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Thailand hopes ballots will overcome bullets

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Thailand+hopes+ballots +will+overcome+bullets/4633020/story.html Anti-government protesters gather to mark the first anniversary of clashes in the streets. Photograph by: Pornchai Kittiwongsakul, AFP, Getty Images, Vancouver Sun Thailand's voters are soon to be asked to resolve at the ballot box rather than on the streets the often violent dissension that has embroiled the country for nearly five years. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has promised that early next month he will dissolve parliament for elections in June or early July. That will be exactly a year after the army stormed the barricades erected by thousands of supporters of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who occupied several blocks of central Bangkok for weeks. At least 91 people were killed and 2,000 more injured in the operation, which was a crescendo of the violence that gripped Thailand since Thaksin was ousted in a September 2006 military coup. Since then, and particularly since last October, a degree of calm has settled over Thai politics. There are reports in Bangkok that this is the result of a deal between Abhisit and Thaksin, who is in exile in the United Arab Emirates to avoid a two-year prison sentence for corruption. There appears to be an acknowledgment that the constant round of violent demonstrations by pro and anti-Thaksin activists will never resolve the country's discord. Instead voters will be asked to begin mending Thailand's fractured democracy in a head-tohead contest between Abhisit's Democrat Party and the opposition Puea Thai party, Thaksin's latest political organization. Recent polls show Puea Thai winning perhaps 30 more seats than Abhisit's Democrats, but not enough to gain an outright majority in the 500-seat parliament. But although Thaksin, a communications conglomerate billionaire before he became prime minister in 2001, remains widely popular in rural Thailand because of his social policies, his personal ambition is disrupting Puea Thai. A strong contender for the leadership of Puea Thai, and therefore the prime ministership if the party leads a governing coalition, is former commerce minister Mingkwan Sangsuwan. But there are persistent reports in Bangkok that Thaksin is trying to engineer his younger sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, into the party leadership. Yingluck, an Americantrained MBA graduate, is executive president of the Thai real estate company SC Asset Corp., which is part of Thaksin's commercial empire. She is also the former president of Advanced Info Service, the mobile phone unit of Thaksin's Shin Corp. conglomerate. But Yingluck has shown no interest in politics until now and the speculation is that sliding her into the Puea Thai leadership would guarantee Thaksin's continued control of the party and ensure that he gets an amnesty for his corruption conviction if his sister forms the next government. Thaksin has never been short of personal ambition, a major cause of his conflict with royalists and courtiers intensely loyal to King Bhumibol Adulyadej who suspect he and his followers harbour republican tendencies. It was these suspicions that fed the 2006 military coup. Thaksin was also an unusual Thai political leader in that he attracted genuine support from Thai voters, especially among the poor who applauded his populist measures of debt writeoffs for farmers, development grants for villages and low-cost health care. During his 28 months in power, British born and educated Abhisit -his nickname among his classmates at Eton College, one of the world's most exclusive private schools, was "Veggie" -has done his best to blunt Thaksin's populist advantage. A system of price guarantees for grain farmers has been introduced, as has a social security program and a guarantee of 15 years of free education for children. Abhisit has been helped by a reviving Thai economy, which has bounced back from a severe recession in 2009 to a 7.8 per cent growth in the gross domestic product last year. But despite the year-long cooling off period since the street violence of April and May last year, political emotions are still raw in Thailand. And elections in Thailand have seldom passed muster as free and fair. Very many adult Thais regard their vote as a marketable commodity to be sold to the highest bidder, or perhaps all of the bidders. So it will be a great achievement if the election produces a result that all parties accept. And not just the political parties. Always lurking in the background of Thai politics is the military, which has staged 18 coups in the last 70 years. jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

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