Politics and the monarchy

Politicians usually reflect the society that produces them. In aggregate, they reflect the good, the bad, and the middling of that society, it prejudices and its foibles.

As an election seems ever more likely, various parties are grappling with how best to garner votes, and the rightists seek advantage from their “protection” of and “reverence” for the monarchy. Aging and apparently senile Trairong Suwannakhiri has lobbed up on the United Thai Nation Party (Ruam Thai Sang Chart Party) side, supporting Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, and he recently decided to use the “good people” cliche of the dead king.

In a campaign speech:

Trairong told Korat locals that King Rama IX once said Thais should elect “good people”’ to govern them. He added that there’s no one better than jolly old “Uncle Tu” – PM Prayut’s nickname.

Having breached the sacred [sic.] issues, the party chief then blundered straight on into embarrassment.

Trairong told his shocked gathering that if they wanted a good government in line with the late King Rama IX’s words, they should vote for “Thai Rak Thai.”

That’s what happens with old men…. And, of course, there’s a long “tradition” of Democrat Party royalists – in this case, a recently defected Democrat – using the king for political benefit and for promoting the monarchy and its political preferences.

After various complaints were made against Trairong for doing what comes easily for Democrats, the Bangkok Post reports the Election Commission “warned the leader of the United Thai Nation Party (UTN), Pirapan Salirathavi­bhaga, over alleged comments made by a key party member about the monarchy.”

It widened the warning to all parties. Given that Trairong was the “offender,” it does seem somewhat odd that a general warning is issued.

Of course, EC secretary-general Sawang Boonmee is a junta-appointed puppet, so he is apparently seeking to diminish Trairong’s “offense.”

Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, a former election commissioner, “slammed the EC secretary-general for just issuing a warning to the UTN leader over Mr Trairong’s conduct…. He insisted that the issue is not considered over because Mr Trairong’s conduct could result in a party dissolution under Section 92(2) of the political party law.”

He believes there are only two options for the EC: “accept or reject the petition.” In this case it has done something else.

All a bit silly, perhaps, when it is considered that the monarchy has been central to so much politics since 1945.

Not independent

Thai Newsroom has a story reporting Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, head of the Thai Liberal Party Policy Steering Strategy Campaign, has criticized “supposedly independent” agencies that have worked for the regime.

He pointed to the Election Commission, the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the Constitutional Court that “have more often than not made decisions and rulings toward individual politicians, political parties and street activists among others with opposing views in contradictory, ambiguous fashion and even alleged of having acted in dishonest, biased manners.”

Somchai proposed that:

Somchai in a silly hat

all members of those “supposedly independent” agencies be ultimately subject to impeachment and removal with a mass petition endorsed by a minimum of 10,000 people for a Senate speaker to take legal procedures to that extent.

For the time being, the people are not legally allowed to push for the impeachment or removal of any members of those “supposedly independent” agencies and may only petition the NACC for that matter, the Thai Liberal executive said.

Somchai also proposed that all members of those agencies be deprived of their current status immediately after the constitution’s organic law pertaining to the “supposedly independent” agencies has been amended in the future so that they be replaced by newly-selected ones.

Somchai should know about bias in non-independent agencies for he was once a senior election commissioner. PPT was highly critical of him back then, as he opposed the 2014 election and supported the military junta and its constitutional referendum, where he worked to prevent criticism of the draft constitution. Somchai saw the light when the junta sacked him so that an even more pliable Election Commission could be in place for the rigged 2019 election.

Despite this slipperiness, he makes a good point about the non-independent agencies that work for the regime.

Managing the corruption system

As often happens when authoritarian governments are in place for a long time, corruption becomes embedded, systemic, and necessary for keeping the corrupt together and supportive.

