Democracy, Thai style

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34127, 13 April 1976, Page 20

Democracy, Thai style

Political stability may well be regarded, for all practical purposes, as non-existent in Thailand. At one stage of the campaigning for the General Election on April 4 it was thought that 56 parties might take part. Eventually, 39 groups contested seats, putting forward some 2300 candidates for 279 seats. The country’s 21 million voters, many of them peasant farmers still hoping to win a more rewarding return for their rice, sent representatives of 22 parties to sit in the Parliament presided tover by Mr. Kukrit Pramoj, which was dissolved'in. January. Thailand’s experiment in democracy, after a period of military rule, began in March of last year, when Mr Pramoj formed a Right-Centre coalition strongly representative of the so-called “ merchant soldiers ” of the military establishment. Its achievement, in less than a year of office, was not entirely negligible. Aided by a conservative monetary policy directed by the Bank of Thailand, it managed to cut the rate of inflation from its 1974 peak of 22 per cent to something like 2 per cent last year. In other respects, however, the economy was unstable. Foreign investment declined, oil imports cost much more, and export prices fell, with the result that Thailand’s balance of payments quickly slid into deficit Unemployment rose because of the halt in economic growth, arid led to' strikes and demonstrations, often-accompanied by violence. The widespread discontent with the Government’s over-all performance seems to-have been clearly reflected in the personal defeat of the Prime Minister in his Bangkok constituency, and in the increased support given to the Social Democrats, led by his brother, Mr Seni Pramoj. To no-one’s surprise—considering the multiplicity of parties—Mr Seni Pramoj failed to win an outright majority in the House of Representatives. The Social Democrats were 25 seats short of that goal when the first count of votes was completed; but they are clearly in a strong position to expect support from other groups of the Right in the tasks of government

The outcome of the election reveals the obvious distrust of the voters of Left-leaning socialism, expressed particularly in the emergence Of Communist factions since the “ liberalisation ” of Indo-China. The people—notably those in the outlying farming regions—do not forget that Thailand now r shares a thousand miles of common frontier with the revolutionary regimes in Laos and Cambodia. Border eruptions are common. In these circumstances the military bureaucrats will continue to influence Government policy, perhaps even to the extent of seeking reconsideration of the last Government’s decision to close all the United States military bases.

The last of the American combat troops have already gone, and the instruction given to Washington by Mr Kukrit Pramoj was that the withdraw’al must be completed by the end of July. The United States Ambassador in Bangkok, Mr Charles Whitehouse, does not expect talks about the bases to be reopened. “ We do not stay where we are not wanted ”, he commented recently. But the military hierarchy in Bangkok may well have other views about the advisability of a new approach to Washington. A high-ranking Thai officer, General Boonchai, once told Mr Kukrit Pramoj that, without the Americans, Thailand would be like “ a boxer without a second ”. The new Prime Minister may well take a second look at the idea of a continuing American presence.