'Third force' parties to determine polls
- From: pluto <pluto@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:57:36 +0800
Southeast Asia Dec 15, 2007 ASIA HAND
'Third force' parties to determine polls
By Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK - Thailand's transition from military to democratic rule is firmly on
track, as the highly anticipated December 23 general election nears and the
military coup-makers fade into the political background. Seven main political
parties are on the hustings and neither the front-running People's Power Party
(PPP) nor the close-trailing Democrat Party is expected to win an outright
majority.
A military tribunal's decision on May 30 to disband former premier
Thaksin Shinawatra's once-dominant Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party and ban its top 111
members from politics for five years has fundamentally changed Thailand's
electoral landscape, the main result being the revived bargaining power of
middling and small political parties, akin to the politically unstable era of
politics seen in the 1990s.
Both the front-running People's Power Party (PPP), the new incarnation of
Thaksin's TRT, and the conservative Democrats, which served in the political
opposition for TRT's six years in power, have sworn against joining forces with
the other, meaning the makeup of the next coalition government will likely be
determined by which can strike an alliance with two main middling parties, Chat
Thai (Thai Nation) and Pua Pandin (Motherland Party). Both have referred to
themselves as "third force" parties, which if the pollsters have it right, will
be major swing factors in the next government's formation.
The poll results will almost certainly result in a dizzyingly complicated
numbers game, in the end producing a weak coalition government at perpetual risk
of factional defections that could bring on its demise. Recent voter opinion
polls show PPP leading the race, on pace to win somewhere between 180 and 200 of
the total 480 parliamentary seats up for grabs. According to the same surveys,
the Democrats are primed to be the first runner-up, garnering anywhere between
120 and 140 seats, including nearly all of the 54 seats in the country's
southern region.
Chat Thai and Pua Pandin, meanwhile, are provisionally expected to win somewhere
between 60 and 70 seats each, with the former placing strongly in the central
regions and the latter cutting into the former TRT's stronghold in the pivotal
northeast region, which accounts for 130 seats. A smattering of smaller parties
- namely Matchima Tippatai, Pracharaj and Ruam Jai Thai Chat Pattana - is each
expected to win somewhere between 10 and 20 seats, with the first two parties'
leaders strongly opposed to Thaksin and therefore unlikely to join any PPP-led
coalition.
Applying those rough estimates, Chat Thai and Pua Pandin will be exceptionally
important in determining which of the top two vote-getting political parties is
able to form and lead the next government. The Democrats have already indicated
that they would be willing to form a ruling coalition, excluding PPP, even if
they are the election runner up. PPP leader Samak Sundaravej has publicly
criticized that stance, arguing that the top vote-getting party should assume
power.
According to some political insiders, PPP has failed despite frequent advances
to win the assurances of Chat Thai or Pua Pandin - of which PPP would apparently
need at least one to achieve a majority - that they would be willing to join a
PPP-led coalition government. Both Chat Thai and Pua Pandin party executives
have maintained that they remain politically neutral, and would only be willing
to join a government that aims to return Thailand to political normalcy after
nearly three years of confrontation between pro- and anti-Thaksin interest
groups.
Leanings and loyalties
It's a relatively safe bet that Chat Thai, which before last year's military
coup stood firmly in opposition to Thaksin's TRT, would likely commit its
elected MPs to a Democrat-led government. A senior Democrat party executive, who
requested anonymity, told Asia Times Online that the two sides already had a
confidential agreement to that affect, but have not gone public with their
alliance due to fears it could erode Chat Thai's grassroots support in certain
hotly contested constituencies.
Unlike most other political parties, which are pandering to rural constituencies
with various hues of populist promises, Chat Thai is running a more
old-fashioned campaign, relying largely on the weight of party leader Banharn
Silapa-archa's still strong name recognition in the country's central
rice-growing heartland. The party's main vow has been to work towards national
reconciliation and a return to political normalcy.