Of late, reports of corruption have been legion. Yet the Bangkok Post has a jubilant headline, “Thailand improves in corruption survey.” Seriously? It turns out that Transparency International has ranked Thailand 101 out of 180 in its ranking. The Post says the country’s score went up one point and adds:

In 2014, the year Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha staged a military coup, the country was ranked 85th, an improvement from 102nd in 2013. Its ranking rose to 76th in 2015 but plunged to 101st place the following year. It recovered to 96th in 2017 but then began a downward move to 99th in 2018, 101st place in 2019, 104th in 2020 and 110th in 2021.

Let’s be realistic. This is a ranking that puts Thailand among a bunch of dubious places. We’d guess that if perceptions were surveyed today, they’d plummet, largely thanks to the mafia gang known as the Royal Thai Police and the mammoth horse trading by the coalition parties.

Rotten to the core

While on the corrupt cops, Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha has mumbled something about a few bad apples in the police. He has “insisted that any police officers involved in extorting money from a Taiwanese actress during her trip to Thailand early this month must face legal action.” He added: “Don’t let the issue ruin the reputation of the whole police organisation.”

We are not sure which reputation he refers to. As far as we can tell, the organization is rotten to the core.

Gen Prayuth reckons “we must get rid of rogue ones…”. Our guess is that if he was serious – he isn’t – just about every senior officer would be gotten rid of. The corruption system siphons money up to the top. There’s been little effort to follow up on data revealed when the regime established its post-coup assembly. Back then, the average declared assets for the top brass in the police was a whopping 258 million baht.

Even when senior police display their loot, nothing is done. Who remembers former police chief Somyos Pumpanmuang? He stacked loot in public! He’s still wealthy.

The Post has another headline: “Court lets ‘Pinky’ remove electronic tag.” It reports:

Actress Savika “Pinky” Chaiyadej on Tuesday won approval from the Criminal Court to remove an electronic monitoring (EM) device she was required to wear after her release from jail on Nov 30 last year.

She is on bail, accused of defrauding millions in the Forex-3D ponzi scheme.How did her lawyers convince the judge?

Her lawyer lodged a request for the court’s permission to remove the EM device, saying it was an impediment to her show business career.

Of course, there’s no such leniency for lese majeste and other political prisoners when they eventually get bail (some, of course, never do). Double standards? You bet!

Double standards and corruption are a feature of the monarchy-military regime. Part of the reason for this is mutual back-scratching. Much that the regime does makes the bureaucrats more or less untouchable. The judiciary is always there in support on the important issues.

We note that another junta and Prayuth supporter, former charter writer Udom Rathamarit, has been appointed to the Constitutional Court. That is an important part of the whole corrupt system.

Updated: More Constitutional Court buffalo manure

No one really expected that the regime’s Constitutional Court would do anything other than allow the coup leader and dictator to stay in power even longer. Neither the court nor the prime minister have a shred of credibility (except with royalist-military dolts). Rather than go on about the predictable buckling of the junta’s own basic law, here are some links to stories on how the court has again crippled the junta’s own constitution:

Thai PBS

From Ji Ungpakorn’s blog

Constitutional Court rules that PM Prayut’s 8-year term in office has not expired

Prayut vows to push ahead with mega-projects

And the fight continues …

Prayut given political lifeline — but what’s next?

The Nation

Constitutional Court rules Prayut can stay on as PM

Thai private sector unfazed by Prayut’s return to PM’s seat

Thai Enquirer

Constitutional Court votes 6:3 to allow Prayut to remain as Premier, says term began on April 6, 2017

Bangkok Post

Prayut remains PM, court rules tenure ends in 2025

Prayut’s staying put

Business chiefs welcome ‘stability’ ruling will bring

PM still at crossroads

Activists call for major anti-Prayut rally on Saturday

Pheu Thai disagrees with Prayut ruling

Prachatai

Court allows Prayut to stay on as PM, new protest called

Thai Newsroom

Court rules Prayut’s eight-year term has not ended

Prayut returns to power with Constitutional Court support

Doubts cast over righteousness of Constitutional Court’s ruling on Prayut

Lawyer: 3 retired generals win but the country loses

Crisis of confidence in Constitutional Court looms: Academic

Update: The Nation lists the five decisions/piles of buffalo dung where the Constitutional Court has supported him.

