By Chris Beale
In Thailand's November 17 election the military, briefly sidelined by the May 1992 people's power uprising, was returned to power.
Thailand has suffered 17 coups since 1932, when a weak, city-based bourgeois uprising to overthrow the monarchy was hijacked by military generals. The country's first "democratic experiment" ended in October 1976 with a massacre at Thammasat University and another military coup. Now the second "democratic experiment", begun in May 1992, has ended with General Chavalit elected prime minister.
Chavalit was a key destroyer of Thailand's left during the 1980s, and as defence minister in the just-ousted government of civilian "godfather" Banharn Silapa-archa, Chavalit was at the centre of an arms-for-bribes scandal. He now has his own faction members into key positions in the military and is bringing the military back into key government posts.
So far, the military have found it unnecessary to launch a massacre this time around, but Thailand's highly respected Rajabhat Institute's verdict on the election was that it was "the dirtiest ... in 20 years".
Violence and assassinations were so blatant that even Australia's normally sleeping mainstream media did not fail to notice. "At least seven campaign workers have been shot dead in poll-related attacks, and another five wounded", reported the Sydney Morning Herald. The true figure is likely to be three or four times that, if the Australian media's coverage of the massacre following the 1992 uprising, where they continued to regurgitate the official whitewash, is anything to go by.
Also notable is the lack of Australian media coverage of violence against Thailand's re-emerging left. During the first "democratic experiment", assassinations of labour leaders, students, peasants, environmentalists, journalists and other activists culminated in the killing of the leader of Thailand's enormous Socialist Party. Australian reporting of this was extremely thin on the ground. Then, during the elections after May '92, a series of bombings and shootings prevented the social justice Palang Dhamma Party of Buddhist ascetic Chamlong Srimuang achieving probable massive electoral success.
The November election exposed the increasingly sharp contradictions between the poor countryside and rich city. Even Britain's conservative Economist magazine recently reported that Thailand's economic "success" has left a greater number impoverished than ever before. Bangkok and urban, industrial southern Thailand — the centres of the democracy uprisings — voted massively against Chavalit. Poor, semi-feudal, illiterate and frightened rural Thailand succumbed to either the temptations offered through massive vote-buying, or intimidation. Peasants who voted against candidates they'd been paid to vote for were murdered. Assassination of party workers has been merely the most public of widespread violence.
Chavalit, from Thailand's most impoverished and violent Isarn region, defeated Chuan Leek Pai of southern Thailand's liberal Democrat Party by two seats. Under Thai electoral tradition, this allowed him to choose a coalition government.
The immense debts owed by Chavalit to the military, the "godfathers" and the five other parties in his new ruling coalition mean that his new "dream-team" government will fall far short of his rhetoric. It is likely to be as corrupt, inefficient and eventually as unpopular as any of the other governments which provided the excuse for rising military officers to stage a coup.
Chavalit has already been on the losing end of military manoeuvres. Shortly after resigning as army commander in the late 1980s the man Chavalit promoted to replace him, General Suchinda, launched a coup in February 1991 against a government led by General Chatichai.
Most Thai coups have been inter-military squabbles, often over how to divide the plunder of Thailand's "little brothers" — Cambodia, Laos and Burma. Chavalit has long been closely associated with the Burma side of inter-military rivalry, and Rangoon's junta. The current "peace" in Cambodia represents, as much as anything, the victory within Thailand's military of Chavalit's Burma-oriented faction over the Cambodia-oriented faction of General Suchinda who ordered the May '92 massacre.
Chavalit's New Aspiration Party has made repeated promises to improve social security benefits for workers. Chavalit's true attitude to workers' rights, however, was revealed when, as interior minister in the Democrat-led government, he refused to fully repeal Suchinda's Decree No. 54 which dissolved public sector unions, banned strikes and excluded public servants from social security. Chavalit also barred further investigation of the "disappearance" of Thailand's leading trade unionist, Thanong Po-Arn.
Thailand's new PM is an old-style Thai politician. Despite the murders that have accompanied his rise to power, he's unlikely to last long.