Thailand : A different coup d'etat ?

A different coup d'etat?


The conventional perception of military coups d'etat is of a military faction or individual seizing power for selfish, often anti-democratic reasons. A coup, in its general sense refers to political conflict between the military and a government resulting in a military takeover. The Thai coups d'etat of 1991 and 2006, which overthrew the democratically elected governments of Chatichai Choonhavan and Thaksin Shinawatra, respectively, were staged for ostensibly similar reasons: allegations that there was rampant corruption, the emergence of deep divisions in society, attacks on the military and threats to the institution of the monarchy (Council for Democratic Reform, 2006; National Peace Keeping Council, 1991).

This article analyses the nature of the military coup that brought down the Thaksin government in September 2006. It seeks to demonstrate how the coup group was able to draw on the rising royalist sentiment of 2005-06 in order to legitimate their illegal actions against the elected government. In part, the nature of the 2006 coup leadership is specified by the contrast with the coup group of 1991. The article offers some provisional observations relating to the political economy of the coup how Thaksin's economic rise was perceived as a threat by some other capitalist groupings. Finally, it moves to an analysis of the likely post-coup political structure.

Contrasting Coups: 1991 and 2006

Though similar in nature, the 1991 and 2006 coups differ when viewed from three vantage points. First, it is widely accepted that the 1991 military takeover was, in part, a result of friction between graduates of various classes of the Chulachomklao Military Academy beginning in 1980, which finally culminated in a major rift between the military and the government. (1) The 2006 coup, on the other hand, was staged by military officers claiming deep loyalty to the monarchy, with the main objective of overthrowing a prime minister accused of having treated the king disrespectfully. (2) The Council for Democratic Reform under the Constitutional Monarchy (CDR) royalist rationale for the coup in 2006 resembles that of the coup in 1947, when the civilian government was held responsible for the mysterious death of King Rama 8 (see Suthachai, 2007: 223). Subsequent military rule, be it in the 1940s and 1950s under Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram, or the late 1950s to early 1970s, under Field Marshals Sarit Thanarat, Thanom Kittikachorn and Prapas Charusathien, was justified on the basis of anti-communism. Thus, the intensifying royalist sentiment formed during the five years of the Thaksin government, and its expression during the coup led by the CDR, is unique and requires close analysis. (3)

Secondly, the 2006 coup resulted from efforts to mobilise royalist sentiment to oust a government perceived by various groups and individuals to be a direct threat to the institution of the monarchy. Included in these opponents were media owner Sondhi Limthongkul, Privy Councilor members, some military leaders, as well as various politicians, academics, members of the media and elements of various civil society organisations. This mobilisation was dramatically different from 1991, when allegations of an assassination attempt on Queen Sirikit were made against a member of Class 7, and failed to gain the military much increased support (Tasker, 2006).

Thirdly, in terms of naked political ambition, the 1991 coup group, the National Peace Keeping Council (NPKC) was led by the Class 5 controlled core military units. (4) Class 5 leaders had concrete political ideas and ambitions. Coup leader General Suchinda Kraprayoon's brief prime ministership in 1992 is testament to this ambition, however misplaced. The political ambition of the 2006 coup group is not yet clear, other than their already achieved objective of overthrowing Thaksin while claiming to protect the monarchy.

The 1991 and 2006 coup makers' political ideology, experience and role differs significantly. In terms of the 1991 coup group, Class 5 was led by General Suchinda Kraprayoon, and was in direct political competition with Class 7, led by Major General Chamlong Srimuang. Class 5 were antagonised by the higher political and military influence of Class 7 over them. Class 7 was an important force in the overthrow of General Kriengsak Chomanand and the rise of General Prem Tinsulanonda as the new prime minister in 1980. Their political reward was higher military and political positions and control of all core military units (Chai-Anan, 1982: 23-4). The leaders of Class 7 had substantial experience in confrontation with communism, both in Thailand and in the Indochina war. By contrast, Class 5 had connections with various business leaders such as stock exchange traders, arms trading and big real estate companies (Handley, 1997: 108-9). They had relationships with many political and business leaders who invested a lot in the stock market and mega infrastructure projects during the period around the time that Chatichai Choonhavan was prime minister and which saw an economic boom. They had linkages with influential politicians, such as Newin Chidchob (Deputy Minister of Finance) and Suchart Taunchaleon (Deputy Minister of Interior) and the real estate-based Ban Chang Group's Pairot Piamphongsan. Their connection provided fruitful insider information, special-personal credit lines from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce and allowed speculation on real estate and land trading (Handley, 1997: 108-9). Their money was utilised for both business and politics. Paul Handley (1997: 107) noted that the 1991 junta was reasonably attuned to investment and the stock exchange, both as individuals and as a group. General Suchinda, in particular, had his own investment managers, and the military used intelligence sources for market research.

This background differs markedly from the CDR leadership that have, for the most part, no clearly stated political ideas or experience. The key figures are from a range of classes at the military academy and appear not to have developed any clear programme that benefits each class's membership. Among coup leaders, General Sonthi Boonyaratklin and General Winai Pattiyakul are from Class 17, General Saprang Kalayanamitr from Class 18 and General Anuphong Phaochinda from Class 21 (The Nation, 21 July, 2006). Air Chief Marshal Chalit Pukphasuk (Commander of the Royal Thai Air Force), Admiral Sathiraphan Keyanon (Commander of the Royal Thai Navy) and Police-General Kowit Wattana all belong to Class 17 but none of them seem very attached to their class. The junta also gained support of members of Class 20 led by General Montri Sangkhasap. With but a couple of exceptions, it is fair to say that most of these officers had never expressed any particular interest in politics. Interestingly, few of them demonstrated a strong sense of unity as a class in the same way as their predecessors in Classes 5 or 7.

General Sonthi and General Winai, from Class 17, were outside Thaksin's military inner circle. Before becoming Army Commander-in-Chief, Sonthi was not a particularly well-known public figure. He served in the elite Special Warfare Command based in Lopburi, a unit that has produced top military leaders. In 2004 he became Deputy Army Commander-in-Chief. He assumed the rank of Army Commander-in-Chief in 2005 as a compromise candidate. Bargaining for his elevation, supported by Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda, to the top post was partly based on his assumed ability to play a special role in problem solving in the south of Thailand, given his Muslim background (see Bangkok Post, 4 July 2006; Irrawaddy Online, 20 September 2006). His close friend, General Winai--a quiet man--worked as head of the National Security Council during Thaksin's rule, a post that had no military unit command. General Saprang, the strong-headed and outspoken Third Army Commander and First Army Commander General Anuphong, were the two key military operations commanders for the coup. Initially, they had no clear political ideas, experience or demands other than the overthrow of Thaksin. Both assumed their leadership roles just one year before the coup.

A partial exception to this characterisation of relative political inexperience is the case of General Winai. He has had a long connection with Suwat Liptapanlop, a prominent politician from Nakorn Rachachima. They were classmates at St Gabriel's School and political and business partners. In 1982 General Winai served as a military aide for General Arthit Kamlang-ek, former Army-in-Chief (Anon., 2006). He met and worked with Suwat from the late 1980s when Suwat formed the Thai People (Poungchonchaethai) Party with General Arthit, who became deputy defence minister under the Chatichai government. Later General Winai was a member at the prime minister's office staff under prime minister Chatichai. Interestingly, General Winai has also shown an interest in business, and is currently an executive board member for Chiratiwatra family's Big C Supercenter department store company and Thai Life Insurance controlled by the Chaiwan family (Anon., 2006).

This relative lack of political and business experience of core coup members would suggest that there had been no long-term planning for the expansion of this coup group's political role. It may be suggested that they were driven by events, rather than conspiring to use events to realise long-held ambitions. However, now in power, political and business ambitions have blossomed, both within the core coup group and the military as a whole, and this development is likely to influence the shape of democracy in the near future (Matichon, 10 November 2006; 28 December 2006).

These three differences suggest that the 2006 coup was far more than a simple case of military seizure of power. Rather, the 2006 coup is connected intimately with the future of monarchy.

The Rise of a Royalist Military

The 2006 coup came more than 15 years after the military last played such an overt political and interventionist role in 1991. The military retreat from politics occurred after the backfiring of their move to install General Suchinda as prime minister in 1992. Massive protests ended with a military clamp-down following a violent confrontation on Ratchadamnoen Avenue, where at least fifty protestors were killed--although some insist that hundreds may have been killed. After that, the military returned to their barracks and remained in a low-profile political position.

During the period of Thaksin's government, from 2001 to 2006, a new political phenomenon emerged when members of Class 10 of the Armed Forces Academy Preparatory School (AFAPS) or Class 21 of Chulachomklao Military Academy, who had been classmates of Thaksin, rose to enjoy unprecedented prominence in the Thai armed forces. (5) With the administration's determination to create its own military support base, several officers, ostensibly strong Thaksin supporters, were promoted from the rank of colonel to that of general in only a year and a half. Many also took control of key positions such as Army Commanding General of 1st, 2nd and 4th army regions, Army Chief-of-Staff and Army Assistant Chief as well as commander of the 1st Infantry Division and the King's Guards (see McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: 121-65). These rapid promotions meant that, for the first time, a civilian government was building a network of support from top military commanders. These moves caused considerable consternation amongst those being passed over and shunted aside. It also challenged the so-called network monarchy (McCargo, 2005).

The turning point that eventually culminated in the coup was the sixtieth anniversary of the king's accession to the throne and conflicts that occurred during the period of the annual military reshuffle. It is worth noting that there had been criticism of Thaksin and his government for their dictatorial ways, violation of human rights and alleged corruption since Thaksin's first year in power. It was the escalation of these complaints into very large public protests from February 2006 and the resort to a "Royal Power" discourse beginning at the end of 2005 that saw an escalation of anti-Thaksin sentiment.

Despite a limited truce between Thaksin and his opponents during the celebrations of the king's Diamond Jubilee, the royalist discourse reached its zenith on 9 June 2006 when hundreds of thousands of people donned yellow shirts and took part in the anniversary day festivities around the Royal Plaza. (6) The hearts and minds of many Thai people were riveted by the various celebrations, televised live, while souvenir photographs of the events were sold and widely distributed. When the king underwent surgery and was confined to hospital from 20 July to 4 August, his fortunes were keenly followed and hundreds of people clad in yellow shirts gathered at the hospital. Television showed royal family members visiting the king twice a day, together with other prominent figures, such as Privy Council members. Despite these celebrations, public concern for the king's health and displays of loyalty to the monarch, Thaksin facing pressure to leave office--made a speech on 29 June 2006 before high-ranking government officials, stating: "... there is chaos in society because charismatic people and some organisations outside those sanctioned by the Constitution are trying to overthrow the government, rules and laws, Constitution and democracy" (INN Editorial Board, 2006: 21). This was widely understood as a reference to Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda and the palace. (7)

The Thaksin government was also criticised for attempting to take a high profile in the organising of royal ceremonies and the welcoming of royal guests from abroad. However, it was chastised for neglecting to pay much interest to the government's exhibition celebrating the king's reign at Impact Arena in Muangthong Thani. Opponents opined that this exhibition was too small, had a meagre budget and, with Cabinet Spokeman Suraphong Suewonglee in charge, not sufficient attention to rank. Opponents claimed, despite massive television advertising, that the event was poorly publicised and that it was only word of mouth that had people flocking to see it. In the end, the exhibition was extended to accommodate escalating royalist sentiment. Some critics interpreted these events as showing Thaksin's disrespect to the monarchy.