Banharn, a former prime minister and favorite whipping boy of the local press,
has through his former firm opposition to Thaksin's rule won favor in the same
royalist circles that during his 1995-96 premiership frowned upon on his lack of
formal schooling and pedigree as a provincial power-broker. The machine
politician has since rehabilitated his image to something approaching national
statesman and his name has been bandied about as a potential compromise prime
minister in a broad-based ruling coalition where the Democrats control the main
economic portfolios.
The bigger political question surrounds the newly formed Pua Pandin party,
though initial indications are that it too would opt to
enter a coalition led by the Democrats rather than the PPP. Political pundits
have alleged that the upstart party is being propped by the military, as a
vehicle to maintain political influence after the restoration of democracy. The
new party is notably comprised of and advised by several former TRT members,
which for various reasons broke away after last year's coup.
Senior party executives deny any military connection, claiming in a recent
presentation to foreign journalists that the party is
financed internally by its members. Among them is former TRT deputy prime
minister and foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai, who although among the 111
former TRT members banned from politics, was instrumental in the new party's
formation.
Personalities, not policies
The party is nominally led by provincial machine politician Suwit Khunkitti, a
former TRT member who has a strong following in the northeastern region, but
Surakiart is known to be the brainpower behind the party's campaign strategy and
economic policies. Surakiart says in retrospect he had wanted to resign from
Thaksin's government in 2005 due to differences in policy opinion, but stayed on
because of his central role in organizing King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 60th
anniversary gala celebrations honoring the monarch's accession to the throne.
According to him, his differences with Thaksin reached breaking point when a
group inside the party had apparently persuaded Thaksin to use force in putting
down the anti-government street protests that began in October 2005 and
continued to rock his administration until the military seized power in
September 2006. "With a single drop of blood, we would have been lost," said
Surakiart, referring to the confrontation between pro- and anti-Thaksin forces.
Both Surakiart and Suwit said during their presentation that they are running on
a national reconciliation ticket and would be willing to join hands with parties
that share that ideal - though PPP leader Samak's confrontational stance towards
the military on the campaign trail would on the surface appear to run counter to
the Pua Pandin's professed conciliatory policy position.
Yet one senior party advisor, who requested anonymity, told Asia Times Online
that Pua Pandin would definitely not join a PPP-led government with PPP,
precisely because many of its members had broken away from TRT because of its
past "abuses of power". The advisor said that Pua Pandin has not more openly
allied themselves with the Democrats for fear of losing grassroots support in
the northeast, where the Democrats remain largely unpopular and Pua Pandin is
competing head-to-head with PPP for votes.
There is, of course, the off-chance that the PPP outperforms pollster
expectations and is able to secure a majority of parliamentary seats in
cooperation with the only small party, Ruam Jai Thai Chat Pattana, which appears
willing to join hands with the PPP. The PPP could also possibly snatch votes
away from the Matchima Tippatai party, which is already in turmoil due to a
financial dispute between the party's deep-pocketed leader and its provincial
candidates.
More likely, it appears that the Democrats are on course to lead the next
government, albeit by the thinnest of electoral margins, and despite placing
second to the PPP at the polls. That will no doubt raise questions with some
Thai voters about a Democrat-led coalition government's legitimacy, but at the
same time would also represent the best-case scenario for keeping, at least
temporarily, the military in the barracks.
Throughout modern Thai history, the military has moved to topple weak coalition
governments, often in the name of shoring up stability or protecting Thai
democracy from corrupt politicians. Last year's coup-makers would be on-guard
against a PPP-led government, particularly if it moved to overturn the ban from
entering politics imposed against 111 former TRT politicians and amend the new
constitution, which includes a controversial amnesty clause for those involved
in staging the coup and their subsequent government appointees.
At the same time, a PPP-led opposition would have sufficient numbers to censure
the prime minister and Cabinet members, while the coalition's expected thin
majority would leave it in perpetual risk of collapse due to the defection of a
key political faction, similar to what happened throughout the 1990s. Whether
that would be a sufficient pretext for the military to seize power, despite the
army commander's latest pledge to stay out of politics, will overshadow the
political scene.
Thus the political stability many had hoped new democratic elections would bring
will more likely remain elusive in the next year and years ahead.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor. He may be reached
at swcrispin@xxxxxxxxxxx
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