Saving the country but splitting the country

3 May 1998

Will the Democrats go down in history as the party which saved the country but split the country? Which nursed Thailand through its worst economic crisis ever, but left the society more divided - rich against poor and city against village?

If so, it will not be because the Democrats are bad people. The division already runs deep in society. The danger is that, under the stress of the crisis, this split will get built into the structure of politics.

In the early 1990s, especially after the violence of the May 1992 crisis, there was a lot of enthusiasm about a political alliance between the urban middle class and the countryside. The May crisis finally discredited the army as a political force, and raised hopes for the future of Thai democracy. The emergence of a new middle class, pundits argued, created the foundations for this democracy, but a very shaky foundation as the middle class was still small and politically immature. Thirayuth Boonmee wrote: "In theory, the security of the political party system will come about when the middle class and the lower class both want democracy. Alliance between the middle class and the lower class is the most important foundation of a democratic system."

Anek Laothamatas pointed out that Thai politics are unstable because rural votes decide elections, but urban demands dictate government policies. Rural people show little interest in democracy because policies do not address their needs. Urban people get frustrated at democracy because they cannot control elections. The result is short-run governments, a musical chairs game of political parties, and a ready excuse for a military return. Anek argued that the electoral system should be adjusted to increase urban representation, while the political parties should champion rural issues in order to give the peasants reason to value democracy.

The first Chuan government (1992-5) was formed in this climate and was affected by this way of thinking. The Democrats knew the electoral system was still controlled by the old provincial bosses who had allied with military strongmen. The Democrats barely scraped into power despite strong urban support. They had to accommodate some of the provincial-boss parties in the coalition, with messy results. To build a future for Thai democracy and the Democrat Party, the party had to break the provincial bosses’ hold over the electorate, which operated through traditional patronage.

The first Chuan government put considerable effort behind this rural strategy. It took the first serious step towards decentralisation and democratisation of local government (the TAOs). It revamped agricultural price support schemes. It launched the ambitious SPK 4-01 scheme to sort out the mess over land rights.

The forging of a peasant/middle-class alliance looked easy in academic theory. In practice it turned out to be a political nightmare, because it challenged established systems of paternalism and patronage. The decentralisation schemes caused the first crisis for the Chuan coalition and a reshuffle. The SPK 4-01 land scheme sparked the second crisis and brought the government down. The following election saw a triumphant return of the provincial. The Democrats seemed to get no thanks and no votes for their rural efforts.

Since then, talk of a peasant/middle-class alliance has disappeared. The experience of the Banharn and Chavalit governments, and the shock of the economic crisis, have focused urban political sentiments on self-interest. The framers of the new constitution gave priority to increasing the urban weightage in the election system. The Democrats were driven back to power on a wave of urban sentiment. They feel confident they can carry the next election because the new electoral system favours them, because they have a track-record on the economy, and because Chavalit serves as a bogey-man, scaring urban voters to rally behind the Democrats.

But this urban tilt has exposed the Democrats to the criticism that they don’t care about the poor.

In particular, the Chuan II government has been tough on rural protest groups. From the first meeting with the Assembly of the Poor, it was clear that Chuan did not see such groups as important. Government spokesmen have dismissed them as rent-a-crowd. Over the last month, the government has reversed the major concessions which Chavalit made to the Assembly over land rights, dam schemes and dam compensation. These concessions may well have been badly flawed. But the manner in which they have been overturned has an imperious ring.

The Democrats may simply want to deny Chavalit any advantage from seeing his achievements implemented. But there is another level. The Democrat Party has always stood for rabop (system) – for the parliamentary system and the rule of law. In the past, this was the party’s stance for challenging dictatorship. Now the Democrats take the same stance against the chaotic politics of the poor. The government dismisses rural protest groups because they cannot claim to be representative, and have no standing in the official structure of parliamentary democracy. It overthrows the Chavalit concessions on grounds that they contravene laws.

But law and system have always been stacked against the poor. In this instance, "principle" crushes compassion.

The Democrats’ strategy involves some risk. The impact of the economic crisis is just starting to roll out to the countryside. So far, high rice prices at the last harvest have provided a cushion. Now, crop prices have weakened. Farmers face higher costs for new inputs, especially those with an import content. The rain is sparse. The remittances from family members working in the city are drying up like ponds in Isan. More are coming home to share in the family rice-bowl. Rural health care and other services are withering from budget cuts.

Over the coming months, these pressures will get worse. The results will be messy. There is no legitimate political outlet for the resulting distress. There will just be scattered incidents, rising anger, and accidents.

The IMF and World Bank talk about funding "social safety nets". The Democrat Party has officially adopted the fashionable concept of self-reliance. But these professions have a hollow ring. This government and its international patrons are clearly focused on a desperate urban rescue.

The Democrats’ urban tilt is not a surprise. The rich-poor urban-rural division is a social fact not a political construction. In the crisis, the Democrat-led government is being driven by the lobby of the rich and the urban. But the tilt has some scary consequences. It leaves the door open for the old provincial bosses to maintain their patronage grip over the rural population. It makes it easy for Chavalit to offer himself as a rural leader and the friend of the poor. It means the rich-poor urban-rural divide is being burned into the structure of party politics. The academics who promoted a peasant/middle-class alliance a few years ago, warned that the alternatives to such an alliance would be unstable – especially if the social violence inherent in the rich-poor urban-rural division becomes the governing principle of party competition.

The Democrat’s urban tilt is not a surprise. But it is a pity that the Democrat leaders don’t appear to have the statesmanship to stand out against these divisive forces, and prevent the consequences. It may not be too late.