The political game then shifted to the military reshuffle that took place in mid-July 2006 when Thaksin urged military commanders to hasten their submission of the lists of military personnel to be transferred. When then Minister of Defence General Thammarak Isarangkun determined a 27 July deadline, this was met with considerable opposition from those opposed to the government (Matichon, 14 July 2006). For example, General Saprang, commander of the army's Third Region emerged to criticise this move, citing that it would create conflict and lead to a schism in society (Khom Chat Luek, 14 July 2006).

The most forceful demonstration of opposition to the Thaksin administration's military reshuffle which was also a sign for the emergence of a "royal military" was General Prem's actions on 14 July 2006. Dressed in military uniform, Prem gave a speech at the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy asserting that "the soldiers belong to His Majesty the King, not to a government. A government is like a jockey. It supervises soldiers, but the real owners are the country, and the King" (cited in Bangkok Post, 15 July 2006). He gave a similar talk at the Naval Academy where the topic focused on the ethics expected from politicians, claiming that "... it is OK if a rich person acquires his wealth through righteous means but if he acquires his wealth through dishonest means then we should not pay our respects to them with a traditional Thai wai" (Matichon, 1 September 2006).

Similarly, he also addressed an audience at the Air Force Academy cautioning that "the nation is sacred and that anybody who dares even to think of appropriating it for himself will ultimately meet with destruction" (Matichon, 1 September 2006).

The ideological support rendered by General Prem, who was also a well-respected figure in military circles, provided anti-government military figures the morale boost necessary to launch action against the government. A week after Prem's speech Army Commander General Sonthi accepted a reshuffle list submitted by the Commanders-in-Chief of the four regions. This included the reposting of 129 middle-ranked military officers, including 38 battalion commanders, many of them considered sympathetic to Thaksin. Because of their membership of Class 10 of the Preparatory Military Academy School, these men were considered Thaksin loyalists and so were re-appointed to positions with no control over military fighting units. As Wassana noted (2006: 10) the immediate transfer outside the normal season included the transfer of various perceived pro-Thaksin supporters:

Lt-Col Kosit Chinwasant, commander of the 4th cavalry battalion of
the Royal Guards which, in the past, played a crucial role in coup
attempts--he is the son-in-law of Major-Gen Sanit Prommas,
commander of the 2nd cavalry division of the Royal Guards and a
member of Class 10; Lt-Col Wechasakdi Khantha-ubon, commander of
the 1st infantry battalion of the first regiment; Lt-Col Anuparb
Sirimonthon, commander of the 3rd infantry battalion of the first
regiment.

In addition, key Class 10 member Major General Proen, who had once called for anti-Thaksin political moves to cease and who was Commander of the 1st Infantry Division (known as the Royal Guards) was punished. His troops were transferred to inactive posts and were replaced by Lt General Anuphong's troops who took control of the key positions in Bangkok (Naew Na, 20 July 2006).

In 2005, Thaksin had attempted to shore up his position by transferring generals who were perceived as being from the anti-government camp, such as Anuphong, Saprang and Sonthi, but he was unsuccessful. Disputes between anti- and pro-Thaksin groups within the military led to an unprecedented two-week delay in the king's endorsement of the 2005 annual military reshuffle (The Nation, 13 December 2005). Even so, Thaksin continued to try and remove these key figures. During the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) demonstrations in March 2006, Thaksin reportedly urged General Sonthi to declare a state of emergency and employ force in cracking down on the demonstrators. Sonthi apparently refused to do so (The Nation, 23 March 2006). In post-coup reflections, Sonthi said that he realised that if he did Thaksin would use the resulting popular outcry to dismiss him (The Nation, 27 October 2006). (8)

When the coup was carried out, it was clear that it was a coup by royalists in the military. The coup group followed Prem, relied on his moral support and agreed that the military owed their allegiance to the king. They demonstrated their royalism by attaching yellow ribbons to their sleeves and their weapons. Soon after the coup, in a highly symbolic act, they went to "apologise" to the statue of King Chulalongkorn at Army Headquarters, stating that they did not intend to disrespect the long-dead king when they made their coup. Given this background, it may be argued that the September coup occurred as a result of a power struggle led by the faction in the armed forces staunchly loyal to the king and bent on putting an end to a government that they considered anti-royalist.

The coup may have also served to reassure royalists in the military that the political status quo could be maintained even after the eventual demise of the ageing General Prem and an ailing king, both octogenarians. In much the same way the palace will be reassured that it has a guaranteed loyalist armed force to provide it with their undying support; military leaders Sonthi, Saprang and Anuphong are very likely, collectively, to keep the position of Commander-in-Chief in their hands for at least three consecutive years (Sonthi's retirement year is in 2007, Saprang's in 2008 and Anuphong's in 2009).

Given their limited political power base and their apparent lack of political ideas and ambition, it was certainly daunting for this group of royalist military to confront Thaksin, who at that time had strong control of parliament, the media, the bureaucracy, provincial governors, police, significant sections of the military, and the solid support of the masses, especially in rural areas. Yet the emergence of the royalist military was possible with the support of a royalist ideology that maintained a stronghold throughout the anti-Thaksin campaigns from the end of 2005.

The Anti-Thaksin and Royalist Movement

Like the 2006 coup, the 1991 putsch initially enjoyed considerable public support. The 1991 coup-group focused initially on the alleged corruption of the so-called buffet cabinet of the Chatichai government. Royalist and nationalist ideology was also used to legitimate the 1991 coup, but not very successfully. As mentioned above, this centred on an alleged plot to assassinate Queen Sirikit, allegedly linked to Colonel Manoon Roopkachorn from Class 7. The plot was publicised in a videotaped confession by Class 7 members. Widely believed to be fake to implicate Class 7 and to strengthen the position of Class 5, the videotapes were withdrawn from circulation and public broadcast. In 1991, royalism was deployed only in the intra-military struggle of class groupings, it was not used to create a royalist military or to mobilise a mass movement as was to be the case in 2006.

Turning now to the movement to oust Thaksin, as Pye and Schaffar (2008) observe, it was composed of various groups, including some who were academics, social activists, politicians, business figures, aristocrats, the middle class, the media, Buddhist monks, Privy Council members and military leaders. The movement began with Sondhi Limthongkul, founder and owner of The Manager group of companies and newspaper, taking up media criticisms against government policies and the benefits enjoyed by Thaksin and his family. The movement was later expanded to be led principally by academics, social activists and political figures. Sondhi, a former friend and sometime business rival of Thaksin, was once involved in the telecommunications business that Thaksin came to dominate (The Nation, 28 November 2005). (9) The 1997 economic crisis had far less of a detrimental impact on Thaksin's businesses than other large conglomerates; Sondhi's Manager Group ended up being saddled with massive debts following the economic crisis (The Nation, 29 November 2005).

When Thaksin came to power, Sondhi's company benefited from the government-owned Krung Thai Bank which reduced its debts from 1.8 billion baht to 200 million baht (The Nation, 30 November 2005). His business experienced a swift recovery and Sondhi entrusted his son, Chittanart Limthongkul, to establish Thailand Dot Corn Co. that invested in concessions it received from the Public Relations Department for radio and television programmes on MCOT's Channel 9. Sondhi hailed Thaksin as the best prime minister the country had ever had and fiercely attacked the opposition Democrat party for selling out Thailand's debt-ravaged companies to foreign-owned companies (The Nation, 30 November 2005).

The falling out between Sondhi and the Thaksin government came when Viroj Nualkhair, who had been instrumental in helping Sondhi salvage his business, was asked by Bank of Thailand governor Pridiyathorn Devakula to resign from his post as president of the Krung Thai Bank (The Nation, 30 November 2005). In the meantime, as Sondhi used his television programme "Thailand Weekly" on the government's Channel 9, the programme was soon removed. Sondhi then aired his criticisms of the Thaksin administration at venues such as the Thammasat University auditorium and open-air forums in Lumphini Park, claiming that his still-small movement was meant to "Save the Nation."

Sondhi's attacks against Thaksin soon came to centre on Thaksin's alleged disrespect of Thailand's ideological "holy trinity," nation, religion and the monarchy. Sondhi cited examples of disrespect including a merit-making ceremony at the royal Temple of the Emerald Buddha presided over by Thaksin Shinawatra, and the appointment of an interim Supreme Patriarch of the Buddhist sangha. Sondhi then began to use slogans such as "We will fight for the King." He took to wearing the now symbolic yellow shirt. People who joined him at his rallies were also encouraged to don yellow shirts. Sondhi tapped into conservative royalist discourse by capitalising on the popularity of the book, Royal Powers written and published in mid-2005 by disgruntled Thai Rak Thai party member Pramuan Ruchanaseree (2005). In early September 2005 at a public forum featuring Sondhi, Pramuan and Senator Kaewsan Atibodhi, Pramuan declared:

there are two paths for our country to follow, one is to be a
kingdom where prosperity of the country is measured not only by
economic prosperity but through the improvement of the people's
quality of life according to the advice given by His Majesty the
King. The second path is to see to it that our nation turns into
Thailand Company Limited where money is everything and everything
is money (cited in The Nation, 7 September 2005).

This "Royal Powers" discourse soon transformed itself from an idea in a book to the basis for the formation of anti-Thaksin movements and was popularised by Sondhi in his Phujatkan newspaper and on his cable television network, ASTV. Close Sondhi associate and influential academic Chai-Anan Samudvanija then switched sides. From being a Thaksin loyalist rewarded with the chairmanship of the board of Thai Airways International and the Electricity General Authority of Thailand, Chai-Anan publicly joined Sondhi at the end of November 2005. As a Phujatkan columnist, Chai-Anan's (2005) first Phujatkan column in late November warned Thaksin to prepare to save his political life, because the maverick Sondhi was braver and more willing to take risks. Chai-Anan's columns helped revitalise the anti-Thaksin campaign. He was also instrumental in gathering signatures for a petition to the king requesting that he replace Thaksin with a new prime minister (Phujatkan, 6 March 2006). One other notable intellectual who joined Sondhi and his moves to return power to the king was the royalist Pramote Nakhonthap, yet another academic-turned-columnist for Phujatkan newspaper. It was Pramote who sought to demonstrate similarities with the British system claiming that the Queen of England frequently made interventions in her nation's pressing political issues and controversies (Pramote, 2006).

The use of the monarchy as a point of attack, revelations of graft and corruption, and exposes of the government's attempts to silence the media served to increase pressure on Thaksin. The prime minister would, however, counter the allegations that he was anti-royal by a series of threats and law suits. For example, he had military leaders denounce any use of the monarchy to criticise the government, having loyal aide's under Major General Proen Suwannathat deliver a letter to Sondhi at Manager Group headquarters asking Sondhi to cease using the monarchy to attack Thaksin (The Nation, 19 November 2005).

