Gerald W. Fry is Visiting Professor at the International Institute for Asian Studies of Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is also Professor at the University of Minnesota. Professor Fry has been doing research on Thailand over the past five decades and has spent around a total of ten years working there with diverse organizations such as the Peace Corps, the Ford Foundation, and the Asian Development Bank.
Thailand’s recent military coup surprised many in the international community. Globally, the number of coups has declined 60 percent since 1963. All ten coups in 2004 failed, perhaps explaining why the Thai coup surprised many outside of Thailand.
In Thailand itself the coup was much less of a surprise. With a reputation for being coup-prone, Thai politics is difficult to understand and predict. Former Thai prime minister Dr. Pridi Banomyong, in his book Impermanence of Society, notes that, as in Buddhism, the only constant in Thai politics is impermanence. Pridi’s concept of impermanence remains to this day the most powerful construct for trying to understand the complex nature of Thai politics.
There are traditionally four major players in Thai politics: the monarchy, the military, civilian politicians, and the bureaucracy. In recent decades a fifth and sixth force have emerged, the media and a rapidly growing activist NGO community, both of which played a significant role in bringing down Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra by leading major protests against him in the months leading up to the 2006 coup.
The monarchy and the highly professional and well-educated bureaucracy, however, provide Thailand with remarkable underlying stability, despite its appearance of coup-prone instability. The current monarch, one of the world’s most popular and admired leaders, has been on the throne since June 9, 1946, making him the longest serving monarch in the world.
History of Coup and the Coup of September 2006
To understand the recent coup, it is important to review the history of coups in Thailand. Since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, it has experienced a total of 23 military coups or coup attempts, only three involving any significant violence; 12 of these 23 attempts have succeeded. Table 1 shows the pattern of Thai coups over the past eight decades. Clearly the frequency of coups has been steadily declining, indicating that Thailand is indeed becoming more democratic, but that coups still do occur reflects that its democracy is not yet mature.
Thaksin, ironically, was an extremely popular political leader. His start in politics came through business. A former high-ranking police officer who left the public service to start a telecommunications business, his dynamic entrepreneurial vision allowed him to establish a huge transnational business conglomerate and in ten years become one of the wealthiest individuals in Southeast Asia and the world. He twice won landslide elections – in 2001 and 2005 – with his party performing better than any in history. In fact, he is the only Thai prime minister to have completed a full four-year term after an election.
In 1998, Thaksin decided to create a new political party, Thai Rak Thai (literally Thais love Thais). His enormous funds allowed him to attract many capable and popular local politicians to his party. With a philosophy of populism and a strong emphasis on channeling more funds to rural areas and communities, Thai Rak Thai developed a strong rural base.
Once in power, Thaksin implemented his populist economic policy, later termed “Thaksinomics.” Included were innovative programs such as “One Tambol, One Product,” a highly successful program to encourage each sub-district to develop a product in which it had a special comparative advantage. Unemployment under Thaksin dropped to an impressively low 1.8 percent (2005) and the Thai economy largely recovered from the economic crisis of 1997. Thaksin also implemented a national health policy that provided incredibly inexpensive health services to the Thai people.
This then raises the puzzling question: Why was there a coup against such a popular and dynamic, decisive political leader? Thaksin’s downfall resulted from a series of serious mistakes, miscalculations and a devastating albeit false accusation against him. They can be briefly summarized as follows:
He tried to rule Thailand as a CEO using a business model, which many critics saw as being undemocratic. He then used his wealth to undermine the important independent agencies and checks and balances established by the progressive 1997 constitution. When the media criticized his actions, he tried to silence them.
During his first term, he implemented a draconian anti-drug campaign that resulted in approximately 2,500 deaths. While reflecting Dr. Thaksin’s decisiveness, this action proved unacceptable in a Buddhist society that emphasizes a reverence for life. He also dealt with the terrorism and instability that surfaced in three Muslim-dominated provinces in the south with heavy-handed tactics. His policies backfired and led to escalating violence. This was a major area of conflict between him and the military leadership.
Dr. Thaksin was blamed for having a so-called Finland Plan to turn Thailand into a republic. Thus far, hard evidence has not been produced to substantiate this charge and formal charges against Dr. Thaksin in this arena have already been dropped.
Though he had turned over all his business to his family, there was strong criticism that his policies had favored his business interests and further enriched his family. To reduce criticism over this conflict of interest, his family sold one of their key businesses in early 2006, proving to be the biggest mistake of his political career. The company, Shin Corporation, was sold to Temasek Holdings, an investment arm of the Singapore Government, for US$1.88 billion. Thailand does not have a capital gains tax for this kind of stock transaction and Dr. Thaksin’s family paid no tax on the huge financial gain. There were huge public protests against Thaksin after this act, leading to his decision to dissolve Parliament and call for a snap election in April 2006. Irregularities in that election and Thaksin’s alleged illegal use of money to influence the outcome led to an election being annulled for the first time in Thai history.
Because of these troubles, there was a strong anti-Thaksin group in Thailand, primarily in Bangkok and the south. Pro-democracy advocates were particularly antagonized by what they saw as corruption and an attempt to undermine democracy.
The media, also antagonized, played a large part in Thaksin’s downfall. Sondhi, a highly articulate journalist and former business associate of Dr. Thaksin, accused Thaksin of being corrupt and dictatorial. In the months prior to the coup, Sondhi organized and spoke at weekly rallies against Thaksin in Bangkok. Other activities included using his weekly talk show to level forty charges against Dr. Thaksin and his government, and producing a popular yellow t-shirt saying “We will fight for the King.” Such mass media activity served to mobilize concentrated anti-Thaksin feelings in Bangkok.
