Since the 2001 election, the Democrat Party has seemed like a band of ghosts. The choice of Banyat Bantadtan as leader seemed like an act of non-violent suicide. If they had only managed to wake Banyat up before taking the photos for the recent billboard campaign, we might believe there is still some life stirring in the party. The news that Sanan Kachornprasart threatens to emerge from enforced political retirement and bother Banyat’s leadership suggests a looming battle between the ghosts and the zombies.

The Democrats’ transition into the netherworld was brutally sudden. Thaksin’s election and immense popularity showed how far the ten-year boom had swept economic and social change far ahead of politics. In his campaign, Thaksin reflected the ambitions of modern businessmen, the self-image of the middle class as citizens of the first world, and the refusal of villagers to accept their old role as meek and invisible. Through his weekly radio chats and his disarmingly spontaneous style, Thaksin has brought the everyday practice of politics out into the open.

By contrast, the Democrat Party of Banyat and Sanan still belongs to the old-boy network of military connections; smoky conclaves in the Turf Club; glacially hierarchic meetings in the stiff board rooms of the Interior Ministry; deals done in the drinking circle of the district officer and local police chief; and cosy Chinese dinners among construction contractors. Male. Musty. Covert. Of course, this world still exists in real life. But in the virtual world of Thai public politics, it has been frozen into history.

In recent months, the Democrats have made two attempts to bring the party back to life. First, they commissioned academics and activists to create a “policy programme”. This was certainly a new venture for the party. They announced the programme with a media flourish. But the audience greeted the programme with bafflement and silence, because the measures seemed little different from those offered by Thai Rak Thai (debt relief, new welfare provisions, economic stimulus). The Democrat leaders explained that their version was different because it was “not populist”. This was rather subtle. Bafflement deepened. Silence continued. The programme disappeared.

The second attempt at revival is the sudden appearance of the cherubs.

The party has selected Apirak Kosayodhin as its candidate for Bangkok mayor. The post itself is not the point. It carries rather little power, and even this will be reduced if currently proposed restructuring is completed. The significance of Apirak’s candidacy is largely symbolic, especially as the next general election looms into view. Now that super-cherub, Purachai Piumsombun, has declined to stand for Thai Rak Thai, there is a possibility that Apirak will attract the main public attention, and even win.

But what does Democrat cherubism stands for? What does it mean beyond a little street entertainment around the city in the months between now and the August mayoralty election? Are Apirak and his mentor Abhisit Vejjajiva no more than a deceptive shield for the ghosts and zombies lurking behind? Or can we hope for something more?

Apirak is attractive. He is charming. Those are important qualities to draw public attention back to the Democrats. He is undeniably a modern figure, and that too is a necessary condition in the new politics. But what else? We know he is a talented marketing man. Is then his contribution to the Democrats his skills and experience in the marketing world? Is this a sign that the Democrats are again following in the tracks of Thai Rak Thai – first a policy programme, then political marketing. Maybe that too now is a necessary condition, but it is not enough. As Apirak and any marketer knows, a copycat product rarely goes anywhere against a strong market leader.

The development of the Thai Rak Thai government, especially over the past two years, has opened up acres of political space for the Democrat Party. It is now abundantly clear that this is an authoritarian-minded government which belongs to a Thai political tradition stretching back through Sarit and Phibun. The characteristics are clear. Excessive belief in the power of the state. Ambitious social engineering. Abuse of power legitimised by nationalism. Intolerance of minorities. Neglect of human rights. Downgrading of parliament. Violence. Paternalism. Personality cults. Business cronyism. Contempt for democracy.

On past experience, governments in this tradition are successful at delivering high economic growth, even for a sustained period. But they incur high social and environmental costs which eventually result in a strong reaction (the cover-up of bird flu, and intolerance of minority populations have strong historical precedents). History does not repeat itself, but it often makes a smudgy copy.

The opportunity for the Democrats is to revive some of what the party has stood for in the past, and present these values in the idiom of Thailand’s post-boom, post-crisis, post-Thaksin political world. The values are obvious. They are mostly the basics of the liberal tradition. Respect for the individual and community. Constraints on the power of the state. Checks and balances. Empowerment and participation. Transparency in the relations of politics and business. True freedom of expression. Democracy as an ideal not a tool.

This will take more guts and more ambition than is currently visible in the Democrat camp. If the party fights the Bangkok election on the basis of Apirak’s sleek chin and fantasies of turning the city into a wonderland, then the second, cherubist revival will go no further than the first. The challenge for the party is to wrap the essentially symbolic Bangkok campaign with a larger message which has a longer-term significance. If not, the zombies and ghosts in the background will still loom larger than the cherubs out front.