Authoritarianism for royalists, monarchy, tycoons, and military

PPT has been reading some of the commentaries regarding Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha’s suspension as premier. We thought we better post something on these as Prayuth’s case could be (almost) decided by the politicized Constitutional Court as early as tomorrow.

Prawit and Prayuth: Generals both

At East Asia Forum, academic Paul Chambers summarizes and lists the pedigree and connections that have led to his former boss, Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, to become (interim) premier.

A few days before that, Shawn Crispin at Asia Times wrote another piece based on his usual anonymous sources, that assesses the balance of forces. He thinks the Constitutional Court’s decision to suspend Gen Prayuth was a pyrrhic victory and writes of:

… a behind-the-scenes, pre-election move away from Prayut by the conservative establishment, comprised of the royal palace, traditional elites and top “five family” big businesses, he has cosseted both as a coup-maker and elected leader.

One source familiar with the situation says a group of traditional and influential Thai “yellow” elites including an ex-premier and foreign minister, after rounds of dinner talks, recently delivered a message to Prayut asking him to put the nation before himself and refrain from contesting the next general election to make way for a more electable, civilian candidate to champion the conservative cause.

It is clear that the conservative elite are worried about upcoming elections. Pushing Prayuth aside is thought to give the Palang Pracharath Party an electoral boost. Crispin reckons that the Privy Council beckons if Gen Prayuth does as asked. That’s a kind of consolation prize for Gen Prayuth having done his repressive duty for palace and ruling class.

But, as Crispin makes clear, the ruling class and the political elite is riven with conflicts. Indeed, one commentary considers the contest between Gen Prawit and Gen Prayuth.

It may be that Prayuth comes back. Recent leaks suggest that one faction still wants him in place, “protecting” the monarchy as the keystone to the whole corrupt system.  If Gen Prayuth returns to the premiership, where does that leave the ruling party and its mentors in the ruling class?

On the broader picture, an article by Michael Montesano at Fulcrum looks beyond personalities to the system that the 2014 military coup constructed:

The function of Thailand’s post-2014 authoritarian system is to channel and coordinate the overlapping interests of a range of conservative stakeholders: royalists and the monarchy, the military, much of the technocratic elite, a handful of immensely powerful domestic conglomerates, and the urban upper-middle class. This channelling or coordinating function is the system’s crucial defining feature. No individual or cabal of individuals gives orders or controls the system. Rather, collectively or individually, stakeholders or their representatives act to defend a shared illiberal and depoliticising vision with little need for explicit or direct instructions.

He adds:

Understanding these realities makes clear that Prayut’s premiership of eight long years — so far — has not been possible because of his leadership skills, the loyalty that he might command, or his indispensability. Rather, the remarkable longevity of his stultifying service as prime minister is due to the fact that someone needs to hold that office and he has proved adequate. His premiership satisfied the collective interests that Thailand’s post-2014 authoritarian system serves. For all of his manifest inadequacies, keeping him in place has, at least up to now, been deemed less costly than replacing him.

Has that cost risen so much that Gen Prayuth can be “sacrificed” for the royalist authoritarian system he constructed?

Prayuth’s proposed plea

The Nation reports that Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha’s plea to the Constitutional Court on his tenure as prime minister is to argue that he became premier in 2019.

According to the source, the defence team will send a written statement to the court arguing that a prime minister must be appointed by the House of Representatives as stipulated in sections 158 and 159. Section 158 requires that the PM be appointed by MPs while Section 159 requires MPs to select the prime minister from a list of candidates submitted by political parties when they register for a general election.

In other words, the plan is to provide Gen Prayuth with an opportunity to remain premier until 2026.

Despite the illogical claims involved, and the fact that Prayuth was prime minister from the 2014 military coup, there’s a real chance the Constitutional Court will buy this argument.