Despite growing dissatisfaction with Thaksin, Sondhi's fight only reached its most intense point with the sale by the Shinawatra family of shares of Shin Corporation on 23 January 2006 to Singapore's Temasek Holding for $US1.8 billion, at the time being assessed as not being liable for taxation (Ukrist, 2006: 1-2). What ensued was public outrage--particularly among members of the upper and middle classes and the consolidation of the anti-Thaksin movement. Sondhi's rally at the Royal Plaza on 4 February was attended by tens of thousands of people (Suthachai, 2007: 218). At that gathering Sondhi initially pursued an aggressive strategy of presenting a petition to General Prem asking for power to be returned to the king (see Connors, 2008). He also sought a meeting with General Sonthi. General Prem was not in his residence and assigned an aide to receive the petition while General Sonthi, who met the group, claimed that he granted the meeting so as to avoid political chaos (Supalak, 2006: 176).

Sondhi Limthongkul's protest base expanded further and was transformed into the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), with the Campaign for Popular Democracy calling for 40 non-governmental organisations (NGO) to join in the protest against Thaksin (Thai Post, 6 February 2006). PAD prepared for a huge demonstration on 11 February at the Royal Plaza (The Nation, 12 February 2006).

Considering the composition of PAD's leadership, comprising Sondhi Limthongkul, former Thaksin supporter and Bangkok Governor Major General Chamlong Srimuang, the academic Somkiat Phongpaiboon, retired union leader Somsak Kosaisuk and NGO leader Phipob Thongchai, it is evident that Sondhi played the leading role. It was he who footed the bill of 800,000 to one million baht for each rally to cover the cost of the stage, electricity, projector screens, VTR mobile units (Supalak, 2006: 178-9) Meanwhile, Somkiat, Phipob and Somsak had only a small following and were devoid of financial means. For this reason, Sondhi and Chamlong were able to press for royal intervention to install a new prime minister through the use of the Constitution's Article 7, despite the fact that their PAD co-leaders disagreed with this approach. However, they seemed unwilling to withdraw their support (Supalak, 2006: 179-80).

On 25 April 2006 the king, in an audience to the nation's judges claimed that:
Article 7 does not empower the King to make a unilateral decision.
It talks about the constitutional monarchy but does not give the
King power to do anything he wishes. If the King did so, he would
overstep his duty. I have never overstepped this duty. Doing so
would be undemocratic (Bhumibol, 2006). (10)


While this effectively undermined the movement for a royally appointed prime minister, the king's intervention also paved the way for annulling the elections Thaksin had called in April and which TRT had won (see Hewison, 2008). Nevertheless, the royalist ideology was manifested powerfully in June, during the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the current monarch's reign. The image of loyal subjects numbering hundreds of thousands all in yellow shirts filling up the royal plaza and shouting in unison "Long Live the King" was a reflection of the royalist ideology that the PAD--in particular, Sondhi Limthongkul--had sought to mobilize for their own political ends.

The royalist ideology conveniently coincided with Sondhi's idea to "fight for the king and return royal power." In the end, this call would provide the basis for the royalist elements of the armed forces to stage the 2006 coup and legitimate it in terms of the monarchy. Ostensibly, the main objective for the 2006 coup was to rid the political arena of Thaksin since the royalists claimed to have seen from the start that Thaksin posed a more perilous threat to democracy and the monarchy than any other political figure in Thailand.

The Thaksin Challenge--the Challenge from Capital

Any analysis of the 2006 coup must also take into account the tensions within Thai capitalist groupings. Given the contemporary nature of events, the shadowy politicking of various capitalist groups, and the oftentimes highly personalised nature of business dealings, this analysis is necessarily preliminary. One point of departure is to recognise significant economic rivalry among domestic capitalist groups, and especially between the Shinawatra business group and, despite some significant linkages, the monarchy's investment arm the Crown Property Bureau (CPB) (also see Hewison, 2008; Porphant, 2008). Tensions were not limited to these two. Thaksin alienated a number of other business groups, so that by the time of the political crisis of 2005-06, there had emerged a loose alliance of some capitalists who had come to support moves to throw Thaksin out of office. Indeed, Thaksin's aggrandising tendencies led some disaffected capitalist groupings to mobilise against him (Connors, 2005; 2006).

During Thaksin's tenure as prime minister the Shin Corporation Group grew exponentially, amassing a total profit of 9723 million baht in 2003 and holding assets of 60,153 million baht with a market capitalisation of 113,888 million baht. In the same year, another Shinawatra family company, AIS Co. Ltd., had a profit of 18,529 million baht with assets of 124,944 million baht and 249,775 million baht in market capitalisation (Pasuk and Baker, 2004: 206).

Due to its rapid growth during the 2001-03 period, the Shin Corporation's subsequent move was to further expand its business from telecommunications to companies such as Thai Air Asia, a low cost airline, and Capital OK, a personal credit company, established in conjunction with the state-owned Development Bank of Singapore (Bangkok Post, 11 December 2003). The Shinawatra family also expanded investments in real estate and health care. SC Asset is the family's real estate business flagship company, while ownership of the Rama IX Hospital and the attempted takeover of the Paolo Memorial group's hospitals indicates its expanding interests in health care.

While there were credible economic rivals to Shin Corporation by 2004, including the beer and whisky tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi and the CPB, no single business group possessed Thaksin's economic power and his strong hold over state power. (11) One of the strongest Thaksin opponents was Prachai Leophairatana of the TPI group, the country's largest petroleum and chemicals firm. TPI had longstanding debt problems, and Prachai had opposed all governments since the economic crisis. Thaksin's government had vigorously pursued the restructuring of TPI and had allowed legal moves by creditors to gain control of TPI and saw Prachai lose his executive position in May 2006 (The Nation, 3 May 2006). These defeats saw Prachai providing considerable support to the anti-Thaksin movement. Some media reported that then Finance minister Somkid Jatusripitak had obstructed executives of Chinese state enterprise CITIC from providing $US2700 million in financial aid to bail TPI out of its debts (Phujatkan [Manager], 22 November 2006: 18). This was one of the reasons behind TPI's decision to advertise in Phujatkan newspaper and support its political stance against Thaksin. (12)

Moreover, the whisky tycoon Charoen, one of Thailand's richest men, had planned to list his Thai Beverage company on the stock exchange in 2005. This move, which would have given Thai Beverage more than 300 million baht in market capitalization, was, however, blocked (The Nation, 10 January 2006). Charoen has close ties with the palace and the military, with General Prem serving as honorary chairman of New Imperial Hotel Group owned by Charoen (Chai-Anan, 1997). However, Charoen was still unable to protect his interests. What was interesting about this was that the people obstructing Charoen were Thaksin's close associates such as Thanong Bidaya, the minister of Finance as Chairman of the Stock Exchange of Thailand and Anant Asavabhokin, president and CEO of Land and Houses as well as the member of the Securities and Exchange Commission (The Nation, 10 January, 2006). Anant had earlier been a major donor to Chamlong Srimuang's Palang Dharma party and the Dharma Forces Foundation (Nechan Sutsapda [Nation Weekly], 19 January 2006). Thanong and Anant consistently opposed the Thai Beverage listing.

One of the main obstacles in this case was Chamlong who, as head of the Palang Dharma party, had been responsible for bringing Thaksin into politics in 1995. While still allied to Thaksin, in January 2006, Chamlong led a mass protest against Thai Beverage's listing, bringing together 172 organisations in an anti-alcohol network demonstration outside the Stock Exchange. The government's obstructionism regarding the Thai Beverage listing may be interpreted in two ways: as a fear of upsetting Chamlong, a strong moral campaigner who has a proven record of mobilising against governments on moral issues; or as hiding behind the moral campaign against the listing in order to frustrate a Thaksin business rival. Charoen later turned to the Stock Exchange of Singapore for his listing (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 13-19 January 2006). While Thaksin continued to have the support of many business leaders, these two examples illustrate the nature of a growing business disenchantment with Thaksin's use of political power to frustrate potential business rivals.

We now come to the most contentious and difficult capital relation of all: that between Thaksin and the CPB. The CPB was hard-hit by the economic crisis of 1997 (see Porphant, 2008). Paul Handley (2006a: 410) suggested that the crisis wiped out palace income. Dividends stopped flowing and many tenants stopped paying rent. The impact on the CPB was so hard that for a time it lost its controlling shareholding in its flagship bank, the Siam Commercial Bank (Porphant, 2006: 120-6; 2008). At the same time, the CPB's industrial flagship, the Siam Cement Group (SCG) was weakened and forced into a massive sell-off of subsidiaries. While the SCG strategy soon returned the group to profitability and saw it investing overseas (Siam Cement Group, 2005), there had been considerable damage done.

While the CPB remained the country's most valuable business group, in some sectors, it remained under threat from the prime minister's expanding Shin group. Thaksin did two things. First, he is said to have utilised his own money, showing his superiority over the CPB. At the end of the 1990s many well-informed Bangkokians talked of Thaksin having taken on many of the profligate crown prince's larger expenditures, including the refurbishment of the old palace of Rama VII, where the prince wanted to reside (Handley, 2006a: 424). This suggested that Thaksin was not beholden to the palace and may have even had an ally in the palace (see Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 January 2002). Thaksin was also perceived as crass in his government's dealings with royal finances; always secretive, direct discussion on royal finances is rare in Thailand. When, on 9 June 2006, Thaksin told the media that his government had approved a 500 million baht budget to finish a new building in the Grand Palace where all the king's guests dine together, many royalists were apparently flabbergasted and saw Thaksin as challenging the palace (Thaksin, 2006).

Given the above, the coming together of some key business groupings to back the overthrow of Thaksin is not surprising. TPI's Prachai joined the crusade by providing financial support to Sondhi Limthongkul, including placing rolling advertisements in the latter's Phujatkan newspaper. Charoen, who failed in his endeavour to enlist Thai Beverage in the Stock Exchange of Thailand, lent his support to Pramuan Ruchanaseree by offering his Ratchapruek Club as the venue for the launching of Pramuan's Royal Powers in late July 2005. The affair was eventually cancelled due to pressure from members of the Thaksin administration (Anon., 2005).

In a dramatic movement, in February 2006 Thaksin's old friend and mentor Chamlong led several thousand members of the Dharma Forces Foundation and joined forces with Sondhi Limthongkul. There is speculation that Chamlong's opposition to Thaksin became explicit after a figure close to the palace, presumed to be Prem, asked why "his son" (meaning Chamlong) had not joined the protests; Chamlong had been Prem's secretary in 1980s. Charoen also had ties with Prem and was able to challenge Thaksin's money power. Chamlong was the most militant strategic leader, and when he join with Sondhi Limthongkul, Thaksin's fortunes plummeted. Sondhi's anti-Thaksin efforts had been continuous and these efforts gathered considerable momentum once these individuals allied themselves with him. The combined pressure of all these forces finally led Thaksin to dissolve parliament in February 2006 in an effort to break the political impasse that had developed.

The rise of the anti-Thaksin forces marked a significant merging of capital, middle class and aristocratic elements, politicians, media and royalist forces and would form the basis of a movement that would pave the way for the military take over on 19 September.

After the Coup: Military, Monarchy and Democracy
The 2006 coup raises several issues regarding the likely re-emergence of semi-democracy and strong military leaders.

