Thai democracy: can it be sustain?

The factors contributing to the Thai democracy can be divided in to two main points: the political powers (players) and the Thai political culture. This paper will address and investigate four political players and their roles contributing to the development of democracy in Thailand. It will also discuss why Thai politic, as well as its culture which has been developing for more that 600 years, is one of the unique system in the world. Then it will suggest some points to maintain democracy on the right track.

1. The political players
The main active players in Thai politic are the monarchy, the military institution, political parties, and the people. Since 1932 revolution, the state sovereignty has been shifted among four players. Yet, it was usually belonging to the military and the monarch, as they were sharing the same axis. Thailand’s political factions are unique because this country has a strong belief and faithful trust to the monarch. Therefore, whoever can stand on the same side as the monarch, he/ she surly gains advantages in the political battlefield. As a consequence, every side wants to bring itself to stand on the King side. The following topic will explain the important role of the monarchy.

1.1 The Monarchy
For Thais, it can be stated that democracy is nothing more than a means to verify the power and position of the monarch. No coup d’état could succeed or long live without His Majesty’s approval or support[1]. The monarchy has firmly established itself as the core of the Thai politic since the beginning of Thai democracy. It is said that during the downturn of the Thai Politic, written constitutions come and go, but the monarchy is always with the people.
Fundamentally, Thai kingship is base on the Buddhist socio-political concept which requires a ruler to be always mindful of the drama namely, the Buddha’s teaching of responsibility of the leader in a society. It has created a concept of dharmmaraja ; a king must perform his duties in accordance to the concept of Buddhist kingship. Therefore a limited monarchy, by constitution, is required to act under the Buddhist kingship rule-“Thammasartra”. Thammasartra is the Universal Law of Theravada Buddhism. It is also the fundamental code of conduct in the kingdom administration. By comparing to the western’s concept of written constitution, the written constitution means very little to Thai society. In other words, for Thais, the written constitution was neither the state fundamental legal order, nor the social contract according to western’s ideology. The legitimacy in Thai political system is directly attached to the King. As a consequence, the constitution is not the only source of legitimacy. By looking back to Thai political history, all promulgated constitutions were given by the King, but not by the people’s party. Therefore, the King remains the highest source of legitimacy. It became a political tradition that after the coup d’état took over the government, the coup leader would asked His Majesty to give a new interim constitution. Through this way, it can be interpreted that the coup party is asking for the King’s consent. According to Suwannathat-Pian[2], the monarchy was fundamentally the source of all legitimate power. Even whenever the military wished to do away with the troublesome Parliament and to rule with absolute authority, the monarch would be asked to invoke his role as the depository of popular sovereignty to legitimate the military critique in power.
For the kingdom, the king has never belonged to one political force. He would choose the strongest force in order to share and control them. For example, King Bhunibol supported Oct 1957 coup d’état to over throw Pibun’s government due to Pibun’s limitation of monarchy activities policy. However, in 1957, the King took an independent step against 1957 coup leader and supported the force of the liberals and students to over throw the military regime[3]
In 1985, Leader Magazine stated, “King Bumibol is not an ordinary King, and he rules as Head of state by unusual standard.” It was because he had equipped with the power of love. His majesty further explained his understanding of his role as a constitutional King that he differentiated his legal role of constitution king legally based on the constitutional principle, and the traditional role, which inherited from the pervious kings. As a constitution monarch, the king is the head of state which His Majesty is simply a figurehead. Nevertheless, as a Thai traditional king, he understood his duties to include the guardianship of his people, their well being and a royal commitment to protect the nation. As the head of state, the monarch must change with the country[4]. It is because the King is the soul of the nation- the spirit of the country. Therefore, the constitutional kingship should not be in conflict. In contrast, it should be complimentary to one another.
Nevertheless, through out King Bhumibol’s long history, he has gained special immense powers, both in public and personal, over his people and the nation. He is now considered the supreme authority in the land, over the top of the military leaders, constitution and parliament. The source of his unique power is the love, esteem, respect, and trust that Thais give to him. There is a close bonds between the monarchy and the people which lively and dynamically attached at all time. For example, the socio-political and economic are tied up with the King. It is normally seen that when the King becomes ill, concern and tension appear everywhere in his kingdom. Even Thai stock market rises and falls according to the king’s health. This is unique when analyzing relationship between Thai monarchy and its people.[5] The royal vision, then, becomes an accepted socio-political norm of Thais. However, as this paper stated at the beginning, the other political powers usually interpret this royal vision in order to create advantage above others. Added to this point, Suwanathat-Pian rose a question whether this royal prestige power would survive beyond the time of King Bhumibol?[6] It is because the extra-constitutional and traditional powers of the monarchy constructed firmly on His Majesty personality, but not the monarchy institution. The successor of his reign is still in a question of his/her personality. In this case, it is predictable that beyond King Bhumibol’s reign, the socio-political norm of Thais would shift from the monarchy to either politicians and political parties or the armed force leaders.



