year jail sentence for corruption. He is a rich man, allegedly having made money through corrupt business practices, and is currently living in exile. He is said to be the real power behind his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand’s first woman Prime Minister, who is believed to be his political proxy. It is alleged by the protesters and the opposition Democrat Party, leading the protests, that the Shinawatra siblings, current and former prime ministers, are seeking to destroy Thailand’s stability and harmony by playing populist politics of buying rural voters through state subsidies. And in this way, they are destroying the country’s long governing and largely Bangkok-based elite institutions. And if allowed to perpetuate their rule, admittedly based on popular vote, they could even compromise the country’s venerated monarchy.

The rural voters, for instance, receive support price for their rice crops. They have also been provided healthcare and loans for people to start up small businesses. This has created a certain sense of prosperity and confidence in the countryside. And it has given them a sense of power in terms of making and breaking governments by popular ballot. The opposition Democrat Party is not happy with the Shinawatra family subverting the established order in Thailand.

The protests are led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister in a military backed government, who wants the government to resign or be made to resign. And he and his supporters have been seeking to do this by bringing its functioning to a standstill through road blocks and barricades, and by occupying government buildings. The entire government machinery is virtually come to a halt and the law and order is, more or less, suspended, except haltingly, because the state institutions of all descriptions are not allowed to use force against protesters. The Yingluck government was hesitant to use force any way for fear of giving the army an excuse to stage a coup, which the opposition would very much like to happen to bring down the government. The political situation in Thailand is surreal. There is an institutional shut down with no body being the wiser who is running or not running the show.

The anti-government protesters of the Democrat Party, joined by all sorts of non-descript elements and shadowy figures, and led by Suthep Thaugsuban -- who is wanted for treason but protected by mysterious forces--- are not fighting for democracy. Indeed, they believe that it is the perverted and populist democracy of the Shinawatra brand that led Yingluck to a landslide election victory in 2011 (as it did for his brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, at an earlier time), which is at the root of Thailand’s problems. Therefore, they want to dispense with democracy based on people power.

Their solution is to bring power back to the Bangkok-based elites through a nominated People’s Democratic Reform Committee. The committee would amend laws to fight corruption and institute other reforms while an appointed prime minister (their own nominee) would help administer the country for up to two years. Which would mean burying people’s rule for two years at least, and rule by diktat of self-appointed busybodies.

The problem, though, is that Prime Minister Yingluck wouldn’t resign. Instead, she sought to resolve the crisis by ordering new elections, with the opposition boycotting the polls. At one time, the country’s election commission was against holding scheduled elections in February because of the conditions in the country. The elections, however, went ahead in most constituencies, and where these were interrupted the polls will take place next month. The results will not be known until after the election process is completed everywhere. Prime Minister Yingluck, who is now in a caretaker role, is quite confident that she will win and once again be returned as the country’s legitimate leader.

But this might not work out as smoothly. Apart from something or the other going wrong with the election process or results, considering that there are such entrenched interests against her return to power, there are parallel moves to remove Yingluck, like it was done with her brother, by disqualifying her from the country’s politics. As it happens, she is being investigated for corruption and incompetence in the rice subsidy scheme for the country’s farmers. At the same time, there is reportedly an investigation against her by the election commission. Any one of the two, or both, investigations might find her guilty, sending her, like her brother, into political purgatory of foreign exile.

It would, therefore, seem that the Bangkok-based elite groups and institutions are slowly working to get rid of her. The problem, though, is that the ruling Pheu Thai party might be able to unleash strong popular protests, as it did in 2010, against plans to get rid of their leader. The government supporters, called Red Shirts, have so far been relatively quiet on advice from their leaders lest any violence, resulting from their protests, might give the army an excuse to declare martial law. The army so far has been sitting on the sidelines, seemingly tolerant of the opposition protests, advising the government against using force against peaceful protesters. Prime Minister Yingluck, now in a caretaker role is, unable to govern in any meaningful way. She even doesn’t have a regular office, being hounded out by the protesters.

As things stand, the government and the opposition have no common ground and are distrustful of each other. The opposition believes that if the Shinawatra dynasty were allowed to entrench their power, they would turn Thailand into an elected dictatorship by changing or manipulating the country’s constitution and institutions. For instance, the country’s venerated king is now 86 years old and in poor health. And if the ailing king dies when Yingluck or brother Thaksin is in power, they might try to manipulate the institution of monarchy, which is the symbol of country’s unity, to further consolidate their power. 

When Thaksin Shinawatra was the prime minister, he did show signs of authoritarianism in his dealings with the press, and other institutions as well as helping his family’s business interests. In other words, there is some basis for the old elites of the country to be distrustful of the Shinawatra family. But that is no reason to dump democracy. It should energize them and the opposition Democrat Party to win over the people to their side.  

