WATCHDOG: Should we expect another raft of populist policies?

Published on Oct 17, 2004

It is likely that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will today announce the policy platform of the ruling Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party as he makes his final preparations to compete for a second term in the upcoming general election.



If the premier keeps his public promise not to dissolve Parliament ahead of its full four-year term and sticks to the Election Commission’s schedule, the national polls will take place on February 13, 2005.

At the moment, a central question in the minds of many voters is whether the premier will promise anything significantly new in his re-election campaign as opposed to the essentially populist platform that won him a landslide victory nearly four years ago. So far, it looks like the TRT’s platform for the upcoming election will simply be another round of populist policies, plus a couple of other items.

Among those already announced are the so-called SML budget-allocation policy, under which villages will be categorised as small-, medium-sized or large, qualifying the for handouts of Bt200,000, Bt250,000 and Bt300,000 respectively, ostensibly so that each village can invest in its own development plan.

This policy can be seen as just an extension of the party’s last populist platform, which included a wide range of hand-outs for grass-roots voters, such as the Bt77-billion village fund, under which every one of Thailand’s 77,000 villages was given Bt1 million.

All in all, these policies have challenged the conventional wisdom that governs the allocation of scarce national resources, because public money ought indeed to be used according to the priorities of the varying development needs of each community, though the TRT has chosen to go for “sweeping” hand-outs that have raised the question of whether the benefits were worth the massive amount spent.

From the point of view of politics, few poor voters would turn down such large hand-outs, and it was no surprise that the TRT won the last election with such a wide margin. Even now, such hand-outs remain overwhelmingly attractive to grass-roots voters in several parts of the country, as evidenced by the fact that the TRT has come up with fresh populist policies like the SML budget scheme ahead of the next polls.

Another policy announced by the TRT is the war against corruption, because of which the premier may find himself confronting a number of pitfalls when real action is taken. Politically the anti-graft offensive is unlikely to win the TRT many votes in the next polls due to the generally low expectations many voters, rural and urban, have of the outcome of the so-called war.

The opposition Democrat Party’s frequent public accusations of conflicts of interest and policy corruption within the Thaksin government have also dealt a blow to the TRT’s bid to root out corruption.

As for voters in Bangkok and nearby provinces, the government’s recent announcement that it would invest a massive amount of money in transport and related infrastructure schemes to solve the city’s severe traffic congestion may look like a boon for the ruling party ahead of the next election. Yet the majority of these voters are more often than not unpredictable. And if the last Bangkok governor election was any indicator, then the votes cast in Bangkok are unlikely to be in favour of the TRT.

While the TRT’s rivals, especially the Democrat Party and possibly the newly revived Mahachon party, may not be that attractive in the eyes of Bangkokians as far as these parties’ platforms and the personalities behind them are concerned, voters may still be content to back MP candidates from the TRT’s rival parties if the premier proves unable to change their minds at the last minute. So good luck, Prime Minister Thaksin!

NOPHAKHUN LIMSAMARNPHUN