First, it is hard to envisage an end to military involvement in politics and economy. On the first day of the coup, leader General Sonthi assured the Thai people that the CDR had no intention of becoming political leaders of the country and would return administrative powers to the people as soon as possible (Council for Democratic Reform, 2006). Three months later General Sonthi again echoed those exact sentiments stating, "We affirm hereby that we do not wish to continue to maintain power ..." (Matichon, 20 December 2006). However, the history of the Thai military shows that the lure of power and its benefits remain potent and addictive. Despite the avowed intention not to seek continued power, the experience of office, the power that comes from it and the benefits that flow from power lead to a reluctance to let go. The coup has already brought about numerous political and economic pay offs for coup leaders and coup supporters; it seems certain that military officers are not going to fade away easily.

A number of armed forces personnel were appointed by the CDR to the National Legislative Council, formed in late 2006 (Table 1). Given the predominance of state officials and the military, the appointed Council that has emerged from the coup seems like a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s--the heyday of benefits and pay offs. As many as 11 generals from the army and two from the police are now board members of some 13 state enterprise agencies (Table 2).

The military has also revived the long-gone tradition of once again receiving the lion's share of the national budget. The new government's budget for security proposed by CDR-appointed prime minister General Surayud Chulanont for the Ministry of Defence to the National Legislative Council was an unprecedented 115 billion baht. The proposed budget did not suffer any cuts, with the reasoning being that the Defence Ministry's budget had been in continual decline since 1997. The committee also added that while the defence budget of Thailand's neighbouring countries amounts to more than 4% of their GDP, in comparison, the Thai Ministry of Defence has utilised less than 2% (Thairath, 12 December 2006). Even so, the budget allocations to the Ministry of Defence account for 28% of the total budget, the highest single allocation, followed by the Ministry of Education at 25% and Ministry of Finance at 19.8% (Matichon, 17 November 2006).

The military has a range of sources of funding that it can draw on. For example, on the day of the coup, a total of one billion baht was withdrawn from the military's "secret funds" (Matichon, 28 December 2006). In late 2006 the military requested a budget to set up a new security agency and was granted 555.96 million baht for the CNS Special Operations Center, comprising 13,625 personnel from all four sectors of the armed forces, with a term in office until September 2007 (Matichon, 28 December 2006). Commanding this new special operations force, whose task is to quell activities and protests by various political factions before the general elections take place, is none other than the ubiquitous General Saprang. The problem with this budget allocation is not just that it drains funds from other sectors, but it is a direct political intervention since any action can be interpreted by the military as a national security threat.

Aside from this special unit the Internal Security Operation Command (ISOC) is another agency recently revitalised. As head of the National Security Operation Command (in his capacity as the commander and Army Chief-of-Staff), General Sonthi explained that ISOC was the equivalent of the US Department of Homeland Security (The Nation Online, 12 December 2006). Such a potentially great and powerful agency will dominate whichever government eventually emerges after general elections take place, scheduled for late 2007. The military appears to be immensely proud of their newly installed ISOC, yet from a critical perspective it has been pointed out that this agency has been previously responsible for creating problems that have escalated into significant political problems. Some examples whereby ISOC personnel have been accused or suspected of involvement are insurgencies in southern Thailand (from 2004); the alleged car bomb assassination attempt on Thaksin in August 2006, and the New Year's eve explosions at nine locations around Bangkok on 31 December 2006. It can be anticipated that increasing ISOC's power will be a grave threat to any democratically elected government in the future.

The lack of foresight and planning by the military junta that staged the coup has become evident, with its claim to protect the monarchy. It is not clear that the emerging security framework can provide the assurances required by the monarchy, even though the royalist military led by Generals Sonthi, Saprang and Anuphong will remain influential into the near future. These three generals are not the only ones with power; and other forces within the military can also avail themselves of the power and benefits that come from the military's new position, including the increased power associated with a revamped ISOC.

There is no assurance that, upon the eventual death of General Prem, the monarchy will be protected. There is no assurance that when the new elections have taken place the new government, which may be formed through a coalition, will readily accede to the wishes of these three generals without heeding the voice of other groups. These other factions will be expecting to reap the benefits of the increased budget for the armed forces, military organisations, positions and appointments in parliament, state enterprises or even economic pay backs from politicians and business interest groups. It must be said that the narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness of this junta directly affects the unity of the military and creates the condition for new conflict and disintegration as different factions fight to secure posts.

The junta's focus on ensuring who will be the next army commander-in-chief is also a rather narrow objective. They seem to think that a royal succession can be peaceful as long as they secure the army (Handley, 2006b; Tasker, 2006). However, this transition period will depend more on the personality of the present king because, in fact, the monarchy in Thailand is not institutionalised; it has been built up around the personal charisma that has been created for the incumbent king. In this context, post-coup politics remains insecure, even though General Prem's men took over many key political posts. General Surayud, a close aide to Prem during the early 1980s and a fellow member of the Privy Council was chosen as interim prime minister. Meechai Ruchuphan, a law specialist for Prem in the early 1980s, was chosen to be National Legislation Assembly chair.

The coup has also made democracy in Thailand increasingly fragile and precarious, despite the fact that the junta promises to return democracy to the people. The question is how democratic is this going to be? Current indications are that the political direction is rather "retro." There is evidence for this in the deliberations around the drafting of a new constitution: should senators be elected or appointed? Should the prime minister be appointed? It is possible that whatever the shape of the new constitution, Thailand's democracy may well revert to a period of semi-democracy, a form of democracy that characterised the rule of General Prem in the 1980s.

The main reason why we can anticipate the re-emergence of semi-democracy stems from the fact that the drafting of this new constitution seeks to prevent the reemergence of a powerful and threatening government such as that which proved so alarming under Thaksin. Inherent in this approach is a distaste for elected politicians as a whole and the design of a political system that reduces their control and power. This process is resulting in the re-design of a semi-democracy, where the bureaucracy is at the helm and where there is little participation on the part of political parties and the public. This would result in a diminished role for political parties. This form of democracy would be based upon the principle that it is the military who play the role of nurturing the government much in the same way that they did when General Prem was prime minister. The problem for the junta is that the political and economic context has altered dramatically and there probably isn't any military figure as powerful as Prem, who was able to convince the armed forces to support weak semi-democratic governments. The push for some kind of semi-democratic solution remodels the golden years of the Prem era but fails to provide an adequate new economic and political context for a Thailand that has changed politically and has a different location in global production than it occupied in the 1980s.

The 2006 military coup by royalist armed forces was staged with the immediate aim of eradicating Thaksin and protecting the monarchy. In the short term, it might have been successful, yet undoubtedly Thailand will suffer from long-term repercussions. The soldiers are unlikely to hasten back to their barracks since they have now created a gigantic agency dealing with security--ISOC--that will support their continued political role. The junta's key members may not have evidenced any political plan for Thailand, yet it is apparent that this group is pushing for a semi-democracy to make a come-back after two decades. This is evidence of the political ignorance of the military and does not augur well for the fortunes of Thai democracy, for it is likely that such a winding back of the political clock will result in continuing political conflict and bloodshed.

Acknowledgement

Research for this article was made possible by the financial support provided by the JSPS-NRCT CORE University Exchange Program 2006. The author would like to thank Michael K. Connors for encouragement to write this article and for his comments. The article benefited greatly from comments provided by two anonymous peer reviewers and Kevin Hewison, Soren Ivarsson, Okamoto Masaaki and Honna Jun.

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Notes

(1) Conflict between the classes started in 1980 with the failed coup of April 1980. Tensions continued throughout the 1980s and finally led to the intervention that brought down the Chatichai government (Tamada, 1995: 49). For an analysis of the 1991 coup from a broader perspective, which suggests growing conflict between bureaucratic/military and capitalist elements, see Hewison (1993).


(2) Other stated reasons for the coup included: the Thaksin government's creation of an unprecedented rift in society, corruption, nepotism, interference in independent agencies, and insults to the king (see Council for Democratic Reform, 2006).


(3) For an alternative perspective on the role of royalists and royal sentiment in coups, see Hewison (2008, this issue).

(4) Military cliques are often grouped by year of entry their class number into the academy.

(5) The AFAPS is two-year preparatory school after which attendees then divide into the army, navy, air force or police and attend separate academies.

(6) Yellow is the king's birth colour and has become a symbol of loyalty to the monarch. It is also a colour associated with Thai Buddhism.

(7) Prem had been a former military commander, became prime minister in 1980 and remained in that position until 1988 when political pressure forced him to abandon hopes of a longer tenure. Always loyal to the king, he was made a member of the Privy Council.

(8) While no evidence has been produced, following the coup, Sondhi claimed that the orders for Sonthi's dismissal and replacing him with General Ruangroj Mahasaranand were in Thaksin's hands for some months, waiting only for him to put a date on it. He is said to have finally signed the orders in New York on the day of the coup when it was too late. Sonthi would later allege that in June 2006 Thaksin had asked whether he would stage a coup and the General answered in the affirmative (Sonthi, 2006).

(9) Thaksin would emerge as the owner of AIS, Thailand's largest mobile telephone operator, while Sondhi once owned IEC. Thaksin's company launched Thai Com satellite and subsequently IP Star while Sondhi's company oversaw Lao Star Co. in the People's Democratic of Laos.

(10) Earlier birthday speeches by the king had also criticised Thaksin--see Thongchai (2008, this issue).

(11) On Charoen, see Forbes (28 March 2005) at http://www.forbes.com/ free_forbes/2005/0328/028a.html (downloaded 6 July 2007); on the CPB, see Porphant (2008, this issue).

(12) Prachai was reported to have close contacts with both PAD leaders and some of the leaders of the coup. On Prachai, see "Prachai_Leophai-ratana," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Prachai_Leophai-ratana and "Saprang Kalayanamitr," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saprang_Kalayanamitr, both downloaded 6 July 2007.

UKRIST PATHMANAND

Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Patumwan Bangkok, Thailand

Correspondence Address: Ukrist Pathmanand, Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, 7th Fl., Prajadhipok-Rambhaibarni Bldg., Phyathai Rd., Patumwan Bangkok 10330, Thailand. Email: ukrist@chula.ac.th
Table 1. CDR-appointed National Legislative Assembly, 2006



Position at appointment No. %

Retired government officials 43 17.8
Military officers 35 14.5
Business 30 12.4
Media and artists 20 8.3
Permanent secretaries of various ministries 17 7.0
Judiciary 12 5.0
Academics 11 4.5
State enterprise officials 8 3.3
Police 7 2.9
Legal experts 7 2.9
Bankers 6 2.5
Other 46 19.0

n=242.

Source: The Nation, 14 October 2006.