Another royalist

Reuters reports on Acting Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, the Watchman.

Its main point is that Gen Prawit “represents little substantial change from suspended Prime Minister [Gen] Prayuth Chan-ocha…”.

Certainly, the military’s dominance of Thailand’s politics continues. In addition, the chair shuffling means a period of relative stability for the regime’s Palang Pracharat Party, “until the Constitutional Court decides whether Prayuth’s time as a military leader from 2014 to 2019 counts towards a constitutionally stipulated eight-year term limit…”.

Gen Prawit, who seems much older than his 77 years, “is a longtime ally of Prayuth and was part of the military junta that ruled Thailand for nearly five years following Prayuth’s 2014 coup ouster of an elected government…”.

Both generals are known for their “fierce loyalty to the monarchy .” It has been Gen Prawit who “has long been seen as a power-broker both within the Palang Pracharat party, which he co-founded, and among the wealthy elite that align themselves with Thailand’s royal family and the military.”

Titipol Phakdeewanich of Ubon Ratchathani University considers it likely that “Prawit will help stabilise the political situation and consolidate the ruling coalition and related business interests ahead of the election…”. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, at Chulalongkorn University, is not so sure: “Prawit will be embattled from day one…” and that he’s unpopular (not that that has been a political longevity problem for the Prayuth, who has long been unpopular).

The problem for the allied royalists is how to again manufacture another election victory.

Updated: Wissanu’s political onanism

As we post this just before midnight GMT, its morning in Bangkok, on the 24th, the day that Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha should constitutionally leave the prime ministership he took by force of arms in May 2014. We have no idea what he will do or what the royalist-military Constitutional Court may rule.

But we do know that the regime has been scheming. The legal plaything of the junta and its progeny, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, has said that if Gen Prayuth does step down as prime minister or is pushed out by the Court, he “may legally perform as defence minister, the post which he has concurrently assumed…”. The premiership would then fall to the corrupt, aged, and ill co-coup plotter Gen Prawit Wongsuwan.

Wissanu said:

Prayut may practically hold onto the defence portfolio and attend cabinet meetings at Government House while leaving the top post of government to Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan to perform as a caretaker one if the Constitutional Court orders him to immediately stop performing as prime minister until a court ruling on his eight-year rule maximumly provided by law has been delivered, .

Given the fact that no law prohibits a prime minister from concurrently performing in other capacities, Prayut could continue to run the defence portfolio though he may be immediately stopped by court from running the country as premier….

However, Wissanu is not convinced the Constitutional Court will abandon its bosses and allies in the regime.

But this scheming does suggest some cracks in the regime and the ruling class about Prayuth’s position and that some judges and others may be thinking of the political consequences of yet another regime-friendly ruling. Regime schemers and ultra-royalists worry that Prayuth as a politically dead man walking may gift Puea Thai and the opposition an electoral landslide.

Update: Bangkok Post reports:

The Constitutional Court has voted 5-4 in ordering Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha suspended from duty.

The court’s order came after it ruled to accept the petition asking for a ruling on his eight-year tenure as prime minister.

We doubt the closeness of the vote is any cause for celebration given that the decision is only about suspending the general while the court takes its time considering a very straightforward case. Making the case anything other than straightforward is likely a measure of the Court seeking a way out constitutional requirements for Prayuth. Expect Wissanu’s above proposition to hold for the time that the Court is squirming.

Gotta love these young people

On 21 August, at the Democracy Monument, around 38 activist groups from four regions called on illegitimate Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha to step down on Wednesday, “when he completes eight years in power…”, under the conditions clearly set out in his own constitution. Only royalists and other anti-democrats can’t count to eight.

The event at the Democracy Monument was moved there from Sanam Luang where they being blocked by police. Sanam Luang now saeems to belong to the king, so the police “protect” his patch of dirt.

