Interview with ANU Research Fellow Nicholas Farrelly on Thailand politics

Sky News Sunday Agenda program, 23rd May 2010

Helen Dalley: Now the protest had to be brutally quelled, but even since the Red Shirts’
surrender, there are reports that some 30 buildings have been set alight. Is this trouble really
over?

Nicholas Farrelly: Well the arson of those buildings, both in central Bangkok and in other
provinces of Thailand in the north and the north east of the country are perhaps indicative of the
very serious feelings and frustrations which motivated the Red Shirt protest in the first place.
It’s quite likely that Thailand is going to continue to see the boiling over of some of those deeply
held feelings which at the end of the day is what motivated so many tens of thousands of people
to join the protest in the first place.

Helen Dalley: Take us through why it has ended up like this, that both sides say they want more
democracy, but the Red Shirts took to the streets and they did violent protests against the
current government, it turned into riots, killing people, many of whom have been civilian. You
say they have very deep and passionate beliefs. How has it got to this point?

Nicholas Farrelly: In 2001 and we have to go back almost a decade, Thailand elected prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his ‘Thais love Thais’ political machine into power. They were
elected under the 1997 constitution and that was supposedly Thailand’s most democratic
constitution ever. Thailand then in the years 2001 to 2006 implemented a raft of what are often
derided as populist policies, but in our terms we’d just really consider them smart politics and
effective politicking. In 2006 his influence and impact on Thailand was so great that other forces
opposed to the patronage networks that he’d built up, launched a coup against him, and so in
September 2006 we saw tanks on the streets of Bangkok for the first time in over a decade.
Those tanks brought an end to Thaksin’s government, but they didn’t bring an end to any of the
politics that Thaksin had sought to implement within the country. He’d got many people in the
north and north east of Thailand very excited about what a politician who listened to their
concerns could actually achieve. Since 2006, since that coup, there have been some false
starts in the effort to bring an electoral system back into the management of the country’s
affairs. What we see right now though is a lack of consensus about exactly how Thailand
should be run.

Helen Dalley: Will they be able to broker a peace deal? And what would appease the Red
Shirts? What would bring them into the tent?

Nicholas Farrelly: Well the Red Shirts have been demanding a new round of elections. They
consider the current government of prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva an illegitimate government.

Helen Dalley: But they were promised that, Nicholas, and they still went on with their protests.

Nicholas Farrelly: Well that’s one of the fascinating elements of this story. To a certain extent
we can probably see that Thais on all sides of this political divide have lost faith in the electoral
process. The Red Shirts didn’t really believe that prime minister Abhisit was sincere in his plan
for a November 2010 election. By the same token, those on the government side aren’t really
sure that the Red Shirts have a democratic outcome in mind. They’re still very wary of the
authoritarian inclinations that came to the fore during the Thaksin era.
Helen Dalley: Yes. Correct me if I’m wrong, the Red Shirts and supporters of the fugitive
former PM Thaksin are the majority, but then his government was basically seen to be corrupt
and that he abused power?

Nicholas Farrelly: That’s right, and so on all sides of Thailand’s prevailing political conflict there
are many good arguments, many good points. There is much evidence to suggest that both
sides in this political drama have made missteps and miscalculations, and that they have all to a
lesser or greater extent done things which have alienated other parts of Thai society. Former
prime minister Thaksin was no saint.

Helen Dalley: No. So can the current PM and the government withstand this sort of pressure?

Nicholas Farrelly: I think in the medium term they are likely to remain in power. The real
question is, how can the country move beyond this current stalemate? There will likely be more
protests from the Red Shirt side. There are also likely to be more crackdowns from the
government end. But are we going to see within the next few years some effort to broker a new
deal, a new consensus way of managing these kinds of conflicts? The reason that there are
conflicts is because Thailand has ultimately changed so much over the last few decades.
Certain people feel that they have missed out on the benefits of those changes. They feel that
the economic booms of the past two or three decades haven’t allowed them to enjoy the wealth
that they see other people in society enjoying. While that situation prevails, while Thailand
doesn’t have a consensus mechanism for managing its conflicts, then we’re likely to see this
running out into the years ahead.

Helen Dalley: Just briefly in our remaining few minutes, the King is a much loved figure, but he
is elderly and he is ill, we hear. I know it’s difficult to talk about him, but can he, should he play
any role in this brokering of this deal?

Nicholas Farrelly: Interventions in Thailand’s politics by the King have a chequered history. In
1992 of course he did manage after a few dozen people had been killed in violence on the
streets of Bangkok to bring those protagonists into his presence on their knees and sort it out.
But there have been other occasions, in 1976 for instance, when the King didn’t play a
peacemaker role. Could he play a role here? Perhaps. But his health is fragile and by the
same token his palace side of Thai politics is deeply embedded with one of the factions in this
political brawl, and it’s unclear whether he would have even the gravitas to sort this out once
and for all. And if he was to intervene, he would have to be absolutely certain that his
intervention would be successful.