Table 2. Military and police appointments to state
agencies and enterprises

Name Board Membership

General Saprang Kalayanamitr Chairman of the Airports
Assistant Commander of the Royal Authority of Thailand
Thai Army Chairman, TOT Co. Ltd
Air Chief Marshall Chalit Thai Airways International
Phukphasuk
Commander of the Royal Air Force
General Pairoj Panichsamai Thai Airways International
Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief
Admiral Sathiraphan Keyanon Chairman, Ports Authority of
Navy Commander-in-Chief Thailand
General Montri Sangkhasap Executive Chairman,
Army Chief-of-Staff Communications Authority of
Thailand
Lt General Somchai Maranetra Chairman, Thai Post Company
Director of Joint Communication,
Department of Military
Communications
Police Lt General Chanwut Expressway and Rapid Transit
Watcharapuk Authority of Thailand
Assistant Police Commissioner
General Athikhom Tanlert Chairman, Mass Transit Authority
Advisor, Office of the Permanent of Thailand
Secretary, Ministry of Defence
Air Chief Marshall Sommai Aeronautical Radio of Thailand
Dabpetch
Air Force Chief-of-Staff

Source: Matichon, 10 November 2006; Matichon Weekly, 15-21 December
2006; Siamrath Weekly, 20-6 October 2006; Aeronautical Radio of
Thailand, 2006; Thai Airways, 2006; Ports Authority of Thailand,
2006; Communications Authority of Thailand, 2006; Thai Post, 2007;
Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand Board, 2006.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Journal of Contemporary Asia PublishersNo portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
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elections, populism, vote buying, money politics in Thailand

The Thai Rak Thai party and elections in north-eastern Thailand


ABSTRACT

Thaksin Shinawatra's electoral success, through the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party, has led to a debate: was the party's electoral landslide based on the appeal of its policies or the power of money? On one side of the debate, the party's success was seen to result from its policies that reflected the interests of widely divergent sectors of the electorate. On the other side, TRT was held to be no different from "'old-style" political parties that relied on money politics (vote buying, buying members of parliament and other kinds of patronage). This article explores the nature of TRT's successes and failures by examining the operation of TRT in north-eastern Thailand. It is argued that it is wrong to single out policies or money as a source of TRT's success because the party relied on both strategies to win elections.

KEY WORDS: Thai Rak Thai party, elections, populism, vote buying, money politics

**********

Thaksin Shinawatra, one of Thailand's richest businessmen, founded the Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) on 14 July 1998. Within three years the party had already become the most successful political party in Thailand. In the 2001 general election TRT won 248 of the 500 parliamentary seats (McCargo, 2002: 248). And in the 2005 general election TRT fared even better when it won 377 out of 500 seats. This was an unprecedented parliamentary majority.

TRT's success has led to a debate: was the party's electoral landslide based on the appeal of its policies or the power of money? On one side of the debate, the party's electoral success was held to result from its policies that reflected the interests of widely divergent sectors of the electorate (McCargo, 2002: 253). On the other side of the debate, TRT was held to have adopted "old-style" political tactics. Its main electoral strategy was based on MP buying, vote buying and other kinds of patronage (see Kengkit, 2006: 95-6). However, the effort to single out policies or money as a driving force behind TRT's success is misleading since the party's success was based on the combination of the two factors. This article will explore the nature of TRT's successes and failures by examining the operation of TRT in north-eastern Thailand (the region commonly referred to as "Isan" in Thailand).


Isan is crucial to Thai electoral politics, as the largest and most populous region it is home to one-third of Thailand's 60 million people and has the most members of parliament (MPs). As a result, the region became the place in which all major political parties in Thailand competed for seats. However, in the past, there was no single party that could politically monopolise the region or its MPs for long periods of time; the number of seats which each party won varied in every election (see below). Such a situation encouraged competition among parties. Historically, all major political parties, with the significant exception of the Democrat party, gained substantial support in the region, providing them with enough seats to bargain for entry into the coalition governments that were a feature of the Thai electoral landscape prior to 2001.

During the 1990s, Thailand held four general elections: March 1992, September 1992, July 1995 and November 1996. Political parties that had very strong political bases in Isan, such as the New Aspiration party (NAP), Chart Pattana party (CPP) and those with a reasonable political base in the region, such as the Chart Thai party (CTP) and the Social Action party (SAP), played a major role in setting up coalition governments. Because Isan occupies such an important place in Thai politics, it is worth examining the operations of the highly successful TRT party in the region. However, before looking at that, we first have to look at the new legal framework for elections after the passing of the 1997 Constitution.

New Elections Rules

TRT competed in the 2001 and 2005 elections under the terms of the 1997 Constitution. As McCargo pointed out, "the constitution was in many respects the most important albeit delayed outcome of the May 1992 violence" (McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: 3). In May 1992, hundreds of thousands of-protestors took to the streets of Bangkok and some provincial cities to oppose the military-dominated government of General Suchinda Kraprayoon, a leader of the 1991 military coup. Following the collapse of the Suchinda government, there were attempts to reform the political system in a more liberal direction, eventually resulting in the promulgation of a new constitution in 1997 (Connors, 2002: 39-44). Under this new constitution and related organic laws, new rules were introduced to make elections "clean and fair." For example, the power to supervise local and general elections was transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the National Election Commission (NEC), an independent organisation, in order to cut what Sombat (2002: 204) called "the crucial ties that exist between politicians and the civil servants responsible for administering elections." The NEC had the power to investigate all kinds of electoral irregularities, disqualify candidates for election fraud and order a re-run of contests in constituencies where fraud was found to have influenced the result (Callahan, 2002: 9). The electoral system was also changed. Multi-member constituencies were replaced by single-member constituencies in order to make constituencies smaller both in terms of area and voters. It was believed that smaller constituencies "would allow candidates to establish close contact with their supporters, without having to resort to bribing or intimidating potential voters" (Sombat, 2002: 203). Apart from these single-member constituencies, MPs were also elected nationwide on a party list. Under the 1997 Constitution, there were 400 constituency MPs and 100 party list MPs.

TRT: Money, Policies and Power

Although TRT was a new party, it became a favourite to win the 2001 election (Matichon Sutsapda, 6 November 2000). TRT was tipped to win the election because it was more successful than any other party in recruiting a large numbers of former MPs (Ockey, 2003: 672; Matichon Sutsapda, 11 December 2000). In the 2001 general election, 189 former MPs stood for TRT; 117 of them were former MPs who had won in the 1996 general election, while 72 of them had won in previous elections (see Table 1).

TRT was able to recruit a large number of former MPs first of all because of its money power. According to Case (2001: 536-7), TRT paid a huge amount in "transfer fees" for defecting MPs. This kind of practice is known in Thailand as dut (to suck), and TRT became known as phak dut (the sucking party) (McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: 80). The massive cost of the transfer fees contributed significantly to the total cost of the election campaign, which was estimated to be the most expensive election ever in Thailand (Case, 2001: 537). According to the Thai Farmers Research Center, about 25 billion baht ($US625 million) was put into circulation during the 2001 election campaign, up 25% from the 1996 election (Ockey, 2003: 671). In addition to the transfer fees, former MPs joined TRT because it provided candidates with monthly allowances and substantial election funds (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 21 March 2000; Ockey, 2003: 678). However, money was not the only factor that induced former MPs to join TRT; popularity also played a significant part. Some former MPs defected to TRT because of the prospect of the party doing well and entering government (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 17 July 2000:11). Another factor that contributed to the defection of former MPs to TRT was internal party conflicts within existing parties and the prospect of poor electoral outcomes. NAP and SAP were examples of parties that fell into this category before the 2001 general election (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 6 November 2000).

Apart from MP-buying, TRT became a favourite to win the election because the Democrat party's compliance with the IMF's post-1997 recovery requirements and its inability to tackle the country's economic problems meant that its electoral prospects were dim (see Pasuk and Baker, 2008). Disappointed with Chuan Leekpai's Democrat-led government, as more and more people looked for a "new alternative," Thaksin attracted potential voters and MPs through his nationalist rhetoric and economic policies (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 20 November 2000; Baker, 2005: 107-37). Thaksin was especially attractive to business groups. In contrast to Chuan's austerity programme, Thaksin promised to implement policies to assist the struggling business. Politically, his policies helped TRT to gain support from sectors of business that had previously supported other political parties (see Case, 2001: 538; Ockey, 2003: 672-3; Pasuk and Baker, 2004: 74-8).

Thaksin not only used the economic crisis to win over the urban rich but also the rural poor. As Ockey (2003: 672) pointed out, during the time of the economic crisis rural poverty became central to the political agenda and it could be used to win votes. Thaksin did just that. During the first half of the 1990s, there had been a series of farmer protests, especially in Isan. The protests subsided in mid-1997. But economic hardship after the economic crisis led to a new round of farmer protests. In May 1998, thousands of indebted Isan farmers organised a protest in Khon Kaen, a major regional centre, when news spread that Chuan's government was going to borrow some 700 billion baht to cover the debts of collapsed financial companies. The demonstrating farmers demanded that the government declare a five-year moratorium on the debts that farmers owed to the state-owned Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Co-operatives, and set up a Farmers' Rehabilitation Fund to assist farmers in solving their indebtedness and provide funds for community enterprises. The farmers justified their demands by arguing that if the government could help the rich, it should also be able to support the poor (Somchai, 2006: 182-4, 188). Thaksin capitalised on the situation by consulting with both farmers' leaders and NGO activists. In early 2000, he adopted the farmers' demand for a debt moratorium. This policy later came to be seen as one of the TRT's so-called populist policies (see Pasuk and Baker, 2008; Pye and Wolfram, 2008). Later, Thaksin added other popular policies into TRT's programme that became known as his populist policies: a revolving fund of one million baht for every village and community in the country and the 30 baht per visit health care programme (see Pasuk and Baker, 2004: 81-2).

Thaksin's policies became popular across a wide spectrum of the population and this was reflected in opinion polls. For example, a survey conducted in October 2000 showed that TRT led the Democrats in every region of the country (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 13 November 2000).

TRT and the January 2001 General Election

TRT's Rivals in Isan

Even though Chuan Leekpai's popularity had decreased, the Democrats remained TRT's main rival (McCargo, 2002: 247). However, the Democrats were not strong in the. north-east, with their traditional stronghold being in the south (Surin and McCargo, 1997: 144). In the 1996 general election, the Democrats managed to win only 12 of the region's 137 seats. The main rivals for TRT in Isan were NAP and CPP. In the 1996 general election, NAP won 78 seats while CPP held 21 seats in the region (see Table 2).

In 2001, competition from the NAP in Isan was weakened because TRT was able to recruit Sanoh Thienthong into the party. Sanoh was the leader of the so-called Wang Nam Yen group, a major faction within NAP. He was, and remains, an influential figure in Thai electoral politics, having played a key role in setting up the Chart Thai government in 1995 and the NAP government in 1996. After the downfall of the NAP government in 1997, many NAP members made plans to leave NAP, including Sanoh's faction. In early 2000, Sanoh instructed Pitak Intarawittayanun, the chief advisor of the Wang Nam Yen group, to negotiate with Thaksin about the possibility of the group joining TRT. After a series of meetings and negotiations, Sanoh agreed to take his group into TRT. He became Thaksin's chief political advisor and was given responsibility for selecting TRT candidates to compete for constituency seats nationwide (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 1 February 2000; 8 February 2000). Sanoh led some 70 former NAP MPs and other local politicians from different regions into TRT. Thirty-six members of this group were former Isan MPs and Isan local politicians (Nation Sutsapda [Nation Weekly], 15-21 January 2001). In addition, TRT bolstered its power in the north-east by recruiting Adisorn Piangket, a NAP leader from Khon Kaen province, into the party. It is worth noting that the competition between TRT and the weakened NAP did not last for long. The parties soon became allies and it was widely believed that Thaksin had partly funded NAP during the 2001 election campaign (see McCargo, 2002: 255; Somyot, 2003: 105).