Clipped from Thai Newsroom

The groups were “led by Panusaya Sitthichirawattanakul, or Rung, from Thammasat Coalition and Assembly together with other prominent activists including Ms. Thanaphon Wichan, from the Labour Network for People’s Rights, Mr. Thatchapong Kaedam, or Boy, and Mr. Thanaphat Kapheng from Thalu Fah group, Ms. Natanit Duangmusit, or Bai Por, and Ms. Netiporn Sanehsangkhom, or Nong Bong, from the New Workers Union and representatives from the Dome Revolution Party at Thammasat University.”

They displayed banners with messages calling on Prayuth to go: “Let it end at eight years” and “Prayuth get out.” Rung read out their joint statement for the coalition of political groups:

She cited the 2017 constitution which in Section 158 paragraph 4 says that the Prime Minister may not hold the office for more than eight years regardless of whether consecutively or not but this does not include continuing to perform duties after stepping down.

Section 170, paragraph two of the 2017 Constitution also states that the premiership ends as stated in Section 158 paragraph 4.

The groups “also sent a message to the president of the Constitutional Court to issue a ruling on the prime minister’s tenure according to the 2017 constitution by Wednesday August 24. If not then the court should issue an order for Prayut to stop performing duties until the ruling is issued.”

Prayuth’s future

Coup leader Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha has been on the campaign trail. For the military man, this has involved his royal-like “protection” and “progress.”

Recently, the general was in Kanchanaburi. Look at the photos at The Nation, and it looks like a royal visit-meets-politician. Other social media outlets report that schools were closed and streets cleared to allow the royal general’s progress.

But the people seem far from impressed, with a poll showing that about two-thirds of those surveyed wanting Gen Prayuth to leave office this month, when his own engineered constitution requires that he step down after eight years as premier. It is now up to the royalist backers of the military-backed regime that is the Constitutional Court to concoct a ruling that keeps the general in power.

His supporters claim that Gen Prayuth’s 8 years as prime minister must be counted from 9 June 2019, when his premiership received royal endorsement under the 2017 constitution. This means he’d be able to serve until 2027. This is the ruling that they insist the Constitutional Court should issue.

Yet Prayuth is not only unloved by those Thais surveyed. Even within the ruling Palang Pracharath Party his support is lukewarm. For example, the best his elder “brother” Gen Prawit Wongsuwan can only say he wants Prayuth for another two years. Of course, Gen Prawit sees a chance for himself, no matter that he is decrepit.

With more on the current situation, Pithaya Pookaman at Asia Sentinel has an article on Prayuth’s desire to stay:

Prayuth has sent out feelers to the public and also possibly to the palace about his undisguised desire to maintain his stranglehold on power, imploring for an extension to fix all the nation’s problems, as if he was unable to do so during his previous eight years in office. He has often said that the nation cannot do without him, the kind of narcissism that is repugnant to most Thais….

During his eight years in power, the military has moved repeatedly to use the courts to snuff out popular youth movements, and to hold in check the appeal of Thaksin’s Pheu Thai opposition. Despite falling popularity, Prayuth is not expected to relinquish his power any time soon or in the foreseeable future. As he wrote his own constitution, he can also make amendments to it to allow him to extend his tenure or refer the matter to the subservient constitutional court to rule in his favor. If another general election is to be held, he can always rely on the support of his hand-picked 250 senators and manipulate the MPs by giving cash handouts and other incentives to vote him back to power.

He comments further on the king: “the king often plays an important, if not a decisive, role in determining the choice of the prime minister and other high-ranking officials.” Further on Prayuth and the palace:

Prayuth has served the palace well by providing lavish funds and amenities for the king and members of the royal family while safeguarding the monarchy by ruthless application of the country’s anti lese majeste law, considered the world’s most severe. But Prayuth’s eight years as head of government may be viewed by the palace as too long. Notwithstanding the favors he has showered on the king, his statecraft and performance have been an utter failure. Members of his family and his cronies have enriched themselves and occupied important positions in the country.

Based on its history of politicized decisions, we’d expect the Constitutional Court to (again) support Gen Prayuth. But what does the king want?