1.2 The Military
Due to the history, democracy in Thailand was introduced to Thais by the 1932 people’s party who conducted the revolution against absolute monarchy. Most of the revolutionary members were either senior civil servants or military leaders. After the 1932 revolution, the military and the senior civil servants became competitors in power game. Soon after they faced conflict, the military leaders who carried arms and controlled tanks resolved the political problems by launching coup d’état. Since then, the military always be an active faction in Thai political development. In their mindset, they think that they have a duty to protect the nation, the religion and the monarch. This is included the duty to protect democracy by giving it stability and orders. At the early state of democracy, there was not much people awareness. Politic belonged to military elites and technocrat middle class in the capital city. After a few coups, Thailand was ruled under military dictatorship. For example, during the regime of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat (1958-1963), he had assumption that the Western model of democracy was out of touch with the Thai fundamental socio-political needs. It was simply because the democracy philosophy was born and developed to suit the political and social climate in the West, but not for the Thais. In a speech launched by 1957 coup group spokesman, Thai democracy launched by Sarit was arguing that Thai soil better grow vary of local fruits, i.e. banana, mangoes, rambutans, durians, which suite to the local taste and delight, instead of “apples, grapes, dates, plums or nuts”[7]. Therefore, Sarit believed that the Western democratic tree was not suitable for Thais society. The Field Marshal felt that the traditional administrative, which was top-down commanding, was the suitable means for Thais. Then, He claimed unquestionable authority for the executive, which included the power over life and death when required, and preserved to himself instead of leaving the supreme power to the legislative branch.
In the 1980s, due to the liberals and student protests, the military changed their concept to guided democracy. The political role of the military was accepted by the civilian ruling elites, the bureaucrats and the technocrats. At least it acknowledged the civil rights and allowed these elites to be active in the politic. These elites soon involved in the process of decision-making. The implementation without having to answering parliament’s questions was the middle path in democratic development at that time. The 1978 constitution, which later became a standard form of military involved constitution, was a evidence. The constitution allowed armed force to influence decision-making by appointing military dominant politicians to the senate[8] and House of representative. The total number was only not to exceed three-quarter of the total number of the elected numbers; it was more than enough to control the government. Moreover, prime minister did not require being an elected member of parliament. As a consequence, the military leaders compromised with the civil elites and appointed dominant MPs and senators who would benefits the ruling class. However, when the government stability was out of control, the military was ready to coup and reestablished the new appointed government.
Nevertheless, in the early 1990s, people started to participate more in the politic. They refused junta governments and put a great pressure on the appointed government to deliver political reform. At the late 1990s the victory belong to the people power as the promulgation of 1997 constitution forced the armed force to leave the politic to the elected government. The 1997 constitution stated clearly in section 109 (8) and section 126 that neither any member of the parliament nor any senator can hold a government position (civil service and military service). As a result, many retired military general moved themselves into political parties and ran for election. Then, the military faction retreated and backed to bases, watching democracy developed quietly. However, in 2006, Thaksin’s government faced a dead lock in politic with anti-government protests. The protests transform into a national dispute between pro-Thaksin and anti-Thaksin allies. At that time, the military used this golden chance to coup d’état and claim their duty to protect the unity of the nation. Then, the coup circle has begun its new round (see figure 1).
Figure 1: The coup d’état circle = > Military Government > Coup d’état > Interim Constitution >Constitution > Election > Elected Government

1.3 The political parties
“Political party” means a group of people with similar ideas or aims, some of whose members nominate as candidates at elections in the hope that they will be elected to parliament.[9] However, political parties in Thailand have not yet been situated in the form of the western meaning. Thai political parties were mostly set up for groups of elite factions. There are very limited connection between parties and people. As a consequence, political parties in Thailand play less important role when compare to other players. Especially for rural people, party identification is not strong among the voters. In contrast, the personal ties between the candidates and the people play more influent in rural elections. As long as the candidates are able to respond their rural needs, they will still have chance to win elections. Whilst the voters are attached to politician personality, the political parties will not become political institutions. Evidently, it is very often seen that when the candidates in the rural areas change their parties around. They still win the election. This means that people have not yet concern about party’s policy, but very much attach themselves to the politician personality.
After the appear of Thai Rak Thai party(2001-2005) which was the first single party government (2005) in the history, political parties play more important role in shaping the politic. Party identity became obvious in rural areas and its policies were interested by the people. Nonetheless, people still vote according to personality. However, a strongly constructed political party such Thai Rak Thai, which also had majority seats in the parliament, still had democracy problem within its party. Most of the decisions were made by the head of the party, without member consensus. The members had to act according to party’s orders, if not he/she might lose his/her seat in the parliament. Therefore, when we consider political parties, we must not only concern about democracy in the parliament, but we also have to care of democracy in political parties because they are the root of the power. In other words, if we want a beautiful democracy tree, it must start from its roots.