Also bolstering TRT in the north-east was the defection of Suvit Khunkitti, a former minister and an SAP leader from Khon Kaen province. Suvit also brought ten former SAP MPS with him. Notably, TRT failed to lure influential figures from CPP into the party. This was partly due to conflicts Pitak, who was a founding member of CPP before joining TRT, had with the CPP leader (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 8 February 2000).

Finding Candidates

What kind of politicians did TRT attract? As indicated above, many came from existing electoral networks. TRT projected an image of being a "new" party with politicians drawn from non-traditional sources. How accurate is this?
For decades, Thailand's electoral politics was dominated by "money politics." Politicians regularly spent large amounts of money on vote buying and then used their political power to reap rich economic rewards after winning elections, which they then invested in a new cycle of vote buying (Somchai, 2006: 4-5). When Thaksin founded TRT, he sought to dissociate his party from this old style of electoral politics. TRT, according to McCargo and Ukrist (2005: 80), sought to project itself as a new kind of party, emphasising the extent to which its MPs had derived from non-traditional sources. However, for the north-east, this claim was contradicted by what actually happened. If we look closely at TRT candidates in Isan, we find that most came from existing electoral networks. From the profile of TRT's candidates (Thai Rak Thai, n.d) we can classify its candidates in Isan into three groups. As noted above, the first group TRT recruited were former MPs. Thaksin used his vast personal wealth to recruit a large group of former MPs into TRT. This group of candidates was a part of that process. Thus, this recruitment represents an old way of doing politics. As Surin and McCargo (1997: 137) have pointed out, after the announcement of a general election:


... former MPs and other prospective parliamentary candidates with
good electoral prospects are offered financial incentives to join
or switch political parties. Major new parties have emerged in
nearly every recent election, and typically seek well-known
political figures for their candidate lists.

In the Isan region, TRT recruited 52 former MPs to compete in the 2001 general election, of which, 34 were former MPs who won in the 1996 general election. Those 34 came from NAP (22), CPP (4), CTP (3), SAP (3), the Democrats (1) and the Solidarity party (1). Another 18 had won seats in elections prior to 1996. It should be noted that the region had 138 constituencies in the 2001 election, and former MPs constituted just more than one-third of TRT candidates. In some provinces TRT found it difficult to find former MPs to stand for the party. For example, in Sakon Nakhon and Udon Thani provinces, which had seven and ten constituencies respectively, TRT had only one candidate in each province who were former MPs. Meanwhile, in Mukdahan province, TRT was unable to recruit any former MPs to represent the party in the province's two constituencies.

The former MPs provided TRT with a high profile group that could attract the public attention. But former MPs were not the only ones succumbing to TRT's attractions and wealth. As Ockey (2003: 672) pointed out, TRT also recruited as candidates members of former MPs personal election networks. Prominent among their personal election networks were local politicians (discussed below as the second group of TRT candidates) and their relatives and canvassers (the latter referred to as hua khanaen), discussed as a third group of TRT candidates in the north-east. Because these groups of people also had their own electoral networks in place, TRT was interested in attracting them to the party and supporting them to stand in the election.

The second group of TRT candidates that represented the party in the 2001 general election was made up of local politicians. For many decades local politicians played an important role in helping national politicians to win elections in the provinces. Because most local politicians, such as provincial council members or mayors, were well-known persons in their areas and some of them were "influential figures" (phu mi itthipon), their support was crucial (Sombat, 1993a: 143-5). Most of these "influential figures" were semi-businessmen/semi-gangsters. While running legal businesses, they also operated illegal businesses such as smuggling and gambling. They used violence to protect their businesses and expand their influence. Therefore, to shelter themselves from law, "influential figures" made friends and connections with the military and the police (see Sombat, 1993b). However, their political role was not confined to that of canvassers for political parties; some of them, especially those who had business backgrounds managed to become MPs themselves. By 1990, 62% of local politicians were businessmen (Pasuk and Baker, 1997: 337-7). One reason behind their success in national politics was economic growth in the provinces. The expansion of the economy benefited local businessmencum-politicians not only in terms of wealth but also political power. They translated their newly acquired wealth into politics, and were able to occupy about 20% of seats in parliament during the 1980s and 1990s (see Parichart, 1997: 251-64; Pasuk and Baker, 1997: 332-40; Sombat, 1993a: 147).

As mentioned above, the 1997 Constitution introduced single-member constituencies. These constituencies enhanced the role and importance of local politicians because smaller constituencies meant that local politicians with support in particular areas no longer had to compete in big electorates where they were virtually unknown; smaller constituencies placed a premium on strong and localised support. As a result, political parties, including TRT, sought to recruit local politicians with good prospects to stand in constituency seats. There were 37 former local politicians who represented TRT in Isan during the 2001 general election.
The third group of TRT candidates came from local business circles, canvassers, the wives and relatives of former MPs, and politicians who had never won an election before, policemen, teachers and so on. Although almost all members of this group were not as engaged directly in politics as those in the second group, some of them were relatively wealthy, well known to local people and had good connections with politicians. They were the second largest group amongst those standing as TRT candidates, with 48 standing in 2001.
From the evidence provided above, we can conclude that all of the three groups of TRT candidates in the north-east were drawn essentially from what might be considered traditional political networks. In other words, on the basis or recruitment, the claim that TRT represented a new kind of political organisation appears weak.

What were the criteria used by TRT in selecting candidates from the three groups mentioned above? In general terms, candidates were chosen on the basis of their popularity or their connections with influential figures in TRT. Although TRT gave priority to former MPs, it did not mean that they would always be chosen to represent the party. If the former MPs were not popular in their constituencies, TRT would look to people in other groups. The popularity of candidates was judged mainly on the results of polls conducted by TRT in the constituency (interview with TRT staff in Kalasin, 20 April 2007). However, good connections with powerful figures within the party could also be vital for a candidate to be sponsored by TRT.

To illustrate the way TRT chose its candidates, we will look closely at candidate selection in Mahasarakham province. In the 2001 general election, three of six TRT candidates in Mahasarakham were former MPs, but only two of them had won seats in the 1996 general election. Those two former 1996 MPs, Suchat Chokchaiwattanagorn and Krit Kongpet, represented the party in constituencies 3 and 6, respectively. The third, former CPP MP, Charnchai Chairungrueng, had failed in the 1996 election, coming fifth in a field of seven candidates, and competed in constituency 4 in 2001. The chance of Charnchai winning seemed minimal. However, he won support from TRT because of his connection with Thaksin's sister Yaowapa Wongsawat. Charnchai's wife was a relative of Yaowapa's husband. Because of such a close relationship to the Shinawatra family, Charnchai eventually became one of the leaders of TRT MPs in Isan after the election (interview, Pairat Chaisomkun, 16 January 2007).

Another TRT candidate in Mahasarakham who had experience in House of Representative elections was Kusumawadee Sirikumut. Before the 2001 general election Kusumawadee had run for a parliamentary seat on four occasions. She failed in all four attempts. While many locals were convinced that Kusumawadee would never win an election, TRT decided to sponsor her to run for a seat in Mahasarakham's constituency 5. This was because she was close to Krit Kongpet, an important member of the Wang Nam Yen faction (field notes, 25 October 2006).

Personal connections also played a role in candidate selection in constituencies 1 and 2. The TRT candidate in constituency 1 was Thonglor Polkote. He was chosen because of his connection with Srimuang Charoensiri, a TRT-sponsored senator in Mahasarakham and an influential figure in the party. Initially, TRT wanted to sponsor Yingyot Udonpim, a provincial council member, who had a strong political base in the area. But Yingyot was not qualified to run for an MP seat because he lacked the equivalent of a university degree, required under the 1997 Constitution. TRT therefore decided to support Thonglor, a civil servant, who had no experience in elections. Srimuang decided to help Thonglor because of a family connection. His elder sister was Thonglor's mother-in-law. With Srimuang's help, Thonglor was in a good position to win an election. Srimuang was a powerful TRT figure in Isan. He developed a close relationship with Thaksin when he was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Communications. At that time Thaksin was not yet fabulously rich and Srimuang is said to have helped him a great deal. It was believed that because of this, Thaksin felt indebted to Srimuang, so he helped him to succeed in politics. Srimuang had long wanted to be a Mahasarakham MP but his ambition had not been realised. However, in the 2000 senate election, Srimuang's position changed dramatically when he received Thaksin's backing, and he went on to win a seat without difficulty. Later, Srimuang became the leader of senators who supported TRT in parliament. Moreover, he was appointed by Thaksin to oversee TRT financial matters in Isan. Money that Thaksin gave to TRT's candidates and MPs in Isan was paid through Srimuang (interview, Pairat Chaisomkun, 16 January 2007).

In constituency 2, TRT decided to support Chaiwat Tinrat, a provincial council member. He was chosen ahead of Suchat Srisung, a former MP who won in the 1995 and 1996 general elections. The decision was based on the result of polls which indicated that Chaiwat was more popular than Suchat (Centre for Information on Local Politics in Isan, 2001: 17). Moreover, in terms of personal connections, Chaiwat was in a better position than Suchat. He was close to Somsak Thepsuthin, a leader of the Wang Nam Yom faction. Chaiwat and Somsak became friends because of their mutual interest in cock fighting (interview, Pairat Chaisomkun, 16 January 2007). From the evidence regarding candidate recruitment, we can again conclude that TRT did not adopt any particularly new or innovative means to identify and recruit candidates in the north-east.

Funding Candidates

In his 1993 study Sombat divided election funds in Thailand into two categories, which remain relevant. The first category are funds for the cost of rallies, cut-out boards, posters, leaflets and so on. Election expenditures in this category are legal if candidates do not spend beyond the limit set by the law. But more often than not most candidates break the law on this issue. The second category involves secret and illegal funds for canvassers, donations to communities and for vote buying. The illegal funds are far bigger and more important to candidates than the legal funds (Sombat, 1993b: 154-67). Before the 2001 election campaign, funding was generally conducted as follows: parties would grant initial funds to candidates; the amount being dependent upon candidates' election prospects. The parties would then monitor the popularity of candidates to decide whether funding should continue (Callahan and McCargo, 1996: 381).

TRT funding of its candidates followed this pattern. A person who was selected to represent TRT received 40,000 baht per month for the election campaign. Candidates reported details of their spending and the result of their campaigns to the party regularly. At the same time, TRT also assessed the ongoing popularity of each candidate by polling (interview, Pairat Chaisomkun, 16 January 2007). In addition to a monthly allowance was an undisclosed fund believed to be about 20 million baht. This fund was used for vote buying. TRT candidates carried out vote buying in various disguises. For example, one TRT candidate used seminars in subdistricts as places to carry out vote buying. He invited voters to attend seminars and paid them with cash (Centre for Information on Local Politics in Isan, 2001: 20). It should be noted that candidates did not have the same amount of funds for their campaigns. Some of them got additional funds from the patron of their groups. The size of this fund depended on the patron. For example, a candidate in Kalasin province got 20 million baht from his patron to fund his campaign (Field notes, 15 January 2007), while a candidate in Mahasarakham's constituency 2 got only 5 million (Centre for Information on Local Politics in Isan, 2001: 17). TRT's candidate funding in the 2001 election did not differ greatly from other parties; the major difference between them was TRT offered more money to its candidates than any other party (Matichon Sudsapda [Matichon Weekly], 21 March 2001).

