ELECTION RESULT: Secret of the TRT landslide

Published on February 9, 2005

Computer technology and a formidable database of information on Thai-land’s population have been hailed as the keys to the Thai Rak Thai Party’s landslide victory in Sunday’s general election.

Sources close to Thai Rak Thai said the secret of the party’s success lay in its understanding of the voters – their profiles, their behaviour, their wishes, and their problems. The information came from a rich database accumulated from innumerable surveys over the past seven years.

The party began setting up a well-managed database of information about the country’s population as far back as July 1998, when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra founded Thai Rak Thai. It prompted Energy Minister Dr Prommin Lertsuridej to comment: “The prime minister is very scientifically-minded. He will not make decisions without scientific backup.”

The huge investment in information technology and the database creation has paid off handsomely. Thaksin revealed on Sunday, after learning of his party’s landslide victory, that Thai Rak Thai had relied heavily on surveys as part of its campaign strategy.

“We have been conducting polls regularly, about once a month. That’s why we knew we would win at least 350 to 360 seats. The result was not a big surprise for us,” he said.

“Someone else who did not use scientific surveys might think he would win the election because he received support from 10,000 to 20,000 people. But in a constituency of 80,000 eligible voters, you need at least 41,000 votes to win. We had our surveys in hand and knew the result by inference from the percentage of the respondents,” Thaksin explained.

In terms of management, the Thai Rak Thai Party is modelled after Shin Corp, also founded by Thaksin. Shin Corp’s business decisions, especially with regard to telecommunications, are all based on customer surveys and database analysis.

Thai Rak Thai also has a research division to manage information, monitor the implementation of policies, and ensure that party members fulfil Thai Rak Thai objectives and targets.

The party does not hesitate to use for its own advantage population information made available by government agencies.

“Thai Rak Thai can access any population information, from demographic studies to salary bases, tax payments and statistics, and analyse them in designing its policies,” one source said.

This had allowed Thai Rak Thai to formulate the core policies of its populist programme in its first term of office, including the village fund, the universal healthcare scheme, micro credit, and the debt suspension programme – all designed to meet the needs of the voters.

From one of its surveys, Thai Rak Thai calculated that the voting base of the Democrats was very small in Bangkok – just over 5 per cent of the city’s total population, comprising middle-class and upper-class voters.

With this information, the party designed its policies to appeal to the majority of voters – low-income earners – in Bangkok, resulting in Thai Rak Thai winning 32 of the city’s 37 seats.

Thai Rak Thai’s runaway success and the disclosure of its management system have prompted the Democrat Party to consider a radical “back office” change in preparation for the future.

Democrat MP-elect Korn Chatikavanij commented in a television interview that Thaksin had spent a day in his constituency two days before Sunday’s election – probably out of knowledge that he would win.

Democrat deputy leader Abhisit Vejjajiva has reportedly assigned Korn, a former banker, to set up a new working arrangement and create a database analysis system.

“I don’t think he can achieve the goal,” one Democrat Party member said. “Most [Democrat] members don’t understand its importance and are unlikely to be willing to pay for such a project. We’re not as rich as Thai Rak Thai.”

Korn said yesterday denied that Abhisit had approached him regarding the project, but said he had been thinking about developing a database for a long time.

“The database is a must. We cannot just sit and guess what people want. We’ve got a lot of people in the party to help us seek information and develop the database,” he said. “We want to do it in order to learn the real needs of people, so that we can design our policies to serve their demands.”

Business Reporters

The Nation

Post your comment to this story here