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Published on December 1, 2007

It takes a lot of faith for a new political party with a starting budget of Bt11,000 to be optimistic. But Chokchai Suttawet, the 48-year-old leader of Sangkomdhibataya Party, is hopeful and said he would be content if the party, which is based on socialist ideology, won 100,000 votes or more.

"I would be satisfied with 100,000 or 200,000 votes. We're not really expecting to have an MP in Parliament this time, but people are bored of the same old major parties and politicians - ours could be a hope for the future."

Armed with a doctoral degree in public policy from Germany's Bielefeld University, Chokchai has taught at several universities including Thammasat. He's currently a lecturer of public policy at Chankasem University and secretary of the Nikhom Chantarawitoon Labour Foundation with solid ties to many labour leaders.

So why would Chokchai waste his time setting up a party from scratch instead of joining an established one?

"At the beginning I almost did that. But looking at it, most political parties are not democratic from the inside, nor do they really have mass party membership. I wish to realise a party where the people, and not the party boss or party financier, have the power," Chokchai said.

 "The Democrat Party is fairly democratic but its ideology is different from us. They are liberal and conservative, ours is more reformative socialist."

The soft-spoken party leader who hails from the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat said that in order to achieve its goals, the party will collect Bt1 per day from each member, adding that if it gets one million members, its funding will be secure.

Chokchai said a lot of work needs to be done to remove the negative connotation that the word "socialism" has for Thais due to the Cold War-era propaganda.

He insisted there was nothing fearful or sinister about the party's brand of socialism, which accepts a constitutional monarch as the head of state. Thailand still lacks a social democratic party and Sangkomdhibataya is the answer, he said.

"A cooperative system is part of socialism and so is state enterprise," said Chokchai.

If given the chance to run a government in future, policies such as progressive taxation, including land and inheritance tax, will be introduced, he said.

A genuine state welfare policy - not merely populist handouts - and income distribution will be its other key policies.

"We will compete for the peoples' acceptance and to rise above the bipartisan conflict between the Democrats and the People Power Party. We will put peoples' sufferings at the top of our priorities," Chokchai said.

The party will in coming days address crowds in Bangkok and the two neighbouring provinces of Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan, all of which are in constituency 6 for the proportional representation vote, for which the party's candidacy number is 30.

"If we gain 350,000 votes we could likely win one seat, but we're not really expecting that this time" Chokchai said.

Given his party's very limited budget, Chokchai will also rely on addressing crowds at public places like Sanam Luang, for example, and make maximum use of the television and radio time allotted to each party by the Election Commission.

As for mainstream newspapers, Chokchai said none had interviewed the party before.

"They're biased. The media still simply follow mainstream trends. We don't have money and we don't know if the media will be interested in running news about a poor party like ours. The fact that they ignore us reflects the lack of recognition of the public's political rights by the media. Political power has been concentrated in the hands of a few, and the media might have played a part in perpetuating this kind of politics."

Pravit Rojanaphruk

 The Nation