Election Results

Utilising the selection and funding mechanisms indicated above, in the 2001 general election, TRT candidates registered a notable victory for the party. In Isan the party won 71 of the 138 seats contested. However, when compared with the result of the 1996 general election in the region, TRT won fewer seats than NAP, which swept 78 of 137 seats. Therefore, although the scale of success of TRT in Isan in the 2001 election was impressive, it was not unprecedented.

Who won the seats for TRT? If we look at the three groups of TRT candidates outlined above, it is clear that the first group, comprising 52 former MPs standing again in 2001, was the largest group that won seats for TRT. Thirty-seven candidates from this group managed to win their seats, while 15 failed. Twenty-seven among those who won were former MPs from the 1996 parliament and ten were former MPs from earlier elections. For the second group of candidates, which comprised of 38 local politicians, their rate of success was about 50%; 16 candidates from this group won seats. The number of successful candidates from the second group is almost the same as those of the third group, but the percentage of success was higher. Only 18 of 48 candidates from the third group won. The result shows that in the first election for TRT in Isan the number of its MPs who were or were not former MPs was almost the same (37 and 34, respectively). This fact reflected the changed electoral system. It is clear that smaller single-member constituencies increased the chances of candidates in the second and third groups because they had strong political bases. Under the old electoral system, because a constituency was big, a winning candidate required a wide political base. If the candidate was strong only in a particular area, the chance of winning was rather small. However, under the new electoral system the size of a new constituency was reduced to about one-third of an old constituency. Therefore, having a strong political base in a particular area was an advantage for local politicians or canvassers. But it caused problems for some former MPs who had wide political bases--linked by canvassers--but who were not strong in any particular place. This kind of former MP tended to be the ones who lost their seats in 2001. It is for this reason that a large number of so-called new faces came from the 2001 general election.

The original result of the 2001 general election was inconclusive in a number of seats and election re-runs were held on 29 January and 1 February 2001. In Isan the NEC ordered electoral re-runs in 41 constituencies because of vote buying and other transgressions of the electoral laws. Initially, TRT won 71 seats but only 55 of these were confirmed by the NEC, while 15 results were "yellow carded" (invalidating first round results) and one was "red carded" (disqualifying from standing). After the two re-runs TRT won an additional 14 seats, bringing the party's total number of seats in Isan to 69 (Table 3). However, after the 1 February re-run the NEC ordered re-runs in 13 constituencies of Isan, in which six TRT candidates were "yellow carded." In those re-runs TRT managed to win eight seats, which lifted the party's MPs in Isan to 71.

Even though TRT's performance in Isan was impressive, the result of the general election also revealed some of TRT's weaknesses in some Isan provinces. For example, the party failed to win a seat in Amnat Charoen and Nakhon Phanom provinces, which had 2 and 5 seats, respectively. In Si Sa Ket and Roi-Et provinces, TRT won only 3 out of 9 seats. And, in the big province of Nakon Ratchasima, the party won just 7 out of 17 seats. One reason for TRT's failures in these provinces was that other parties had established political strongholds. The implication of this is that competition for seats was still heavily reliant on the old ways of doing politics. Political parties that had strong traditional electoral networks could still hold onto their seats in those constituencies. TRT's attractive policy platform was unable to help the party in some of these constituencies. TRT would only be able to control such constituencies through the merging of other parties into TRT after the election.

"New Face" MPs

One important objective of the 1997 Constitution was to make it difficult for oldstyle politicians to win elections and, at the same time, allow new faces to enter politics. To some extent, this strategy seemed to work. In the 2001 general election, a number of famous old-style politicians failed in the election, while a large number of "new faces" emerged victorious (McCargo, 2002: 249, 251). If we compare the number of new faces in the 1996 general election with those of the 2001 general election, we will find that the number of new faces in parliament increased dramatically. In the 1996 general election, only 17 out of 137 Isan MPs were newcomers. This number increased to 60 out of 138 in the 2001 general election (Nation Sutsapda [Nation Weekly], 15-21 January 2003). These newcomers, according to Ockey (2003: 667), were seen as "the harbingers of a new style of politician." As we have seen, in the 2001 general election about half of TRT's 71 MPs in Isan were those who won a seat for the first time. For some, the TRT new faces were politicians who were different from old-style politicians. Thaksin portrayed the new faces in his party in this manner (see McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: 81).

Were the new faces a new type of politician? Were they "good" and "capable" people that the 1997 Constitution had been meant to nurture? If we look at the first group of newcomers, discussed above as former local politicians, then the answer is definitely no. This is because, just as national politicians, these politicians had tried to win local elections in the past through vote buying and other forms of money politics (see, for example, Supat, 1995). They were old-style local politicians, even though they were new to the national parliament. What about the second group of new comers who were not former local politicians? Did they represent a different type of politician from the first group of newcomers? The difference between the two groups was minimal because almost all of them had close connections with old-style politicians. Some 13 out of 18 of newcomers in the second group were relatives, family members, former canvassers of MPs and local politicians (Nation Sutsapda [Nation Weekly], 15-21 January 2001, pp. 28-9). They were predominantly drawn from existing political networks.

TRT and the "Red Card"

As mentioned above, one TRT candidate was red-carded by the NEC. The case was significant, not only because it was the evidence of electoral fraud by a TRT candidate, but also the way the TRT leader handled the issue. Seksit Wainiyompong, TRT's candidate in Roi-et's constituency 2, finished first in the constituency with 35,085 votes, and was then red-carded because he violated the election law prohibiting any form of entertainment by featuring comedy during his campaign. As a result, Seksit was suspended from politics for one year (Somyot, 2003: 87-90). After learning of his fate, Seksit consulted Sanoh Thienthong. Sanoh did not try to help him and told him that if the NAP candidate won in the new round this would not be a problem as the NAP was likely to join a coalition government formed by TRT. Seksit and his secretary were not happy with Sanoh's advice. They believed that if the NAP candidate became an MP, it would be very difficult for Seksit to compete with him in the future. The best option for Seksit was to try and find someone to act as a stand-in for him for one year. He decided to make a deal with Boonterm Chantawat, the weakest candidate in the constituency. According to Seksit, he agreed to support Boonterm in the constituency seat election re-run, but after one year Boonterm had to resign to make way for his return to parliament (Somyot, 2003: 98-99, 102). Such a move was based on the idea that Boonterm was very weak and he would be unlikely to thwart Seksit's will. Boonterm was a candidate of the small Tin Thai party. He finished last in the original election with 240 votes. With the help of Seksit he won the re-run with 19,271 votes (Somyot, 2003: 63, 106).

After Boonterm won the election, he did not keep his promise. Seksit tried hard to pressure Boonterm to resign. Instead of helping Seksit, TRT recruited Boonterm into the party. Nirand Namuangrak, an MP of TRT in Roi-et's constituency 4, reported that Thaksin had instructed him to recruit Boonterm (Somyot, 2003: 123). However, TRT tried to console Seksit by appointing him an advisor to the Justice Minister (Somyot, 2003: 121).

The abandonment of Seksit by TRT sheds some light on TRT's policy toward its members. Did the Seksit saga show that TRT would not support a candidate who violated the election law? If we look at the recruitment policy of TRT which relied on old-style politicians, we would conclude that TRT had no objection to candidates who violate the election law. The Seksit saga pointed to the opportunist nature of TRT; it was ready to recruit any politician who won the election and at the same time it would abandon those who failed.
TRT After the 2001 Election
Between its 2001 election victory and the 2005 election, TRT took two important steps to enhance its position. After winning in 2001, Thaksin rapidly implemented his policies that were aimed at rural voters, including the debt moratorium, the village and community fund and universal health care (see Pasuk and Baker, 2008). These measures undoubtedly helped to boost TRT's popularity.

Another measure that TRT implemented to strengthen its power was the incorporation of other parties. Shortly after the election, TRT absorbed the Seritham party (Ockey, 2003: 663). And, in early 2002, another party, NAP, merged with TRT (Pasuk and Baker, 2004: 95). After torturous negotiations and defections, the CPP decided to join TRT in September 2004 (Connors, 2005: 371). The merger increased the number of TRT MPs to more than 300. This measure not only strengthened the power of the TRT government but also helped to increase the chance of the party winning more seats in the upcoming election.

TRT and the 2005 Election

In the 2005 general election TRT registered the biggest ever victory in the history of Thailand's national elections. In Isan, the party's MPs increased from 71 to 126 (Table 4).

What were the sources of TRT's resounding electoral victory? As discussed at the beginning of this article there is a debate about whether the success of TRT was based on policies or the power of its money. As demonstrated in the previous section, TRT employed both policies and old-style money politics to strengthen its power. Its success, therefore, was not derived from a single factor; it was the result of the combination of factors.

One way to locate the sources of TRT's success in the 2005 election is to look at its new MPs. If we take a close look at the new TRT MPs for Isan we find that the majority of them were former MPs from other political parties. Forty-one of them came from those political parties that merged with TRT after the 2001 general election: NAP (16), CPP (14) and Seri Tham party (11). Five defected from CTP and one from the Democrats. Only eight were newcomers and all of these were local politicians or relatives of MPs. The number of the TRT MPs increased mainly because it "sucked" MPs from other parties. Since both these "new" MPs and the reelected TRT MPs were all old-style politicians, their success surely would have been based, in part, on money power and the political patronage they had nurtured for years.

At the same time, no one can deny the contribution of the populist policies to TRT's success. One way to measure the popularity of TRT's policies in Isan is to look at the political position of farmers who worked with NGOs. Isan has long been a stronghold of grassroots social movements. From the 1990s onwards, NGOs and other social activists organised more than fifty significant protests in Isan provincial towns and Bangkok. Sometimes they were able to mobilise 10,000-30,000 Isan farmers to stage months-long protests at the front of the Government House. They rallied against dam projects, demanded land rights and a debt moratorium. Accompanying such political mobilisations, NGOs organised meetings, seminars and political schools to raise farmers' political consciousness. After more than a decade of mobilisation, NGOs had succeeded in creating networks of progressive farmers in various parts of Isan (see Prapat, 1998; Somchai, 2006). In the past these groups of farmers had generally adopted the same political view as that of the NGOs that worked with them. Therefore, when NGOs launched their campaigns against Thaksin, we should expect that these farmers' groups would have adopted a critical attitude toward the Thaksin administration as well. However, almost all of the farmers who worked closely with NGOs supported Thaksin strongly. NGOs tried in vain to persuade villagers to oppose him. Even at the time when the rallies to oust Thaksin from power reached their height, the NGO organisers still found it difficult to persuade farmers to support the protest.