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au    

Ukraine and the cold war dynamics

S P SETH

Ukraine’s internal crisis has now become international, with Russia sending its troops in eastern and southern parts of the country in support of its majority Russian-speaking people. The question is: how has all this come about? To answer this: we need to go back to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, of which Ukraine was a constituent part. Which made Ukraine an independent country. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War, but its legacy is now being played out in Ukraine between the US/Europe and Russia. The trigger for the crisis in Ukraine arose when President Viktor Yanukovych baulked at signing a deal for association with the European Union (EU). And he didn’t partly because the proposed association was only part of a process for formal membership over time, with no concrete immediate relief for the Ukrainian economy. Ukraine’s economy is in free fall with some of its debts needing immediate servicing. Ukraine is said to need a cash injection of $35 billion just to survive. The EU integration proposal didn’t have any financial teeth. The most Ukraine could hope for was an International Monetary Fund/EU economic restructuring package requiring a severe austerity regime.

However, for many people in Ukraine the very idea of integrating with Europe was rejuvenating and they didn’t want to go into the nitty-gritty of it. President Yanukovych, though, needed instant cash to stop the forthcoming economic crash. And Russia was more than willing to help. It offered a credit line of $15 billion and went ahead to buy $3 billion worth of Ukrainian bonds. Russian deal also included subsidized gas prices. All in all, it amounted to about $30 billion aid package. But many Ukrainians, particularly in the country’s western region, hated Russia as part of their collective memory of having been part of the Soviet Union. They simply wanted their government to integrate with the European Union and become part of the European experience and its imagined prosperity. The EU and the United States only fed this image and supported Ukraine on this path, with large-scale protests in the capital, Kiev, and some other places. Which, in turn, fed Russian paranoia of European/US machination that was not entirely unfounded.

Putin had called the collapse of the Soviet Union as the biggest geopolitical tragedy of the 20^th century. In its immediate aftermath, Russia lay helpless while the west continued to expand its geopolitical gains. For instance, while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expanded as the premium defence organization for the west, its Soviet counterpart, Warsaw Pact, of the Cold War era collapsed with the Soviet Union. Besides, some of the eastern European countries, that were once part of the Soviet communist bloc, like Poland and Czech Republic, were admitted into NATO. They also became sites for the United States’ missile defense system, supposedly against a future threat from Iran. But Russia views it as a direct security threat, and the US is trying to fine-tune it but without much success. The developments in Ukraine, with the overthrow of President Yanukovych, is also viewed in Russia as a western-inspired threat to that country.

At the height of the internal crisis in Ukraine, Russia was involved with the EU to create a transitional system of government until new presidential elections in December. Moscow, though, was not keen to put its signature to that arrangement. In any case, the proposed interim system became a casualty of the Ukraine’s parliament taking over the country’s affairs; proceeding to appoint an interim president and dismissing Viktor Yanukovych.  He was to be hunted down for murder of over 80 protestors by his security services and referred to the International Criminal Court for trial. Yanukovych, though, still claims to be the legitimate president of Ukraine, forced to take asylum in Russia fearing threat to his life from the ‘fascist’ coup. Ukraine is now polarized along regional and ethnic lines; its largely Russian-speaking eastern and southern parts, including Crimea with a large Russian naval base, eager to join Russia. And Moscow has made it clear that it will protect the Russian-speaking population. Indeed, Russian parliament has authorized the use of its armed forces in Ukraine to protect Russian interests.  In other words, the mandate is quite sweeping.

Russian intervention was expected. For instance, only a few days ago Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev had reportedly questioned the legitimacy of a government in Ukraine created by an “armed mutiny”. He added, “If you consider Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks who are roaming Kiev to be the government, then it will be hard for us to deal with that government.” Earlier, he had said that the turmoil in Ukraine posed “a real threat to our interests and to our citizens’ lives and health.”

Here, it is necessary to put things in perspective. It was not long ago, in 2004 in fact, that the country went through the Orange Revolution, that brought down Viktor Yanukovych’s then-government on charges of election fraud and corruption. The Orange Revolution, that carried the hopes and aspirations of people for a new Ukraine, was a popular movement enjoying western support. Unfortunately, those hopes never materialized as the country hurtled into disunity and political infighting. There were similar stories at that time of large-scale corruption among the new leaders, causing popular revulsion at the state of affairs from a failed revolution. Which enabled Viktor Yanukovych, who was a political casualty of the Orange Revolution, to win back the country’s presidency in 2010 election.

The situation now, with Yanukvych deposed, replaced by an interim political order dominated by Ukraine’s western region, is ominous for reinforcing he country’s polarization between its Ukranian-speaking western region and Russian-speaking eastern and southern parts. With Russian troops already in Crimea and many of the Russian-speaking people in these regions wanting closer ties with Russia, at the very least, the country is in real danger of splitting up. In some ways, it has the makings of what happened in Georgia in 2008 when its government sent troops to occupy the separatist region of South Ossetia. Russia took matters into its own hands, deploying troops and making South Ossetia into its virtual protectorate. Georgia had high hopes of American and European intervention but that didn’t eventuate.

President Obama has warned Russia that its military intervention in Ukraine would have “costs”. And there is talk of some sorts of sanctions against Russia. The US and Europe are putting into motion all the wheels of international diplomacy, like the summoning of UN Security Council, but Russia is likely to get away with it. And Ukraine might end up being the new frontier of an old Cold War, that has simmered on in one form or the other.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au