RIP Thailand Democracy… -The iPINIONS Journal

The death of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and dealings of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma have dominated the news coming out of Southeast Asia thus far this year. Actually, you could be forgiven for thinking that Western media place a quota on coverage from this region, and that reports on these two developments consumed practically all of it.

Yet, with all due respect to Yew and Suu Kyi, the arrest of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra of Thailand has been the most interesting development.

To put it into context, here are excerpts from just a few of the many commentaries I’ve written over the years on Thai politics:

___________________

From “Thailand’s Benign Military Coup…,” September 20, 2006:

Even a benign (i.e., popular and bloodless) military coup is not only inherently inconsistent but also politically untenable in a democracy. After all, no matter the extent of Thaksin’s corruption (highlighted by an insider’s deal where he allegedly sold his family’s stake in a state telecommunications company to Singaporeans for $1.9 billion), constitutional provisions were in place to either impeach him or vote him out of office at elections that were due within months…

Given that, throughout their 74-year democracy, Thais have changed their government by coups as often as by elections, I suppose it’s no surprise that even former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai seems resigned to military coups as an oxymoronic staple of Thai democracy…

Even though martial law has been declared, it’s reasonable to expect that democracy will soon be restored and all will be well in Thailand … until the next military coup.

From “Thailand Suffers Another Coup – This Time by an Angry Mob,” December 3, 2008:

After months of protests – growing so formidable in size and nihilistic determination that not even the country’s vaunted military could squash them – the court ruled yesterday that Prime Minister Somchai’s governing coalition committed electoral fraud. Then, affirming mob rule, the court banned him from politics.

So here’s to hoping that Thailand’s third prime minister this year can prove beyond all doubt that he not only thoroughly hates Thaksin but is also completely loyal to the king. Otherwise the protesters are bound to return to the streets.

From “Thailand’s Never-Ending Asian Spring,” December 2, 2013:

Frankly, Thais seem caught in a vicious cycle of people’s coups…

This is why, when Thaksin’s sister Yingluck became prime minister in 2011, instead of hailing her as the latest in my pantheon of women leaders taking over the world, I remonstrated [that] the Yellow Shirts would not stand by and allow Thaksin to rule over them again – by proxy from exile in Dubai. Especially because Thaksin seems to believe that his little sister’s top priority should be forcing the government to grant him amnesty and return the $1.2 billion in assets it confiscated after he fled…

Even though the Groundhog-Day events unfolding there today are eminently newsworthy, I hope I can be forgiven for having nothing more to say. Instead, I shall end with this ominous bit of reporting yesterday by the BBC:

Thai protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban says he has met PM Yingluck Shinawatra and given her two days to ‘return power to the people’…

The protesters had declared Sunday the decisive ‘V-Day’ of what they termed a ‘people’s coup’.

They say Ms. Yingluck’s Administration is controlled by her brother, exiled ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra, and they want to replace it with a ‘People’s Council’.

Finally, from “Military Coup in Thailand … Again,” May 22, 2014:

I [have already] delineated the untenable state of affairs that, for years, have had the country’s two main political factions paralyzing government functions. The Yellow Shirts [with the blessing of royalist elites, the military, and judiciary] have continually resorted to street protests to wrest political power from democratically elected Red Shirts [Thaksin loyalists whose supporters are mostly peasant farmers and blue-collar workers].

____________________

Given that context, here now is the coup de grace. Thailand’s military leaders are finally doing to Thaksin’s puppet sister what they’ve longed to do to the master himself (i.e., ever since he chose exile instead of their military justice in 2008).

Thailand’s former premier Yingluck Shinawatra has been ordered to stand trial on charges of negligence over a bungled rice subsidy scheme, in a case that could see her jailed for up to a decade.

The decision is the latest legal move against Yingluck – Thailand’s first female prime minister and sister of fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra – that could spell the end of her family’s political dominance.

The Shinawatras, or parties allied to them, have won every Thai election since 2001.

(London Guardian, March 19, 2015)

I fear Yingluck’s show trial, which is scheduled to begin on May 19, will put the nail in the coffin of Thai democracy … for at least a generation.

Mind you, I have no doubt that her brother was a crook who amassed billions with brazenly corrupt schemes. But the Yellow Shirts (whose months of street protests forced her ouster in May 2014) and the military-appointed legislature (whose retroactive impeachment just weeks later led to the criminal charges for which she’s now being prosecuted) have not shown one scintilla of evidence to justify their actions.

Nothing betrays their political motivations quite like Thailand’s attorney general prosecuting Yingluck for doling out farm subsidies. After all, governments in Europe and the United States do this routinely. Incidentally, with evidentiary and procedural motions, her show trial is unlikely to begin until early next year.

Meanwhile, you’d be hard-pressed to find a Western leader who has uttered a single word of support for Yingluck, let alone of condemnation against the military rulers. President Obama’s silence is particularly shameful in this regard. After all, he’s on record lecturing military rulers in neighboring Burma about the categorical imperatives of democratic governance. Not to mention the public show he made of the mutual affection he and Yingluck shared during his historic state visit a few years ago.

It seemed Thailand was bursting with national pride last week when President Obama made it the first stop on his historic trip to Southeast Asia.

And no Thai seemed more impressed and adoring than (female) Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. So much so in fact that opposition forces threw cold water on the national celebration by practically accusing her of treason for behaving more like a teenage girl meeting Justin Bieber than as one head of state greeting another.

(“Thai PM’s Flirting with Obama Incites Riots?” The iPINIONS Journal, November 26, 2012)

Alas, apropos of my references to Burma, I fear that, like Aung San Suu Kyi, it will take Yingluck wasting away in prison for years, coupled with a Nobel Prize for becoming democracy’s latest darling martyr, for Western leaders to consider her a cause celebre.

In any event, Thailand’s military leaders will undoubtedly do all they can now to emulate what Burma’s (and Egypt’s) military leaders have done: implement cosmetic reforms (to provide the veneer of democracy) and hope they suffice to preempt Western censure and sanctions. And they’ll get away with it too.

NOTE: I suspect even Suu Kyi would begrudgingly admit that it’s better to be disillusioned with the slow pace of political reforms than imprisoned as a martyr for them.