1.4 The people power
According to Thai history, the people power hardly showed its power. The power has always been shift between either the military and ruling elites, or the monarchy. Only two times that people protested against the military junta could make them step down. However, the people power can be seen by 2 means: through elections and through civil demonstrations.
Election is the basis of the process in which private citizens participate to influence government decision-making and the composition of the political leadership. Bunbongkarn[10] argued that though elections are considered the conventional means of participation through the institution channels of representative government, but in Thailand, parliamentary elections have not reached the level that people participated to choose their government and to influence its policies. In many case, elections were used only to ensure the legitimacy of the government. It is said that to have a democracy, the people must participate in politics, and participation in elections is the most important requirement.
Democratically, election is not only to let people vote for their representative. The voting decision should be meaningful and reflect the interests of the voters. In other words, the election outcome should reflect the voters’ political awareness. In the case of Thailand, the country has low level of voters’ political awareness. Vote buying is still a major problem in political culture. It has become a common practice for candidates to give money to electors in exchange for their votes[11]. Money is usually distributed by the local leaders, local teachers, and canvassers. Once the voters have received money, they feel obliged to vote as what they been told. Vote buying usually works effectively in rural areas where the party of the candidates’ bases does not popular and the voters do not politically in flavor of any party. Especially, the lower income groups are normally targeted by the vote buyers. In Bangkok, where people are higher educated, the voters are very independent. When they go for vote, they do on the basis of their own reasons which usually stand on democratic ideology[12]. Therefore, it can be concluded that the seats in Bangkok areas are more difficult to win than those in the rural areas. In addition, although the Bangkok voters are more active in criticizing and influencing government decision-making, many members of parliament do not care about urban negative reaction. Many of them are rural-based who do not worry about being unpopular in the capital city. The current People Power Party (PPP) is in the situation as mentioned above. PPP, which is the party transformed from court dissolved Thai Rak Thai Party, is based concretely in the north and northeast provinces. The Bangkok seats mostly belong to the opposition parties. Therefore, if the government cannot respond to the Bangkok people demands, it will be easily predict that demonstrations will take it place in the capital.
The other factor that shows people power is demonstration in the capital. According to 1973 and 1993 people demonstrations, people protest is a powerful driving force that can out the government leaders –either military leaders or civilian leaders–. Now in the digital age, mass media plays more important role in political activities. Under the 1997 constitution, they exercised the freedom of speech effectively. The TV programmes, which criticize the government heavily, can now rouse the movement of the people. It can lead to people gathering in order to protest the government. Thaksin’s government, before coup d’état took over, was facing this kind of problems. The capital demonstrations put strong pressure enough to make him resolved his government in early 2005. This can be concluded that even though Bangkok residences cannot influent their government through election, these people can influent their government by launching capital demonstration. On the other hand, rural people always claim that rural people are the majority who select the government, in contrast, the capital residences are the minority that out the elected government. Added to this problem, in order to build a fortress for democracy and to prevent a junta government, the middle class in Bangkok must bow to the popular mandate and do not temping military intervention again[13].

2. The political culture: unwritten constitution
Thailand, since 1932 revolution, has had 17 coups d’état, 18 constitutions, and 26 prime ministers. Even though, as the nation changed its constitution many times by military juntas, Thai political culture has never been changed. The political life is still spinning itself in the same dirty circle. It can be explained by two factors: the current civilian culture and the election culture.


2.1 Democratic Civilian Culture
Political scientists such Lasswell and Kaplan agreed that democracy would develop only when people in that state are politicized. Politicize is a set of norms which are[14]:
A) pursue the politic movement and criticize it
B) involve in political activities or have a positive attitude to take part of it
C) believe that it is a duty to devote sometime for politic
For Thais, only middle class people in the capital city who have such norms, people in the rural, especially in lower income groups, neither practice nor involve in the politic. Democracy requires some principles such as individualism, open society and participation of the people. However, the authoritative political culture, which had established in Thai society for 700 years, is still taking part in Thais root believes.[15] Thais people still easily agrees with the unlawful force. They prefer to stand on the passive side rather than active side. Moreover, the Patronage system is still being a strong influent in Thai democracy. In short, in order to build a strong democracy in Thailand, the nation needs to build a correct set of norms and culture which suits the politic system.

