Thailand at a Crossroads

April 22, 2010

Thailand is in the grip of its worst political crisis since the bloody "Black May" suppression of massive pro-democracy protests by the Thai army in 1992.  At that time, Thailand's widely revered King Bumibol Adulyadej used his prestige and moral authority to bring an end to the crisis.  Now the King lies gravely ill while Bangkok is engulfed in mass protests involving two implacable political groupings that seem impervious to any stabilizing authority.

Anti-government protestors have donned the color red and taken to the streets demanding that the current PM Abhisit Vejjajiva call new elections, emulating the "Yellow Shirts" who helped provoke a military coup against PM Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 and later shut down Thailand's main international airport for more than a week.  Abhisit heads a coalition of parties that took power in December 2008 after the country's highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court, dissolved the ruling pro-Thaksin People's Power Party (PPP) on ground of electoral law violations.

These initially peaceful protests which have now engendered bloodshed reflect political and societal change of historic proportions.  Growing frustration with the economic and political status quo has been a hallmark of Thai society for at least the past decade.  The largely rural and mostly poor communities represented by the "Red Shirts" were politically awakened by the populist electoral strategy of former PM Thaksin, who used the wealth generated by his telecommunications empire and festering discontent to win unprecedented parliamentary majorities in two successive elections.

A major new factor in Thai politics is the emergence of increasingly independent action of the country's highest court, the Constitutional Court established by the 1997 constitution, as seemingly the final political arbiter.  Having dissolved the pro-Thaksin party that won a parliamentary plurality in the most recent national elections, the Constitutional Court now appears ready to take up an April 13 finding by the Electoral Commission that Abhisit's minority Democrat Party had concealed illegal campaign contributions.  Whether by design or coincidence, the Election Commission acted a day after the army chief suggested that new elections might be a way to resolve the crisis.

Apart from the new judicial activism, numerous other complex variables are now at play, many of which have been simmering for years.  Their emergence in the past decade is generally connected to a fast widening urban-rural income gap, the new awareness of marginalized groups of their political potential, and environmental degradation and a serious and prolonged drought that have hurt those engaged in subsistence agriculture disproportionately - especially in the "Red Shirt homeland" of Thailand's impoverished northeast.

The new politics of mass protest will shape the future of the country in significant ways.  If rechanneled into a broader and more equitable social compact, it could lead to healthy social, political, and economic change that sees the decentralization of power away from Bangkok and a reduction in the glaring income inequalities persistent in Thailand.  The alternative is a much more painful change that could fracture the Thai state deeply and lead to prolonged unrest, possibly even threatening the integrity of the country as the world knows it.

The current crisis poses difficult issues for the United States, especially because there is no clear way out of what is now a full-fledged institutional, constitutional and societal crisis.  Thailand is an old and valued military ally, both in regional and geopolitical terms, and an important economic and transportation hub for mainland Southeast Asia.  Nonetheless, the underlying causes of the current crisis are a mix of long simmering societal tensions and the steady growth of political awareness, democratic institutions, and a more independent judiciary.  These are precisely the values that the United States has long promoted, but their application in the current Thai context has contributed to growing social tensions.

That said, Abhisit's government is as legitimate as the current political and societal impasse can support.  Prime Minister Abhisit and his ruling coalition headed by the Democratic Party assumed power through legitimate parliamentary procedure, but with the aid of politically active senior military leaders and under a constitution that was largely drafted under the oversight of the military and adopted in a hasty national referendum.  The new activism of the Constitutional Court has become a wild card that to date has mainly been played in support of the older political establishment, though how the Court handles the new Election Commission findings against the Democrat Party may speak to its level of independence.

One important question is whether Thailand can find a way to a more stable polity based on institutions that take into account the rapid societal change that the country has already undergone, and the further changes that will be required to deal with an emerging new global economic paradigm.  If it cannot, the next break in institutional continuity will be more serious than the previous ones.