The year of electing repeatedly

15 May 2000

The Senate three times, and who knows how many more. The Bangkok mayoralty. A few more local polls. Then the general election—for however many rounds it takes. This is the year of electing repeatedly. The year of the black inky thumb.

If you are not so good at something, then it may help to practice. Just four years ago, the leading political scientist, Suchit Bunbongkarn, suggested that Thailand’s democracy was still very young and raw, and would get better with experience, with practice. "The more elections Thailand has," Suchit wrote, "the more developed the competitive process will be…The elections may not be perfect for some time as frauds and vote buying continue to be rampant. But the more people go to vote, the more they understand the democratic system and know how to exercise their right and influence properly."

But that was a few years ago when political reform was still a dream, when few could imagine that a stunning crisis and Chavalit’s bumbling would convert dream into reality. Suchit sat on the Constitutional Drafting Assembly and is now a judge of the Constitutional Court. He has helped to bring about the year of electing repeatedly, the year of the inky thumb. Is he now so sure that practice makes… umm… better?

Mediocre sportsmen know that they spend most of the time practicing their mistakes—doing bad things over and over again until they can’t do anything else.

More and more elections may be a good thing, if only because of the financial effect. Each round runs down the accounts of the vote-buyers and influence peddlers. Each round redistributes more cash from the rich to the poor. Elections are Thailand’s only method of progressive taxation, only real policy of income redistribution, only device for continuing the fiscal stimulus of the local economies. The year of electing repeatedly is the Miyazawa Initiative extended, localised, and privatised.

But there’s another side. The two rounds of the senate elections have been a training ground for the old vote machines. They are learning how to survive and prosper in the new world of the 1997 constitution, the Election Commission, and the scandal-happy press. They have seized this opportunity with glee. They have tried out lots of new tricks. Ingenious new ways to use the underground lottery to reward voters. A futures market in vote purchasing. Defter use of violence. And new heights in negative campaigning. ‘Vote for our man or we’ll rip up your road’ (the proposition allegedly put to some Suphanburi villagers) has to be one of the most persuasive election slogans that Chang Noi has ever heard.

Most impressive has been the vote machines’ staying power. After the first round of disqualifications, did you see them waver? Hardly. Banharn’s machine looked a little shaky on the first outing. Second time round it was rock solid. Much the same can be said of Se Moei and many others.

Is the year of electing repeatedly a way of wearing the old vote machines down? Or an extended workout to make them tougher and more impregnable than ever?

The answer to this question revolves around two things: issues and cash.

Suchit trusts that "the more people go to vote, the more they understand the democratic system and know how to exercise their right and influence properly".

But what have the average rural voters got from the democratic system? Consider their major concerns right now. They have been bashed about by the crisis. Their cash supply has disappeared because their sons and daughters could not find work in the city over the past two years. The prices for their crops have dropped like a stone. Fertiliser and chemicals cost more because of the weakened baht. Their debts have ballooned. Some have lost ownership of their land.

But are these matters of land, crop prices, jobs and agrarian debt the issues which differentiate the parties and candidates seeking their votes? Are these the issues that have been debated passionately in parliament over the last two years? Are these the issues on which they are casting their votes? If not, what are they voting for?

Come the general election, do they have a chance of putting their "representatives" into the parliament? Not a chance. The constitution requires an MP to have a BA degree. That excludes over 95 percent of the rural population, and over 99 percent in the agricultural sector.

As long as rural issues are excluded from political debate and rural people kept out of parliament then the democratic system is irrelevant to the major concerns of the rural voter. Elections are merely a way to get some better local facilities (roads, schools, water) for the locality. That is done by voting for a good fixer who can manipulate the budget system. At present, the more people go to vote, the more they "understand" this truth.

The other factor determining what this year of electing repeatedly will eventually mean is cash. Over this year of electing repeatedly, where is all the money coming from? The domestic economy is still hobbling. The credit system is still shrinking. Where is the cash coming from?

Some may be recycled out of the profits of political power. But with budget shrinkage, and greater public vigilance, this income stream must be dwindling too. There looks to be only one conclusion. The sector probably least hammered by the crisis is the illegal economy. The drug trade has boomed. The export division of the flesh trade has prospered. Smuggling has probably done well.

The huge sums spent on Thai elections have never made sense under any normal system of accounting. But often these sums are investments of a special kind. Buying the formal or informal immunity that comes with political office. Laundering black money into the political influence which can be manipulated to make more money—white, grey or black. Self-soaping.

Suchit maybe right. More elections may mean better elections. That has to be the hope. But the fear is that the year of electing repeatedly may be a way of getting down to the real lowest common denominator of provincial Thai politics.