Bangkok vs the Northeast

20 November 1996

The Democrats scooped the city. New Aspiration won the northeast. More than ever, this election has dramatized the political gap between Bangkok and the provinces, the city and the village.

Many city people feel let down by the result. They wanted the election to get rid of the old gang, and to replace them with leaders the city people trust. They hoped the election would transform the fortunes of the urban economy. But the election has returned much the same gang, with just a different boss. The stock market dive mirrors the slump of urban hopes.

The city people console themselves by saying the old gang won by cheating - by buying votes on a huge scale. They blame the provincial politicians for buying votes, and they blame the villagers for selling them.

But perhaps they should blame themselves.

Recently, Chang Noi happened to mention the "problem of the growing rural-urban gap" in the presence of a Bangkok business executive. "What problem?" he asked, "the rich are rich and the poor are poor. What’s new about that? What problem?"

Many other city people would not be brutally frank. But the attitude runs deep. The city is modern, successful. The village is backward, declining. The city people deserve to be rich because of hard work and cleverness. The villagers deserve to be poor because of lack of enterprise. The city people are first-class citizens. The villagers are second or third class. This attitude has a political dimension. Chang Noi overheard a Bangkokian sighing over the Democrat Party’s narrow electoral loss: "they were beaten by a couple of seats - seats from somewhere in the jungle." The word "jungle" was loaded with disdain.

The villagers’ electoral behaviour is perfectly rational. They get a cash bonus. They get a chance to bargain with the candidates for some investment in local infrastructure - a new well, a paved road, more electricity connections, a bus service. For them, these are the tangible benefits of democracy. The paved road, water supply and electricity are facilities which city-dwellers take for granted. But many villagers still have to bargain for them in this way.

The villagers have arrived at this view of politics through experience. For several decades, the farmers’ own attempts at forming political organizations were rigorously suppressed. Even this year, yet another rural leader died by assassination, with no sign that the police will unearth either culprit or motive. The political parties all represent urban business interests. Even though farmers form over half the population, there is not a single parliamentary figure who stands out as a representative of the farmers. Local self-government has developed slowly. The structure is still dominated by the Ministry of Interior. Funding is small. Only five percent of government revenues are channelled through local bodies.

The few hundred baht the villager receives for his vote and the few thousand baht invested in paving the village road may be small change. But at least they are something.

The Chuan government of 1992-5 failed to win the confidence of the villagers, especially from the northeast. It started out by promoting the SPK 4-01 land reform scheme, which was a step in the right direction. But it failed to prevent the scheme becoming corrupted, politicized and eventually killed. And the Chuan ministry seemed to think that land reform was enough. In other respects, the ministry showed the usual urban disdain for rural issues. When northeastern rural leaders presented petitions and staged protests about rural grievances, Chuan refused to take a personal interest. The issues were buried in committees. When a farmer’s leader was shot in Loei, Chuan’s government showed no sign of treating the incident as critical. Police investigations drew the usual blank. Such incidents stick in the memory.

Since Prachuab Chaisarn defected to Chat Pattana in 1992, the Democrats have had no significant northeastern figure. In the lead-up to this election, Chang Noi asked a leading Democrat what the party planned to do about the northeast. He replied that nothing could be done.

The Democrats’ electioneering talked a lot about restoring international confidence in the Thai economy, reviving the stock market, boosting exports. There was little here for any rural voter. It is not as if there is no rural agenda for economic reform. For several years, rural petitions and protests have highlighted the same issues: land titles, debt relief, crop pricing, fair compensation.

Through their own urban bias, the Democrats opened up the opportunity for Chavalit to present himself as a leader of the northeast. Of course Chavalit’s claim is pretty thin. Does he look Lao? Can he speak Lao? Have you seen how silly he looks in a mohom shirt? But that hardly matters. The economic and cultural gap between city and village creates its own political logic. Simply by standing against the urban Democrats, Chavalit is potentially a leader of the village. The northeast accepted his claim to be a son of the soil because they will grasp any opportunity to get better political access.

The income gap between city and village has been growing steadily for many years. No political party or leader has done anything meaningful to reverse this trend. More and more, this gap is acquiring a political dimension.