How to win an election

11 October 1996

You’re thinking of standing for election. You read all this stuff about vote-buying, and it looks easy. Just staple your card together with 120 baht and hand it round in the villages. But hold on. It’s a bit more complex. To save your pocket and your face, Chang Noi is offering this complete guide on how to win. Read on.

First you have to answer a question. How many of the following businesses do you, your relatives or your patron own: hotel, pawn shop, whisky agency, gravel quarry, automobile dealership, petrol pump, trucking firm, construction business?

If you counted fewer than four, you should give up now. If you scored over six, you are in with a real chance.

Next, who will be you running mates? Most constituencies have three slots. Unless you choose your partners carefully, they can get you into trouble. So what about your family? Any promising sons, nephews, even wives or daughters? Look around the country and you will find that more and more experienced politicians are standing in family groups. It makes sense. Costs are shared. Voters have to remember only one surname. And all the benefits stay in the family.

Now in Thailand we don’t really have party organizations. Instead we have the underground lottery, which in many ways is a lot better. Just about everybody bets on the underground lottery. And the network of lottery agents is probably the largest and most efficient organization in Thailand. Underground lottery agents make far the best election canvassers.

If you have to find your canvassers on the open market, it’s a lot trickier. The freelancers charge high fees. And they have a habit of "working" for both you and the people you are competing against.

If you don’t already run the underground lottery in your province, that’s really very careless of you. After all, it’s the best way to fund the campaign too. But never mind. Make sure you get in touch with the local underground lottery boss as soon as possible.

You can also use the lottery network for another campaign tactic. Arrange for the lottery agents to take bets on who will win the election, and rig the odds so most will bet on you. Who is going to vote against you if that means they will lose the bet? If you want to make even more sure, run another book for betting on your opponent losing.

This trick needs a lot of nerve and a good numbers man (it could turn out very expensive). But it has a track record of working very well.

Now 120-200 baht a head is not so much to pay for votes. But every village is going to ask you for something much bigger - a well, street lights, bus shelter, community hall. Paving the road is the most popular. Don’t panic. At this stage, all you have to do is promise. So promise away. If you get elected, there’s the MPs fund to pay for these promises. Isn’t democracy wonderful? The last government raised this fund to 30 million baht a head. You can deliver on all those promises, and increase your chances of getting elected next time too.

Now you see why it is so important to own a gravel quarry, trucking firm, or construction business. Who do you think makes a profit out of paving all those village roads? This is what the clever business consultants call a win-win situation.

Now the important bit. Handing out the money. This is getting a mite more difficult every time. People from PollWatch are sneaking around all over the place. But there are still lots of ways to give out money which are very nearly legal.

Invite lots of people to rallies, and give each of them a little payment as an attendance fee. Put up your posters on every house, and pay the owners a fee for the advertising space. Appoint just about everybody in the village as your paid election agent.

If you have a hotel or restaurant, arrange some free buffets. If you have a car or motorcycle shop, offer free repairs. If you run the whisky dealership, let a few cases run out the back door. If you have a pawn shop, be a bit generous. (Now you see what the quiz above was all about.)

The important thing is to make people feel so indebted to you they could not possibly vote for anyone else. In the last few days before the poll, there is really no alternative. Just give out cash.

But don’t do it yourself. That’s what canvassers are for. We have a super election law. Even if things go wrong, they will arrest the canvassers rather than you. And unless they catch them pressing the money into the voter’s hand in the presence of the entire national press corps and the provincial governor, then your canvassers should still get away with it. Our judges have assured us of this, so don’t worry.

Lastly, you need to know how people really vote, village by village. After all, if you do win, you don’t want to go paving the road of a village that took your money but voted for the other guy. And if you lose, you want to find out which of your election agents were really working for your opponents. And fix them good.

Luckily they still count the votes in the locality. You are not supposed to get a peek at the results village by village, but there are ways around this. Last election it was a bit tricky, because the Democrat party government insisted the interior ministry run a clean election. This time we should be back to the good old days. I assume you are in the habit of drinking with the right kind of people, and that you are very generous about buying the bottles.

So now you see that vote-buying is not just about money. All the candidates will hand out cash. It’s part of qualifying as a candidate. No-one will take you seriously unless you do it. But equally, no-one will vote for you just because you give them a few red ones. For that, you need to show them you’re a "big guy". That’s why you need the gravel quarry, the hotel, the lottery network, and the right drinking circle. That’s what will get you elected.

Now you should be all set. Chang Noi wishes you the best of luck. For all this advice, there’s absolutely no fee. But if you do get elected, and you don’t yet have a MA thesis, my phone number is....