THAILAND: Gubernatorial Polls to Test Thaksin’s ‘Popularity’

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 24 2004 (IPS) - As the race to elect Bangkok’s next governor enters its final lap, the poll has evolved from being a vote to solve the capital’s perpetual traffic nightmares to one billed as an indirect referendum on Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s style of governance.

This shift has gained attention in the wake of more visible signs as to who Thaksin favours to win the poll on Aug. 29, since his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai – TRT) party is not fielding its own candidate.

The premier’s announcement at last week’s cabinet meeting that it was time the Thai capital got a female to head the metropolitan government administration for the first time in its history – removed all doubts about Thaksin’s favourite, Pavena Hongsakul.

What the TRT does not want, say analysts, is for Apirak Kosayodhin, the candidate of the country’s main opposition Democrat Party, to triumph as Bangkok’s next governor.

Currently, Apirak, who was the head of a leading mobile-phone company till turning to politics for this poll, is up there with Pavena as a frontrunner in a field of 22 candidates.

Pavena, however, is not a greenhorn in Bangkok’s political milieu. She was a parliamentarian representing a party that is among the coalition, led by the ruling TRT. Also, she was a candidate at the last race for Bangkok governor in 2000.

”Pavena’s candidacy has become a referendum to gauge the popularity of the TRT and Thaksin in Bangkok,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said in an interview.

A defeat for Pavena will be ”a loss of face for the TRT,” he explained, because the government has been pursuing many strategies to defeat Apirak.

The prime minister, he added, cannot afford to ignore the sentiments of the voters in the capital – the most financially powerful and influential in the country- in the run-up to the general elections, due in less than five months.

Other observers of the Thai political scene assert that the stakes for the governing TRT have been raised due to an outpouring of anti-Thaksin sentiments from predictable and unpredictable quarters.

”There is a noticeable anti-Thaksin sentiment coming to the surface and this will play a part in Sunday’s polls,” Kavi Chongkittavorn, columnist and an editor of ‘The Nation’ newspaper, told IPS.

”Some of Thaksin’s strongest supporters and members of the elite and the middle class are also saying things openly, very critical of the prime minister,” he added. ”It may produce an anti- Thaksin protest vote against Pavena.”

Over the weekend, the Thai premier received a telling political blow when his political mentor and a TRT advisor, Chamlong Srimuang, accused him of undermining this South-east Asian country’s still young democracy.

”Am I a villain today, for being the one who invited Thaksin into politics?” he was quoted as having said in ‘The Nation’ on Monday.

To counter Thaksin’s power – his party enjoys an unprecedented majority in parliament after a thumping victory at the 2001 general elections – Chamlong is urging Bangkok’s residents to vote for another candidate, not Pavena, into power.

Chamlong’s criticism, arising from fears that the TRT is aiming to secure over 400 seats out 500 at the next parliamentary elections, has also been echoed among academics, former bureaucrats and non-governmental groups.

Critics of Thaksin, who was a billionaire business tycoon before he became prime minister, were given a reminder this week about what they could face if they consistently take him or his telecommunication business empire on openly.

On Monday, Thaksin’s Shin Corporation filed a 400-million baht (10 million U.S dollar) libel suit against the ‘Thai Post’ newspaper and a free media activist, Supinya Klangnarong. It was the consequence of a comment made by Supinya that appeared in the Thai-language paper alleging that Shin Corporation had benefited financially due to its founder being the premier.

Journalists in the country’s print media have been pressured into silence through other means, while academics and bureaucrats have received verbal lashings from Thaksin when they challenged high-profile government policies.

The consequence of the national political ramifications hanging over the Bangkok elections has in recent days taken attention away from urgent issues affecting the lives of an estimated 6.5 million Bangkokians – out of which about two million are eligible to vote.

Most visible among them is untangling the worsening traffic problems in a city that has about 5.5 million vehicles plying on its highways – a figure which keeps increasing with the nearly 600,000 new cars that roll on to Thailand’s roads every year.

Then there is the Bangkok’s growing mountain of garbage.

In 1998, according to the public cleansing department, the solid waste collected in this sprawling city that is bisected by the Chao Phraya River stood at 3.1 million tonnes. By 2003, it had risen to 3.3 million tonnes.

The outgoing governor, Samak Sundaravej, proved to be a disappointment to the citizens who voted him into office in 2000 with over one millon votes.

He gained more fame during his four-year term appearing as a chef on a cooking show broadcast on television.