Thwarted in Thailand: Liberal Democracy may be Defeated but not Demolished

Source:  Thailand's Pita suspended from parliament in latest blow to PM bid - Raw Story

Political transitions are messy affairs. Nowhere is that more obvious than in Thailand. 

Thailand finally has a government after three months of political deadlock following May’s general election.  It’s not the one that would have installed the frontrunner, Pita Limjaroenrat, as Prime Minister.  Twice rejected by a parliamentary vote in July, Pita and his Move Forward Party, who won the most seats in the lower house, are consigned to the opposition.  Unable to woo the 250-strong military-appointed senators, he failed to secure the 375 votes needed to become prime minister.   Shortly thereafter, his eight-party coalition collapsed.

Pheu Thai, the runner-up, assembled an eleven-party coalition that included two military-backed parties, Palang Pracharat and United Thai Nation led by two military leaders nicknamed “the uncles.”  Pita's Move Forward Party was excluded.   With 482 votes garnered during a parliamentary session on 22 August, far more than the required 375,  61-year-old  real estate mogul Srettha Thaivisin, Pheu Thai's nominee, became Thailand's 30th prime minister.  Two days later, he was confirmed and royally endorsed despite not being a member of parliament. 

 Political scientists Ruth and David Collier defined transitions as "major watersheds that establish certain directions for change and foreclose others in a way that (re)shapes politics for years to come." When transitions occur, new leadership comes to power, and politics are reconfigured through policy changes or institutional redesign.  Bureaucracies are revamped, institutions overhauled, opposition groups (re)emerge, new political actors enter the scene, old ones redefine their role vis-à-vis the new regime in a bid to ensure their political survival, or exit the public stage altogether. Ideologies are renegotiated, relationships reconfigured, and norms and values reinterpreted. Political actors are driven by the need for identity and purpose in a rapidly changing environment. This can often lead to tension as groups struggle to define themselves in the new context.

It might be tempting to view Thailand's May election as a critical juncture that put the country's politics on a path to democratic transition.  It would have been, had Pita Limjaroenrat succeeded in becoming prime minister.  His policy agenda was reformist, progressive, and liberal;  his commitment to the democratic path was the backbone of his campaign. 

But as the parliamentary vote demonstrated, the military's stranglehold proved effective. The 250 military-appointed senators, as called for in the 2017 Constitution, entrenched the power of the conservatives. This has allowed the military to continue to dominate Thai politics, even after the election of a new civilian government. Thailand has a long history of military coups. The 2017 Constitution cemented the military's influence and control. 

One might argue that Pita's party never stood a chance.  Without the senators' support, he could not have won the parliamentary vote.   Never mind that 14 million Thais voted for him, or that his eight-party coalition supported his bid.  A few hundred unelected senators thwarted Pita's electoral victory and Thailand's transition to liberal democracy.  Talk about what might have been. 

The painful lessons of Thailand's political transition can be summarized in what political scientist Thomas Carothers viewed as the naïve assumptions of so-called "transitologists." The well-known scholars Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, the founders of the transition paradigm, viewed transitions as an inevitable linear process, a Fukuyama-esque end-of-history narrative that all roads would lead to the altar of democracy. Critics quickly dismissed this view as unrealistic and unhelpful, because transitions are often non-linear, messy, and unpredictable. Transitions can take many forms, and there is no one-size-fits-all model.   Carothers debunked the assumption of linearity. He argued that rather than careening toward democracy, countries have gotten stuck in a "political gray zone" due to "feckless pluralism and dominant power politics."

Look at Thailand.  What should have been a straightforward democratic transition, deteriorated into a regressive and sideways process to disenfranchise Pita the position despite his electoral victory.   He was twice rejected by the parliament because of shares bequeathed to him by his father in a now-defunct media company.  The reality is that conservatives were concerned about his anti-military, anti-business stance.  He also dared to campaign for reform of Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, the royal defamation law.   Pita pounded the last nail in his political coffin by not backtracking on the proposed reforms.

Another flawed assumption of the transition paradigm is the supposed legitimacy and accountability of elections.  As Thailand demonstrated, elections are exercises in patronage politics, and political parties are highly personalistic and transient.  The return of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra on the day of voting in parliament showcased the power of a political celebrity even after 15 years in exile.  The sheer force of Mr. Shinawatra's personality continues to exert an outsized influence over the Pheu Thai party, one that will haunt and hound the newly formed government headed by Mr. Thaivisin. 

Speaking to CNN, political analyst Professor Thithinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University was unambiguous: "It is ironic that Thaksin is actually working with and helping the very military leaders who put them down before, who deposed them."  Many analysts believe a deal was struck between the military-backed parties to strengthen Pheu Thai's bid for the prime minister post, an alliance that was once unthinkable. 

And this is the bitterest pill of all:  political transitions are, at best, improvisations whose elements are culled out of the idiosyncrasies of hybrid political systems.  Political and policy choices result from a "muddling through" process rather than the distinctive workings of rational choice theory, which establishes the calculative transactional outcomes between means and ends. 

To end the political deadlock in Thailand, compromises had to be made, particularly with the forces of the old regime, to accommodate and preserve their interests, even if these were unpalatable to the "new guards."

Mr.  Thaivisin will be at the helm of a government that will see old enemies sit side by side discussing and debating how to move the country forward through an institutionalized process of legislative and policy-making.  Parliament will be a curious mixture of the military and their opponents, the pro-democracy members of the Move Forward Party who decided to leave the "parliament of the streets" and enter the messy world of party politics.   

But hope springs eternal, as the cliché goes.  Fourteen million citizens form the bedrock of Thailand's democratic quest.     Young voters who gave Move Forward its stunning electoral victory are raging and raring to go.  As a young party, Move Forward has time and energy on its side.  There is no turning back this youthful tidal wave that can and will expand to prepare for the next election in five years. 

In contrast, Pheu Thai is "trapped in the politics of its own making," said Professor Pongsudhirak, the political analyst.  The party, he added, suffers from "saturated populism and the Thaksin conundrum."

Move Forward is the real winner, according to Gwen Robinson, the Nikkei Asia Review editor.  Their sparkling performance in the elections signaled a "tectonic shift" in Thai politics.  The party commands 151 seats in the lower house, the most potent opposition force in Thai political history, and controls all but one of Bangkok's 33 parliamentary seats. 

Freed from the burden of an unwieldy coalition that would force Move Forward into compromises, the party can forge ahead with its agenda, unfettered and unrestrained.  Their proposed reforms are bold and have resonated among a broad swathe of the electorate. 

 Move Forward can "influence and even set parliamentary agendas, stay above the fray, keep principles intact, and continue to nurture its vibrant support base," according to Robinson.

Pita may have lost his bid to become prime minister, but he has already won the future.   "Politics, it's a marathon, and it's not a sprint, and I have the stamina to run for a long time,” Pita told Channel News Asia