As a socialist and one who protested against the coup on Friday evening with the slogan, "No to Thaksin ... No to the coup", I wish to explain the democratic alternatives to the coup.

The present coup leaders claim that 80 per cent of people support the coup. If that is the case, and the 16 million people who voted for Thaksin on April 2 of this year have now really changed their minds, these military men should have taken an alternative road. Months ago, if not years ago, they should have set up a political party and taken part in the elections which were due shortly. With their 80 per cent backing they would have beaten Thai Rak Thai. It is no secret that the Democrat Party, which now supports the coup, boycotted the April 2 election because they knew that they would lose. They knew they would lose the next scheduled elections too.

Did Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai win various elections with convincing majorities because they cheated? There is no evidence that the 16 million people who voted for this party were forced to do so. There were no armed men forcing them to vote in a particular manner. I voted on April 2 against Thai Rak Thai and I did not feel that anyone could see how I voted. Did Thai Rak Thai give money to voters? Probably, but so too did the Democrats, Chat Thai and Mahachon parties. Did this affect the outcome of the vote? No. Why not?

 In his book, "Tale of two democratic cities", Anek Laothamatas argues that it is necessary to build political parties with real policies which can win votes in the countryside. This would end or reduce the system of patronage and money politics. The book was written before Thai Rak Thai was established.

What Thai Rak Thai actually did was to spend some time building up policies that would correspond with the needs and demands of various sectors of society. They won elections on those policies, especially the first ever universal healthcare scheme and the village funds. They won again last year and this year because they carried out those policies. The Democrats lost because they spent all the time attacking the healthcare scheme and other social benefits on the basis that they destroyed "fiscal discipline". While in power after the economic crisis, the Democrats, like all neo-liberals, felt that it was not against "fiscal discipline" to use our money to pay off the non-performing loans created by the rich. Some years ago I shared platforms with spokespeople from Thai Rak Thai and the Democrats. I attacked Thai Rak Thai's abuses of power and criticised the Democrats for not having any policies. It didn't take a genius to work these facts out.

Yes, the Thai Rak Thai government was a government of big business and it also carried out neo-liberal policies for business interests such as privatisation and free-trade agreements. No difference from the Democrats there. But worse still, Thai Rak Thai committed gross human rights abuses in the war on drugs, at Tak Bai and other places in the South and they are responsible for the abduction and presumed death of defence lawyer Somchai Nilapaichit. There was also corruption, but this is a common phenomenon among all Thai political parties, the Army and the police.

There is an arrogant and anti-democratic position which argues that the rural and urban poor do not understand democracy. Not only are the poor uneducated, but they also lack of information, we are told. "Democracy" according to these undemocratic and elitist liberals, is where a government does not bow to the wishes and demands of the electorate. For them to give people what they want is to give sweets to children, a bad thing because later their teeth will be all rotten. So if the poor cannot come to their senses and vote for a nice party like the Democrats, which will cut their social benefits and villages funds (in the national interest of course), then the poor do not deserve the vote. These people called for the use of Section 7, where His Majesty the King appoints an alternative government in a crisis. This did not happen, but later there was a coup, which these so-called liberals now support.

Over a year ago a number of us set up the Peoples Coalition Party in order to campaign against war, state violence and neo-liberalism. We called for the establishment of a Social Democratic Welfare State, funded by progressive taxation of the rich. Not many people have joined us in building an alternative party which could offer real benefits to the poor majority.

So what now? The one thing that I have learnt over the years, with encouragement from my father and mother, was never to trust a military dictatorship. A coup is not "reform". Dictatorship is not "democracy". The military cannot be trusted. Democracy has taken a serious step backwards.

But Thai democracy, like democracy anywhere, is and always will be built from below by social movements. That is why true supporters of democracy must stand together and demand that the military leave politics and that the 1997 Constitution be immediately restored, along with all democratic rights. The military has no right to stage a coup or tear up the Constitution, just as Thaksin had no right to commit gross human rights abuses or to avoid paying tax. The military also has no right to appoint a temporary government. Such a government, if necessary, should be elected under the supervision of the old parliament, the new and old Senate and real representatives of the social movements. It should have only one important job: to organise political and social reform, involving representatives from various sectors of society, especially the majority who are farmers, blue-collar and white-collar workers.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn teaches in the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Special to The Nation