Thailand’s Flawed 2019 Election Confirms the Country’s Deep Political Divide

Abstract

After having been postponed a number of times and over a number of years, the Thai military dictators (the National Council for Peace and Order, or NCPO, in office after their coup of 22 May 2015) finally allowed elections to be held on 24 March 2019. These numerous delays occurred despite the cost of aborting a newly drafted constitution in September 2015. Clearly, the military dictators wanted to spend more time in power. However, it would be a fundamental misperception to consider this election a return to democracy, or the coup as the beginning and the election as the end of a clearly demarcated period ofThai politics. Rather, both events represent elements of an era that began in earnest with the election of telecom-tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, chairperson (in fact, owner would be a better description) of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai) party on 6 January 2001. At that time, Thaksin was threatened with disqualification from politics altogether having submitted wrong asset declarations when serving as a minister in a previous government. While all other similar cases did indeed see the disqualification of the accused by the Constitutional Court, in Thaksin’s case, the court voted 8:7 in his favour in, what one newspaper called, a ‘murky verdict’ (The Nation, 4 August 2001). Obviously, a very high-ranking member of the Thai traditional elite had intervened with the judges as the upper echelons of Thai society still hoped Thaksin would bring a better political-economic future. Moreover, he had out-classed all his competitors in the elections, and was generally seen as a new-generation, visionary political leader. However, these hopes were rapidly overtaken by a very different perspective. As early as October 2001, another high-ranking member of that elite, former two-times prime minister Anand Panyarachun, ominously warned, “Danger caused by people with dictatorial inclinations has not disappeared from Thailand” (Matichon, 8 October 2001). This