Updated: Tanks, streets and judges I

[Update: we have fixed several typos in this post]

Voranai Vanijaka at the Bangkok Post noticed that 10 December is Constitution Day. His comments deserve a couple of PPT posts, and here is the first.

Voranai begins with this: “but with 17 charters since 1932, we can call Dec 10 the day when Thailand celebrates 80 years of fickleness. Charter changes to accommodate the times are one thing; 17 constitutions and counting in 80 years is an entirely different matter.”

The problem with this characterization is that getting rid of constitutions is not about fickleness at all. Rather, getting rid of constitutions has been a task undertaken by the military mainly in the interests of protecting a royalist political system and the privileges associated with it, usually with palace support. Maybe Voranai who, just a few days ago, joined the uncritical adulation of the supposed great monarch, needs a bit of a history lesson to loosen the royalist scales from his eyes.

From noom apicha

Pridi

The first constitution in 1932 was rejected by the king who demanded that it be “interim,” with royalists thinking they could win back some of the powers they had lost to the commoners who overthrew the absolute monarchy. The “permanent” constitution of 1932 stayed in place until 1946, when it was replaced by what is sometimes said to be Thailand’s most democratic constitution. It was put in place by Pridi Phanomyong supporters.

Soon after, in the 1947 constitution, a coterie of royalist generals and their anti-democratic supporters decided to hand back a set of powers to the monarchy while dealing a death blow to the civilians associated with the People’s Party. It was the People’s Party hating regent, Prince Rangsit who accepted the coup within 24 hours and the new royalist 1947 charter the coup leaders had drafted (the king was back in Switzerland not finishing his studies).

The 1949 charter was drafted by a committee that was headed by the royalist Seni Pramoj and dominated by other royalists beholden to Prince Rangsit and Prince Dhani. As might be expected, this document returned considerable power to the throne and Privy Council. This saw a kind of last gasp effort by the military faction from the People’s Party era, which rolled back some of these powers in the 1952 constitution.

Then the royalist military under General Sarit Thanarat took over in 1957 and ruled by decree until 1959 when there was a “temporary charter” announced that was the shortest in Thai history and stayed in place – temporarily – for nine years. It was put in place and mutually supported by king and military as a highly repressive document that allocated almost untrammeled power to the premier (always a military man). There was a “parliament,” but it was appointed and packed with military men and did the bidding of the premier.

Sarit

When the military finally came up with the 1968 constitution, it gave sweeping powers to the military. The senate was royally appointed and could delay legislation. The king approved Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn’s entire list of mostly military nominees to the senate.

Not surprisingly, this parliament looks a little like the “Thai-style democracy” promoted by modern-day royalists who hate the idea of elected politicians actually ruling. Not even this was adequate for the military bosses, who ditched the 1968 charter in November 1971, declared martial law, and ruled with little legal or political constraint. Thirteen months later, the military brass drafted the 1972 constitution, pretty much the same as the royalist-Sarit version of 1959, banning political parties and appointing legislators, with 200 of the 299 appointees being military and police.

King, prince and PM Thanom

When this lot were finally booted out in October 1973, the king appointed a constitutional selection committee which, unexpectedly, came up with a very liberal draft of a constitution which was vigorously opposed by palace and royalists, who managed to water down many of the liberal aspects of the 1974 constitution before it was promulgated. Of course, as the palace and military grew weary of democratic politics and incessant political squabbling, the constitution was ditched following the bloody events of October 1976 and the coup supported by the king. The king appointed the rightist royalist Thanin Kraivixien as premier and his government produced a remarkably reactionary and royalist constitution in 1976 that allowed the king to appoint the entire National Assembly made up of almost entirely bureaucrats and and military men, with the king given the unprecedented power to propose legislation to the assembly.

So repressive was the king’s premier and his regime that the military threw it out in a coup led by General Kriangsak Chomanand.  The king objected to Kriangsak’s coup and refused to sign the new 1977 charter even though it was pretty much the same as the 1976 basic law. Kriangsak proceeded to draft a barely more liberal constitution in 1978, that moderated royal powers. The palace was not amused.

Kriangsak

The problem the king had with Kriangsak was only solved when royalists managed to engineer his replacement by General Prem Tinsulanonda, a palace favorite, who stayed in power without ever seeking election but with remarkably strong palace support, but did permit the gradual evolution of tame political parties. Eventually, in 1988, an elected prime minister took the prime ministership, only to be ousted in a military coup in 1991 that ditched the 1978 constitution.

There was considerable debate on what became the 1991 constitution. To cut long story short, the military junta to monopolize power. In the end, it was the king who provided the support for the junta when he received the draft constitution by fax, made some minor changes, faxed it back, and then  stated that the junta’s constitution wasn’t “fully adequate,” but should be promulgated because it was “reasonable.” Again, the king had intervened for an undemocratic junta constitution.

The result was the May 1992 uprising that eventually saw the development of the so-called people’s constitution in 1997. When Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted by yet another military coup supported by the palace, that charter was unceremoniously dumped.

That military junta headed by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin set in place mechanisms to develop its own 2007 charter. The major innovation was a referendum. When approved, the Asian Human Rights Commission described a “heavy-handed undemocratic atmosphere…”, stating that the “… junta … coerced, threatened, bought and cajoled part of the electorate…”. Even the Bangkok Post (1 August 2007) claimed the process had a “facade of being a democratic choice… ”, adding “[t]his is not democracy, this is not the rule of law.”

General Sonthi

This account shows that Voranai’s story of “fickleness” is nonsense. Worse, it can be seen as obscurantist as it deliberating conceals the central roles of the monarchy and military in the story of “serial constitutionalism.” It obscures the fact that it has been the monarchy and military that have worked assiduously to prevent democratization and to throw out  constitutions as it suited them.

Now that the Puea Thai Party-led wants to amend this undemocratic constitution, Voranai says the obstacles are “First, tanks in the streets; second, protesters in the streets; third, Constitution Court judges on the bench.” As can be seen above, tanks – meaning the military – have been the most usual method of opposing constitution reform that is liberalizing. They have most usually done that with or for the palace.