EDITORIAL: Deepening discontent
 The Nation
December 2, 2005 - Many have long suspected that there must be a limit to how far Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s autocratic leadership can take him before the Thai public - even with its political cynicism, complacency and short memory span - will begin to turn against him. That limit appears to have been reached.
The volatile situation brought on by media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul’s popular anti-Thaksin campaign is symptomatic of growing public disenchantment with the prime minister, who, only months ago, could virtually do no wrong in the eyes of the adoring public.
The Thaksin government’s current crisis of confidence, that has alienated members of the vocal and politically strong middle class in Bangkok and other urban centres, was a long time in coming.
Since Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party came to power almost five years ago, Thai society, including much of the middle class, has shown an extraordinary capacity to tolerate an unbroken string of corruption scandals involving the prime minister, his Cabinet members and their families.
The public has until now made copious allowances for the government’s alleged bad behaviour, ranging from cronyism to human rights violations, and from poor governance to bribery, in order to give Thaksin a free hand to run Thailand the way he saw fit. All this was based on the assumption that Thaksin would deliver on his populist promises to bring material wealth to the masses.
Thaksin’s quaint combination of CEO-style tenacity and paternalistic leadership has transformed the public psyche in a way that would have once been unimaginable. It is hard to believe that, in this time and age, the country’s democratisation and political reform process could have been reversed single-handedly by one political leader.
Suddenly, the majority of Thai people, or at least most of the electorate, found themselves cosying up to the brand of leadership that traces back to corrupt authoritarian regimes of the not so distant past, which relied on the cunning use of the power of patronage, suppression of civil liberties and manipulation of people’s unprincipled wants and needs to maintain a tight grip on power.
The cynical side of the collective mindset tried to rationalise the widespread corruption that is happening under Thaksin’s watch. One way of looking at it is that corruption is a small price to pay in order to reap the overwhelming benefits that Thaksin promised to deliver.
The public also became complacent and tended to take for granted the country’s hard-won democracy, along with its attendant legal and institutional frameworks that provide checks and balances against the government and guarantee civil liberties, which have been rolled back systematically by the Thaksin government.
The public tried to turn a blind eye to the excesses of Thaksin, his Cabinet members and their cronies while secretly hoping that the prime minister would know better not to cross the line. But that only emboldened Thaksin and his associates, who apparently saw public acquiescence as the licence to exploit the political mandate beyond the bounds of decency.
In a way, the Sondhi phenomenon and the growing anti-Thaksin sentiments reflect the simmering discontent among the middle class, which is growing outraged over the perceived wholesale corruption, flagrant violations of civil liberties and insidious undermining of democratic institutions and shameless bending of rules to monopolise political power by Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai party.
If Thaksin had been a more sophisticated leader with a keener sense of proportion and subtlety, and if the Thai economy had not been hit by a plethora of problems that largely negated most of his populist policies, it would have taken longer for public discontent to build up.
It must be pointed out that to the growing ranks of the anti-Thaksin crowd, it matters little if Sondhi may be harbouring questionable motives, or if most of the corruption allegations are old news. People are stirring from a long slumber and they are not happy with the Thailand they see. They are relearning the importance of making their voices heard. But what matters most are the lessons they have drawn from living through Thaksin’s rule. |