2.2 Election Culture
The election culture in Thailand is a major obstruction in democracy development. According to Bunbongkarn and Phongphaew[16], There is a distinction between urban voters and rural voters behaviors. Educated urban voters participate in elections because they think it is their duty and responsibility. These voters want elections to have an impact on forming a government. On the opposite, the rural voters realize it is their duty, but they are not much concern about impact of the elections. Although they know that elections let them select representatives, they expect their representatives to work for their local interests, such as building roads and bridges in villages. The rural people are not interested in the role their representatives are playing at the national level[17].

3. Conclusion
This paper has been discussing the nature of Thais characteristic and their politic. The factors contribute to the return of the democracy are the players and the politic culture. As long as, the monarchy is willing to support the strongest side; the military is ready to take action when the people do not aware of their unity and democratic means; political parties have not yet institutionalized; people culture is still needed to develop its democratic culture and to educate more about this political ideology, I would predict that the recently return of Thais democracy will not be sustain. It is because Thailand lack of democratic society and it has never changed its political culture. The Thai style constitution alone does not guarantee the democratic means; it requires democratic behaviors which sustains the democracy. If Thais want to have a sustain democracy, they must rouse people participation in the correct way. The political players must bear in mind that they have to act according to the constitution and uphold the principle of democracy.


Reference:

Bunbongkarn, Suchit. (1996), “Election and democratization in Thailand” found in The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia edited by R.H. Taylor, New York: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press.
--------------------- ,and Phongphaew, Pornsak (1984), “Preutikam kanlongkha-nansiang khong khonthai” (Voting behavior of the Thai people), Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press.
Chokechai Publications, “Democracy à la Thailand/ Prachathipatai baeb Thai”, Bangkok, n.d.
Laothamatas, Anek. (1996), “A tale of two democracies: Conflicting perceptions of elections and democracy in Thailand” found in The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia edited by R.H. Taylor, New York: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press.
Suntapan, Chanit.(2006), “Rattathamanoo tee tearjing tee mitookyoklark (The Real Constitution which has never been eliminated)” site from http://www.pub-law.net/ accessed on 10/FEB/08
Suwanathat-Pian, Kobkua.(2002), “The Monarchy and Constitutional Change since 1972” found in Reforming Thai Politics edited by Duncan McCargo, Denmark: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Publishing.
(2004), “King, Country and Constitutions: Thailand Political Development 1932-2000”, New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Footnote:
[1] Suwanathat-Pian, Kobkua.(2004), “King, Country and Constitutions: Thailand Political Development 1932-2000”, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, page 5
[2] Ibid. page 58
[3] Ibid, page 63
[4] Suwanathat-Pian, Kobkua (2002), “The Monarchy and Constitutional Change since 1972” found in Reforming Thai Politics edited by Duncan McCargo, Denmark: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Publishing, page 63
[5] Suwanathat-Pian, Kobkua(2004), page 148
[6] Ibid, page 28
[7] Democracy à la Thailand/ Prachathipatai baeb Thai, Bangkok, Chokechai Publications, n.d., page 65-66
[8] Suwanathat-Pian, Kobkua.(2004), page 17
[9]Australian Electoral Commission definition at www.aec.gov.au/content/What/glossary.htm on 18/FEB/08
[10] Bunbongkarn, Suchit. (1996), “Election and democratization in Thailand” found in The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia edited by R.H. Taylor, New York: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, page 184
[11] Bunbongkarn, Suchit. and Phongphaew, Pornsak (1984), “Preutikam kanlongkha-nansiang khong khonthai” (Voting behavior of the Thai people), Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, page 224-250 sited in Bunbongkarn (1996), page 194
[12] Bunbongkarn, Suchit. (1996), page 195
[13]Laothamatas, Anek. (1996), “A tale of two democracies: Conflicting perceptions of elections and democracy in Thailand” found in The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia edited by R.H. Taylor, New York: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, page 222

[14] Suntapan, Chanit.(2006), “Rattathamanoo tee tearjing tee mitookyoklark (The Real Constitution Which Has Never Been Eliminated)” site from http://www.pub-law.net/ accessed on 10/FEB/08
[15] Ibid.
[16] Bunbongkarn, Suchit. and Phongphaew, Pornsak (1984), page 229-230
[17] Bunbongkarn, Suchit. (1996), page 196