The Last Stand

24 March 1998

No-confidence debates are like cowboy films. In 1995 we saw The Indian Siege: wave upon wave of Indians attacked the weak point in the fort wall (the SPK 4-01 land scandal) until the fort commander (Chuan) conceded and ran up the white flag. In 1996, we watched The Secret Weapon: in mid-debate the attackers suddenly whipped the covers off a deadly new kind of weapon (the BBC wide-bore cannon) and blasted a fatal hole through the Cabinet defences. This was followed by Turncoats, in which the suspense hinged around the moment when the defenders would break ranks and start pumping bullets into their own beleaguered leader (Banharn).

Just now we have seen The Last Stand. The attackers have been cast into the desert. They are tired, thirsty, disheartened. They know their cause is hopeless, but honour requires they make one last stand. Their ammunition is almost exhausted. Their shots and arrows bounce off the armour-plated target like paper darts. Many bullets ricochet back and wound their own men. Just about the only shots they land are on the renegades - their old friends who have gone over to the enemy. Even Buster Chalerm makes little impact. His pistol cracks but the shots are all blanks. And at the height of the battle his big weapon misfires – he loses his voice and his missiles fizzle out in plaintive croaks.

Then in the climactic scene, the old Indian-fighter, Samak, clambers out onto the parapet, the sounds of battle fall away, and we know it is time for the film’s emblematic soliloquy. He looks battered, battle-worn, bloodied and bowed. His tongue can still flash like quicksilver, but today it is dulled by the clouds of fate. We knew we could not win, he intones, but we just wanted to see the flag fly and the bugle sound one last time. The battle continues around him, but the camera pulls back and away, and we know the film is over and the credits are about to roll.

Perhaps the best cowboy-film metaphor for current Thai politics is The Wild Bunch. For years, the old gun-fighters swept all before them - robbing banks, shooting up opponents, carrying off women, swaggering around the saloons, and squabbling over the spoils. But one day they wake up to find that the world has changed, history has moved on, and they have been transformed from romantic heroes into pitiful relics. The finale is a ritualised annihilation.

In The Wild Bunch, the symbol for the historical shift was the coming of the railroad. Here it would be the march of Japanese factories out along all Bangkok’s radial roads, and of western finance houses down Asoke and Silom.

Over the past two years, Samak’s facial expression has changed from confident pugnacity to pained, frustrated disbelief. He railed against the international rating agencies, whose down-grades prefigured the financial crisis, for having inauspicious names (Moodys, Poor). He exploded in anger when a young reporter dared to disrupt the photo-call for Chavalit’s newly-formed coalition by asking: how can you expect the public to accept this lot when it’s much the same as the old lot. He lost his temper with the Assembly of the Poor protesters who, in earlier days, would have been dealt with more decisively. He could not brook the popular pressures which shaped the transition from Chavalit to Chuan, and watched his party shatter as a result. He cannot fathom why the media should be allowed so much freedom. He (and many of his allies on the opposition front bench) belong to an age of simpler, more brutal politics - transacted behind closed doors, veiled from public view, backed by guns.

Over the last two years, the Democrats have carefully constructed a public image which is as far away from this old guard as possible. In the second no-confidence debate against Banharn, Chuan held back the senior Democrats, and let the next generation have the floor - young, attractive, polite, elegant, educated, informed, worldly. In this cabinet, both the Democrat party and its allies are studded with old-guard style politicos. But for the most part these types have kept their heads down behind the parapet. In the front-line Chuan has placed the technocrat team at the centre (Tarrin, Supachai, Pisit), the internationalist team on the left flank (Surin, Sukumbhand), and the youth brigade on the right (Abhisit, Jurin, Akkapol). The uniform is a white shirt and a sober tie. The regulation mood is responsible, calm and concerned. No shiny shirts. No chunky jewelry. No public outbursts. A little bland but very wholesome.

After Samak’s speech on last Thursday night, the iTV camera ignored the next speaker and stayed on Samak. He shuffled his papers thoughtfully then rose and walked rather heavily out of the chamber. A few nods to colleagues, but no plaudits and no enthusiastic greetings. It was the defining visual image of the debate.

The battle of course is far from over. Old gun-slingers never give up because, quite simply, there is no other way of life they know. They will regroup and return to the assault. They will send out snipers, blow up baggage trains, and mine the battlefield.

But their admission of defeat was there in the soliloquy of Samak’s last stand. We came out to fight again this time, he explained, because we did not want to be blamed for losing the Battle of the Economy. That loss was the fault of Tarrin and the Democrats back in 1992-5. I guess he continued: our side could not fix it during 1995-7 because we don’t have anyone who understands this economics stuff at all. But that part of the speech was lost in the sound of gunfire.