New words for old tricks

6 September 1999

Political scientist Kasian Tejapira has a lovely word for Thai politicians. He calls them "electocrats". It’s a lovely word because it is totally new but immediately understandable. And witty. It reminds us that Thai politicians are not really democrats who rely on the support of the people. Rather they are electrocrats who rely on their skill at elections. The word also has nice echoes of "plutocrat", reminding us that this electoral talent is based largely on money, and of "autocrat", reminding us that this electoral talent absolves them of any serious responsibility to the people.

But maybe we need some other new words for Thai politicians too. Words like "stuffocrat" and "shiftocrat".

The scale and crudity of the poll-rigging at the Muang Samut Prakan municipal poll on 2 May were quite impressive. Votes were stuffed in ballot boxes before polling started. Others were stuffed by men invading the polling stations. All the ballot boxes could be opened by a single skeleton key. Many of the ballot papers were printed counterfeits. At least a quarter of all the ballot-boxes were involved.

Both sides blame their opponents. In all probability, both may have been involved because they knew in advance that the election decision would depend as much on fraud as on popular support. Samut Prakan has a tradition of this sort of thing. Since this fiasco, on 4 July, poll officials were caught stuffing pre-marked ballots into the boxes at the election for the Bang Poo municipality just down the road. Two weeks after that at the tambon council meetings in the province, people were caught illegally distributing blank ballot papers.

Moreover, while both sides in Muang Samut Prakan may well have been involved, the long-run history tells a clear story. The judge who annulled the Muang result made a point of noting that Chonsawat Asavahame had used his position as acting mayor to appoint 11 unqualified people as polling officials, and to deny his opponents their rights to post representatives at the polling stations. The judge went on: "His appointment of 11 unqualified people could be considered abuse of authority, a criminal offence that carries a 10-year jail sentence."

The officials who confessed to stuffing the boxes in Bang Poo were favouring candidates who are identified with the Asavahame family.

Last August, another judge ruled on a charge of electoral fraud against Vatana Asavaheme and his running mates at the 1996 parliamentary polls. The judge found that there had been fraud on a massive scale. But he had to dismiss the suit on a technicality arising from the transition between two constitutions. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court Judge took the unusual course of writing the facts into the judgement: "police seized ballot-papers already marked in favour of the three defendants…Also, checks revealed that the number of ballot papers exceeded the number of people actually casting their vote according to official record by about 20,000. This shows that election officials may have marked ballot papers in favour of the defendants….Hence this election was improper and the Supreme Court should order a new election." The losing candidate claimed to have evidence that the votes cast in certain districts exceeded the numbers of people on the electoral roll by 28,000.

At the parliamentary polls in 1995, Vatana Asavahame had beaten this rival by a mere 5,000 votes, while his running mates had been defeated. This obviously looked a little risky. At the 1996 polls, those on the Vatana team all won with around 20,000 votes more than a year earlier. The maths do seem to fit.

After the scandal of the Muang poll blew up in May, Vatana came out to threaten anyone who dared to suggest that the poll might not have been totally clean and clearly ought to be annulled. He threatened the provincial governor. He threatened the Minister of Interior. He threatened his local opponents. Just in case we have forgotten, Vatana is a deputy minister in the Interior Ministry which is in charge of law and order.

Over in Sa Kaew, it has come to light that some 9,000 house registrations flew across the border from neighbouring Chanthaburi to qualify Sa Kaew for an extra parliamentary seat. It is of course entirely coincidental that house registrations come under the Interior Ministry, that the minister at the time was Snoh Thienthong, that Snoh is the godfather of Sa Kaew, and that the head of the Local Administration Department (which handles the registrations) had been a great pal of Snoh when he served as Sa Kaew governor.

In the past it was sometimes said that elections were won and lost inside the Interior Ministry. Things have certainly improved. But how far? The stuffocrats and shiftocrats are still out there. The 1997 constitution placed great importance on removing control over elections from the Interior Ministry to an independent Election Commission. Clause 144 entrusts the commission with the duty "to ensure a fair and clean" result. With that aim in view, the constitution grants the Election Commission very considerable powers. For many politicians, this is very disturbing. The framers of the constitution knew the politicians would want to emasculate the Commission. They also inserted a clause (75) which says: "The state must provide adequate funding for the Election Commission". Predictably enough, the Chuan government slashed the Commission’s budget to one third of the amount requested. By scraping around, the Commission has managed to increase this to around one half. But it’s clearly not enough. This has presented an opportunity to the Interior Ministry. Some of its officials are now out campaigning to maintain the Ministry’s role in the conduct of elections.

We will need some words for describing the electoral games of the stuffocrats and the shiftocrats. Such words cannot be invented. They arise out of the popular culture. In the US, "gerrymander" was adopted as the word to describe the practice of re-drawing constituency boundaries for political advantage. The word came from Governor Gerry who rejigged the boundaries of Massachusetts so oddly that shape looked like a salamander (think of a chingchok and you’re close). English likes long rolling words like gerrymander. Thai likes its words as short as possible. Maybe future Thai dictionaries will include the following new words.

Noh, verb, to move or cause to move house registrations for political advantage; as in the phrase, to noh a province.

Hame, verb, to introduce extra ballot papers into a ballot box by sundry means; as in the phrase, to hame a province.