What do the Senate election results mean?

21 March 2000

The Senate poll was the first under the new constitution, the first with an independent election commission, and the first ever for an upper house in Thailand. So what do the results show us?

First off, the ever-growing division between Thailand’s two political cultures. The provinces selected authority figures—either retired officials or the wives, children and associates of established politicians. The provincial vote was driven by a mixture of deference, intimidation and money. But Bangkok—along with some of the city outskirts and a few provincial towns—voted for people of a very different stamp. Half of 18 Bangkok winners had posters showing them smiling. Ignoring for the moment the issue of the Election Commission’s disqualifications, what do the voting figures tell us? What did Bangkok vote for?

Theme 1: The good guys’ revenge against the politicians. Pramote Maiklad’s huge vote owes much to his public association with the King. But Pramote was also publicly eased out of his job last year by pressure from politicians. Similarly, the only successful Bangkok candidate with a previous party association is Chumphon Silpa-archa. He took the unprecedented step of resigning a ministership because of political interference by his own brother. Yet another successful candidate, Prathin Santipraphob, is known as a good cop who stood out against bureaucratic and political pressures.

Theme 2: Crusades against the abuse of power. Chirmsak Pinthong rose to fame as the first person prepared to ask politicians tough questions in the media spotlight. He has mellowed a little lately. But few forget him asking Banharn, on the eve of the 1995 election, which of the three super-godfathers he was planning to make interior minister in charge of the country’s law and order. Banharn closed down Chirmsak’s programmes as "uncontrollable". Kaewsan Atipho has launched a crusade over the alleged misdeeds of the present interior minister, whose explanations about his past income are growing more and more entertaining..

Theme 3: Grassroots activism with real people. Seven of the successful candidates are long-standing workers in grassroots NGOs. Khru Yui on children’s issues. Kaewsan on urban renewal. Khru Pratheep on slum communities. Jon Ungphakorn on AIDS. Suphon Suphaphong on community work. Chirmsak on education. Mechai Viravaidya on linkages between communities and business.

Theme 4: NGOs as a national movement. Jon’s involvement in grassroots activism goes back to the very first attempts to build the scattered NGOs into a movement. Pratheep, Kaewsan and Yui have all been involved in attempts to build national networks among NGOs and popular organisations. Chirmsak has been a key publicist for grassroots work and NGO causes at the national level.

Theme 5: Saving Bangchak from the IMF and the Democrats. Three of the successful candidates were prominent in the campaign to resist the wish of the Democrat government and the IMF to sell off the Bangchak oil refinery to foreign owners. As head of Bangchak, Suphon encouraged local communities to earn extra income from gas station franchises; developed outlets for products of community projects; and donated funds to NGO causes. Mechai called Bangchak an example of "social capitalism" which could "reduce the gap between the rich and poor". Chermsak also supported the Save Bangchak campaign.

Theme 6: Resisting the fire sale laid on by the IMF and the Democrats. The only successful business candidate was Vichien Techapaibul whose family lost a bank in the crash. Both he and another successful candidate, Sak Korsaengruang, were prominent in the campaign against bankruptcy reform. They argued that changing the law at the low point of the crisis would result in a fire sale.

These six themes group into two mega-themes. First, this was a vote for people who work at the grassroots, and a vote against the arrogance and abuse of the politicians. Second this was a vote against the Democrats’ subservience to the IMF, and for a more independent Thailand. You search the list of winners in vain for an enthusiastic globaliser.

The first of these mega-themes is the big one. Perhaps there’s a parallel between this Senate vote and recent events in Korea, where a network of peoples’ organizations published a national blacklist of unacceptable politicians. The list included not only the obvious crooks, but also some of the subtler manipulators near the apex of the political hierarchy. The list met great public acclaim. The politicians are horrified.

In both Korea and Thailand, elected politicians took over from authoritarian military leaders. They also took over much of the political culture of their predecessors. Politicians act like a privileged elite. They often appear to abuse power as if by right. They do little to serve the people at the grassroots. They would be baffled by the proposition that they ought to pay attention to children, slums, AIDS sufferers, local communities. They often seem to cultivate a politics without meaning. Ordinary people sell their votes because they cannot see that the vote has any other value.

The Korean blacklist is a grassroots protest against these politics without meaning. In Thailand, the sentiment may not yet be quite so developed. Here it has been channelled into the wave of political scandalisation. The last few years have seen a constant series of scandals over corruption and the abuse of power—logs, drugs, seeds, data transmission contracts, airport landfill, textbooks, school computers, luxurious houses in national parks, illegal CDs, smuggled cars, German gangsters, and so on. These scandals are a form of protest. Ordinary people cannot change the politicians or bring them under control. They can only chip away at their persistent abuse of power.

But maybe this Senate election result across urban Thailand signals a step ahead. Of course this Senate election was set up as new, different and politics-free. So it invited a result of this sort. But maybe these surprising results open up new possibilities. What if people voted with the same sentiments at the next general election? What if there were new candidates which reflected these sentiments? Now that would show political reform working.