A country divided

Published on February 8, 2005

Snub from the South, where TRT won just one seat, suggests troubled region will be government’s biggest challenge

The Thai Rak Thai party’s utter failure to win over the South in Sunday’s election and its resounding triumph in the rest of Thailand will leave Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra with a deeply divided nation.

The ruling party won just one seat in the South – tsunami-hit Phang Nga – and lost out to the Democrats in the three southernmost provinces, which have become a hotbed of separatist insurgency. That nearly the entire region snubbed Thai Rak Thai in Sunday’s general election means Thaksin’s most formidable challenge in his first term will only grow more daunting as he prepares for his second term.

Further complicating matters is the massive landslide Thai Rak Thai enjoyed in all other parts of Thailand, including Bangkok, a solid popular endorsement of the Thaksin government’s key policies, including its controversial handling of the separatist problem.

With more than 60 per cent of votes counted yesterday, Thai Rak Thai seemed to have scored absolute victories in 42 provinces – a remarkable feat. The party nearly secured a clean sweep of Bangkok as well, but four Democrats and one Chat Thai candidate managed to scrape through.

Despite that, the ruling party was shut out of the southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani despite fielding strong incumbents who ran under the Thai Rak Thai banner following a merger between the ruling party and the New Aspiration Party, as well as those who defected from the Democrat Party.

Southern academics and religious leaders noted that it was perhaps the first time that local Muslims have used the parliamentary channel to put forward an unmistakable message of dissatisfaction with the central government.

The sweetness of his election win badly soured, Thaksin was forced to admit that southerners are loyal to the Democrat Party and that the ongoing violence in the region may have contributed to his party falling short. Citing ill health, he cancelled a trip to the region tomorrow.

The stunned leader described the still unofficial results as a “wake-up call” to his government, but insisted he would not alter his approach to what he calls a “law and order” problem.

“This is a disappointing result. We should have won some,” Thaksin told reporters in Bangkok after it became clear that none of the 11 Thai Rak Thai candidates in the southernmost provinces would make it to parliament.

Many voters said they had lost faith in Thaksin, who has refused to apologise for incidents such as the deaths of 78 Muslims in October who were held in military custody after being arrested for protesting in the village of Tak Bai. Trying to improve his image after the Tak Bai bloodbath, Thaksin introduced an origami bird campaign that had the rest of Thailand folding tens of millions of paper birds that were later showered on the troubled deep South on December 5.

The campaign lifted his popularity in other parts of Thailand, but as the election results confirmed, failed to capture the hearts of Thai-Muslims in the region.

“I voted against the ruling party because I wanted things to change and I don’t want any more violence. People here cannot tolerate it [the handling of the situation] anymore,” said Saudi Awae, a villager in Pattani’s Kamiyoh sub-district

“I want to change the government. I want to know if other people can do a better job,” 23-year-old housewife Suhaila Chudeng, who lives close to Tak Bai, told Reuters after she voted.

The turnout at many polling stations in the region was between 70 and 80 per cent, up from an average of 60 per cent at the 2001 poll, election officials said.

“If Thaksin becomes the prime minister again, we Muslims will suffer for another four years,” said Nidir Waba, an Islamic leader in the region.

“We hope this will make the government stop and think how they have so far failed to stop violence and help people in the south,” said Samsuding Rotanyong, whose son-in-law was seriously injured in the Tak Bai incident.

Post your comment to this story here