Talking about a coup in Thailand

Judging by the current language of the independent press and the chatter among the capital city's political class, anyone would be led to believe that Thailand is teetering on the brink of a coup d'etat. Indeed, talk of a coup has gone from being the subject of idle gossip and hushed whispers to an issue of serious concern for the government of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Things were deemed to have taken a serious turn on Nov. 20 when a spokesperson for the ruling Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party fired a public salvo at Sondhi Limthongkul, an outspoken and increasingly popular media personality, for spearheading a smear campaign against the government. By mid-week, a deputy minister was quoted in a local paper as saying he "had been able to smell the unmistakable odor of a possible coup against the government for the past three days." Few responsible people are prepared to make a guess as to when a shake-up might occur or if at all one would take place. Yet, a sense of paralysis has pervaded a government that enjoys unprecedented strength in parliament. Thaksin himself projected an air of uncertainty when he responded to the growing tide of bad news by taking refuge in planetary signs, rather than respond with his characteristic quick, caustic comments to the press. "Right now Mercury... is in a corner, perfectly aligned with my [birth] star. Mercury is no good, so if it's not good, I am going to request not to speak. I'll just wait until next year to talk," Thaksin told reporters, soon after returning home from a summit meeting of leaders in the Asia-Pacific region. "There is genuine instability now, because the whole country has ceased to operate," said Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior editor and columnist at the Bangkok-based Nation newspaper. "The government is having difficulty getting things done, unlike before." Thai academics also concur that bad tidings have been weighing the government down. "Thaksin is in the most vulnerable situation, since the crisis the government faced in October last year [in the southern town of] Tak Bai," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said in an interview. Such public discourse on an impending coup is not entirely out of character, given this country's political history since absolute kingship was replaced by constitutional monarchy in 1932. In the nearly 60 years that followed, Thailand experienced 17 coups, with the last successful one mounted as recently as in 1991. In June 2002, talk of a coup emerged in the wake of growing disagreement between the government and sections of the Thai military over national security policies towards neighboring, military-ruled Burma. Yet, the democratically-elected Thaksin government triumphed and kept at bay another spell of military rule. Military generals have served as this Southeast Asian country's prime ministers for nearly 46 of the last 73 years. Few are surprised by the sudden change in fortunes of a leader who, till March, enjoyed a level of political power that none of his 22 predecessors tasted. In February, Thaksin led the TRT to victory by winning 376 seats in the 500-member legislature, doing even better than the 342 seats he commanded in the preceding term in office. Challenges to the government's authority began in April, with revelations of an alleged corruption scandal involving a senior minister. That was followed by increasing ethnic violence in the predominantly Malay-Muslim provinces in the south of the country against which Bangkok had no answer but repression, resulting in the deaths of 1,100 since January of last year. Anger among the educated elite in Bangkok began to surface over the government's attempts to weaken independent institutions, set up by the country's 1997 constitution to check the powers of the ruling party. The virtual demise of the country's anti-corruption watchdog and attacks on a respected Thai woman, appointed to investigate the financial deals of the state, were but two in a growing list. Thaksin's administration was also on the defensive as popular opposition grew against plans to privatize a profitable state-run power utility. In November, a court ruled in favor of civil society groups that had petititoned it to place the privatization plans on hold. A billionaire telecom tycoon before entering politics, Thaksin's response was to unleash legal terror on his critics by trying to silence them with criminal and civil defamation suits. Sondhi, the outspoken media personality who founded the Manager Media Group, became the premier's favorite target. Since September, the prime minister has filed four cases against Sondhi and his co-worker, demanding sums of up to one billion baht ($25 million) in each of several cases. Sondhi has refused to back down or shut up and continues to conduct public meetings, every Friday, in a Bangkok park. Thousands of people drawn to his weekly live performances–begun after the government pulled the plug on a program Sondhi hosted on television–have been treated to regular exposés of corruption linked to the prime minister and his family. "Thaksin has resorted with what seems to be desperate measures to silence his critics," said David Streckfuss, a US academic researching Thai political culture. "There is a critical mass of issues stacked up against the government now." So, does this mean a coup, Thai style, is imminent? "I would not be surprised, but I would be very disappointed," said Streckfuss. "Despite all the abuses that the present government has [allegedly] committed, a coup would represent a real failure in the democratic evolution of Thailand."