The struggle to define the terms of >Thailand’s democracy has been viscerally fought over the past decade and a half, and it is far from clear whether the country’s popular approval of a new Constitution will seal it. The military-backed government of Prayuth Chan-ocha says the vote, in a referendum, supporting the military-backed Constitution sets the stage for an election in end-2017. But the contents of the Constitution as well as the circumstances of the referendum do not encourage the hope that Thailand’s next government will be decided by popular mandate. The country has been ruled by its traditionally powerful generals since 2014, when Prime Minister >Yingluck Shinawatra was ousted from office, ending years of jostling between political parties owing allegiance to her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a business tycoon now in exile, and forces grouped around the royal palace. The Shinawatras have, since 2001, won a majority in every election, given their devoted voter base in the north and among poorer Thais across the country. The so-called Bangkok establishment, made up of the middle and upper classes that coalesced around the palace-judiciary-military-bureaucracy, has held all along that the Shinawatras won a mandate for their allegedly corrupt regime with populist giveaways, such as easy credit and healthcare benefits to the rural masses. The Bangkok elites say Thailand needs a guiding hand to see that its elected legislature sticks to clean, visionary governance. The new Constitution promises just that: a military-appointed senate that will virtually have the power to appoint a Prime Minister of its choice and hold the government to a 20-year development programme.
The overriding intent of the Constitution seems to be to prevent power from slipping into the hands of the Shinawatras and their proxies each time an election is held. The referendum was held in curious circumstances with the so-called Referendum Act practically disallowing any debate on the text. The generals may appear confident of pulling off a controlled democracy, but they are working along an anxious timeline and may have felt compelled to overplay their hand. Thailand’s king, the long-serving Bhumibol Adulyadej, has been ailing, and their concern is that his successor may not be the force he has been in giving the military and the Bangkok elites a dominant hand. They would like to have a new system in place to take the fight away from the Red Shirts, supporters of the Shinawatras, who have shown their ability to determine the outcome of every popular election since 2001. Going by past standoffs involving the Red Shirts, especially the Bangkok protests of 2010, it may be too soon to count on the referendum to deliver a truce.