Why was this? From the NGO perspective, farmers refused to join the antiThaksin protest because they were unable to look beyond the short-term material benefits of the populist policies. This was attributed to the impact of the government's propaganda. What was needed was to help farmers to see the longterm damage of Thaksin's policies by supplying them with "correct" information (Field notes, 27 June 2006). Such a view implied that there could be only one political line taken towards Thaksin and, to be politically correct, farmers had to adopt that line. Such a thing was not going to happen because it ran counter to many farmers' way of thinking. Farmers do not adopt totalistic views towards things or persons; they deal with them in a pragmatic way. They judged Thaksin on an issueby-issue basis. As a result, whether Thaksin was good or bad depended on the issue at hand.

The case of the anti-potash mining will be a good example to illustrate the point. Farmers in 21 villages of Udon Thani, a province in northern Isan, organised protests against a potash mining project in the province. They feared that the project would cause widespread subsidence, salt contamination of agricultural land and of groundwater. Co-ordinated by NGOs, farmers rallied at the provincial hall and at the front of the National Parliament in Bangkok. Although the Thaksin government supported the project actively, these farmers refused to join the anti-Thaksin movement. For them, protest against the potash mining project was one thing, rallying to oust Thaksin from power was another. They mobilised against the project because it threatened the survival of their communities. But they did not want to topple Thaksin from power. In their view, Thaksin, who helped farmers tackle their difficulties with money from the village funds and other projects, was better than any other prime minister. There was no reason that they should try to overthrow him, and many said they would vote for him in the next election (Field notes, 27 June 2006).

Farmers who worked with NGOs in other areas also welcomed and valued Thaksin's populist policies. While the policies were criticised severely as a new form of vote buying by many NGO leaders and academics in Bangkok, farmers viewed the policies as the distribution of resources to the countryside that helped farmers to address their needs. They insisted that the rural poor were as entitled to access the government budget as were the urban rich. In the past, politicians always promised to channel funds to help farmers but failed to deliver after they had won elections. Thaksin was the first to really deliver (interview, Don Dang villagers, 12 January 2007). However, it must be noted that this does not means that all farmers who worked with NGOs always supported Thaksin. For various reasons, some turned against him (see below).

The popularity of TRT's policies undoubtedly contributed to the party's landslide victory. However, we have to be cautious about the extent to which these policies influenced voters' decision making. It was widely believed that in the 2005 general election anyone who stood for TRT would definitely win a seat because of the popularity of its policies. However, one also needs to be able to explain the exception: why in 2005 did TRT lose in eight constituencies it had won in 2001? By looking at its losses it is possible to throw some light on why it was successful in other seats.

A few examples will help us to make the point clearer. In the 2005 election in Ubon Ratchathani's constituency 8, Poonsawat Hotrawaisaya, a 2001 TRT MP, lost to Isara Somchai of the Democrat party. In theory, Poonsawat was in a position to beat Isara without too much difficulty because he had already defeated Isara in the 2001 general election, and the popularity of TRT should have helped him enormously. But, in reality, other factors had more influence on the election outcome than these two factors. First, a power struggle within TRT affected Poonsawat's campaign. Soon after the 2001 election, a conflict between Thaksin and Sanoh emerged and resulted in the declining power of Sanoh within TRT (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 16 June 2001, McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: 103). Because Poonsawat was a member of Sanoh's Wang Nam Yen faction, he got less money from the party for his campaign. Secondly, after the 2001 election, local villagers were dissatisfied with Poonsawat because he did not have good "achievements" (phon ngan) (interview, Ubon Ratchathani Election Commission official, 24 January 2007). Phon ngan means a variety of things, especially providing service to villagers, ranging from road building and maintenance and other infrastructure improvements, to contributions to festival and funeral expenses (Callahan and McCargo, 1996: 338). Phon ngan was crucial to the success of politicians in Isan. As Callahan and McCargo (1996: 338) have pointed out, phon ngan was as important as money; candidates could not win their seats only by spending money. To win elections, they had to have good phon ngan as well. Hence, lack of phon ngan undermined Poonsawat's position significantly. Thirdly, the way Thaksin handled the ongoing Pak Moon Dam also had a negative impact on Poonsawat (for information on the Pak Moon conflict, see Kanokrat Lertchoosakul, 2003: 226-52). Before the 2001 general election Thaksin promised NGOs and the AOP, who organised villagers in the constituency against the construction of the dam, a sympathetic government response to their demands if TRT won. However, after the election Thaksin did not keep his promise. He approved the suppression of the AOP and sided with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand that operated the dam (Pasuk and Baker, 2004: 82, 146). Bitterly disappointed with Thaksin, AOP members in the constituency voted for Isara. Fourthly, emotion also played an important part in Isara's victory. During the time of the election, one of Isara's sons died. In sympathy, local people decided to support him in the election. Fifthly, in the sub-district administrative organisation election, a canvasser of Isara, who competed in the election, was red-carded. Locally, it was generally believed that Isara's canvasser was probably innocent and TRT was behind the red-carding. Such belief led to sympathy with Isara among villagers. This combination of five factors assisted Isara in winning the election (interview, Ubon Ratchathani election commission official, 24 January 2007).

Another interesting example was the 2005 elections in Roi-et. In constituency 1, TRT candidate Sanit Wongsaktanapong was defeated by the CTP's Anurak Jureemat. Sanit and Anurak were long-time rivals. Sanit lost to Anurak in the four previous attempts before he eventually was able to defeat him in 2001. In the 1996 general election, Sanit led the election but after a temporary electrical power failure he was beaten by a small margin by Anurak. It was widely believed that the power blackout was not an accident. Voters felt sorry for Sanit, who tried many times but failed in previous elections. They thought he deserved to win the election this time. Sanit took this public sentiment into his election campaign in 2001. He told local people that he was cheated last time by his opponent and asked for justice by begging them to give him a chance to become their MP. This tactic and the good phon ngan he provided for locals in the constituency helped Sanit to win the election.

Considering the popularity of TRT and the declining position of CTP, Anurak seemed to have had little chance to win his seat back in 2005. However, he managed to beat Sanit. The competition between Sanit and Anurak was not decided by access to money alone because both were level on this matter. Anurak tried to win his seat back by rectifying his past mistakes. After the 1996 general election, Anurak spent most of his time in Bangkok and rarely visited his constituency. Sanit devoted most of his time to building his support base among villagers. He replaced Anurak as the main "service provider" for voters in the constituency. But after the 2001 general election, the opposite was true. While Anurak worked hard in the area, Sanit failed to keep up (interview, Roi-et election poll station official, 11 January 2007). As a result, in 2005, although TRT's policies were very popular, they were unable to help Sanit to win again, demonstrating that there was a desire amongst voters for their MPs to perform (Walker, 2008).

In the 2005 election some TRT MPs had to fight hard to retain their seats because of poor relations with local villagers. For example, in Mahasarakham's constituency 6, a veteran MP and new TRT member, Krit Kongpet, almost lost his seat because voters in the constituency were dissatisfied with his unresponsiveness to local needs. They wanted to try a new MP. However, Krit was saved by Thaksin who toured the area at that time. Satisfied with Thaksin, who promised to help them if they voted for Krit, villagers decided to support Krit again (interviews, Kantarawichai villagers, 10 January 2007).

The above cases indicate that a number of factors affected election results; important among them was a perception about achievement (phon ngan). These cases add some weight to the view that Isan villagers ranked phon ngan above party policies. If a party had good policies but a candidate had poor phon ngan, it was possible for that candidate to lose in an election. TRT candidates, who had money and the popular policies on their sides, still lost their seats when local electors considered that they did not have good phon ngan. However, this does not mean that an election result is decided only by phon ngan alone. To be successful, candidates need the right combination of money power, phon ngan, popular policies and other lesser important elements. But one thing is certain, politicians had to regularly maintain their service to local people, if they failed to do so their chances of winning were greatly reduced. The point that needs to be emphasised is that Isan villagers are not docile voters who can be controlled easily by politicians through the power of money; they also had their own criteria for electing their representatives.

Conclusion

At the time when TRT's populist policies reached their height, Sanoh Thienthong told TRT members who belonged to his faction that the party could not win with populist policies alone. He stated: "The notion that the party can 'sell' well with the current populist trend could be just wishful thinking. Individuals and canvassers still count when it comes to what can influence the decisions of the voters" (cited in McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: 103).

Applying Sanoh's idea to TRT's success in Isan, we find that it is a one-sided view that fails to grasp the complexity of the party's success. In fact, it underestimates the impact of the populist policies on Isan voters. However, Sanoh was right when he pointed to the continuing importance of individuals and canvassers.

As we have seen, apart from the popularity of its policies, TRT's success in Isan in the 2001 general election was based on the recruitment of three groups of candidates (i) former MPs; (ii) local politicians; and (iii) canvassers and relatives of former MPs--into the party. Although the second and third groups were new to parliament, their basic characteristics did not differ from the first group; most of them were members of former MPs' personal election networks. In the 2005 election TRT strengthened its power by the absorption of other parties. Therefore, TRT relied on candidates from traditional political networks to win elections. In addition, TRT recruited those candidates by paying them a huge "transfer fee." This is an old way of doing politics. If we look back at the 1995 and 1996 general elections, we will find that the successes of CTP in 1995 and NAP in 1996 were based on similar money politics methods (Matichon Sutsapda [Matichon Weekly], 17 July 2000).

The 2005 general election in Isan also shed some light on the influence of TRT's policies on voters' decision making. Although the popularity of TRT's policies among Isan voters is undeniable, we have to be careful not to exaggerate the extent of their influence on voters. There were a number of cases in which former TRT MPs who won in 2001, lost in 2005. Those former TRT MPs lost their seats because they had not performed adequately in their constituencies; they had poor phon ngan. The cases suggest that the achievements of individuals were important to Isan voters. If a party had good policies but a candidate had poor phon ngan, it is possible that he or she would lose in an election.
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SOMCHAI PHATHARATHANANUNTH College of Politics and Governance, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham, Thailand

Correspondence Address: Somchai Phatharathananunth, College of Politics and Governance, Mahasarakham University, Kantharawichai, Mahasarakham, Thailand 44150. Email: schph@hotmail.com
Table 1. TRT candidates for the 2001 general election


MPs returned MPs returned in Total
in 1996 other previous
elections

Party list 31 16 47
Constituency 86 56 142
Total 117 72 189

Source: Matichon Sutsapda [Manchon Weekly], 1 1 December 2000.

Table 2. Results of the 1995 and 1996 general elections
in the Isan region

Number of MPs
Party July 1995 November 1996

Chart Pattana 27 21
Chart Thai 29 5
Democrats 14 12
New Aspiration 36 78
Seri Tham 8 4
Social Action 14 12

Source: "The Result of the 2 July 1995 Election," Parliament
Newsletter, July 1995, pp. 31-89: Interior Ministry (n.d.).

Table 3. The 2001 general election result

Party Number of seats in Isan National seats won

Thai Rak Thai 69 248
New Aspiration 19 36
Chart Pattana 16 29
Seritham 1 14
Chart Thai 11 41
Democrat 6 128
Ratsadorn 1 2
Social Action 1 1
Tin Thai 1 1

Source: National Election Commission (2001: 161, 381-464).

Table 4. The 2005 general election result

Party Number of seats in Isan National seats won

Thai Rak Thai 126 337
Chart Thai 6 25
Democrat 2 96
Mahachon 2 2

Source: National Election Commission (2005: 273, 281).


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