Young voices speak up for change

Students and pro-democracy activists have been rallying in the streets for constitutional reform in Thailand and the curbing of the monarchy’s powers since July.

COMPARED with their counterparts in Thailand, youth in Malaysia are still a long way from playing a meaningful role in pushing for better democracy and governance. The few young MPs we have are part of the stultifying political order, which has remained largely unchanged.

Given this scenario, the idea of a multiracial and youth-centric political party mooted by former youth and sports minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman is indeed a breath of fresh air.

“If in Thailand they can set up Future Forward and in France they can set up En Marche under (French President Emmanuel) Macron, I think it is timely in Malaysia to start a movement made of young people. Of young technocrats, professionals and politicians from different backgrounds coming together to ensure that the youth’s voice will dominate in Parliament and outside so that in the end, the youth can never be taken lightly anymore.

“It is timely today so that politics will never be chained, controlled and monopolised by the same old people,” Syed Saddiq was quoted as saying last week.

But will such a party or movement gain traction in Malaysia? Looking at the increasingly racially and religiously inclined politics today, there are more doubts and scepticism than optimism.

While Syed Saddiq was airing his thoughts, young people in Thailand were smack in the middle of showing what they can do instead of just talking. They were taking on the powerful monarchy and pro-army government in what is being described as a “new turning point” for the country’s politics.

Since July, anti-government protests led by students, pro-democracy activists and unionists seeking constitutional reform and dissolution of parliament for fresh elections have been taking place throughout the country.

Around 10,000 people attended the largest rally on Aug 16 at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument, after which students nationwide, including those from Bangkok and from the heart of the establishment’s support base in the south, followed suit. These are the biggest demonstrations since Thailand’s 2014 coup.

Unlike before the putsch, when politics was largely split by pro-establishment and pro-royal “Yellow Shirts” and the “Red Shirts” cohorts of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the latest protests reflect more of a “generational divide”.

Students and young Thais, whose parents were either “Red” or “Yellow”, have found common ground in opposing the post-coup constitution, under which real power is in the hands of 250 senators appointed by the military.

More significantly, young Thais are also questioning King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s unfettered powers – an inviolable taboo in a country where criticism of the monarchy can be punished with a 15-year jail term under its lese majeste law. Such a situation was unimaginable during the seven-decade-long reign of the former king, Bhumipol Adulyadej, who died in 2016.

Last week, a student group from Bangkok’s elite Thammasat University submitted a 10-point manifesto aimed at curbing the monarchy’s authority. Among others, it called for the king to remain above politics, a reduction of the royal budget, the dissolution of court offices, including the privy council, and an end to one-sided education that praises the royal institution.

While some politicians and proestablishment leaders accused the students of violating laws and undermining the monarchy, the manifesto was supported by more than 100 academics.

As Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for South-East Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in a World Political Review article last year, unlike King Bhumipol who wielded significant power by operating in the shadows, Vajiralongkorn “manoeuvred himself to the centre of Thai politics, decreasing the power of both the army and politicians along the way”.

Besides taking personal control of the two army units, which would be essential for mounting a successful coup, Vajiralongkorn has also consolidated power in many other ways, such as empowering the faction of the army most aligned with the crown and by neutering the once-powerful privy council.

The royal property law was also amended to give him full control of the US$30bil (RM124.9bil) Crown Property Bureau, which invests in real estate, blue-chip Thai companies and other assets.

Vajiralongkorn’s evident engagement in politics and his preference for spending much of his time in Germany during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic led to people openly questioning the role of the monarch in the country and even the need for it, as reflected by the Twitter hashtag #whydoweneedaking, which started trending in March.

What triggered the latest protests involving mostly the youth?

Discontent had been simmering since former general-turned-Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha began heading the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) junta after leading the coup on May 22, 2014. The 12th coup in the country since 1932 came in the wake of six months of political crisis following the impeachment of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

The NCPO scrapped the country’s constitution and enabled the military to write a new charter under which the powers of the king and promilitary royalists were increased.

Although the new constitution was ratified in 2017, the first post-coup election was delayed until March last year. The opposition Pheu Thai party won 136 seats in the 500-member lower house, 97 more than Prayut’s pro-military Palang Pracharat.

Under the new rules, which allow for 150 seats to be awarded proportionally by the election commission based on each party’s total of the nationwide popular vote, Pheu Thai should have received 255 but got none.

Palang Pracharat received 18 while the rest of the seats were distributed to smaller parties. Prayut continued as prime minister through a coalition with the small parties and the support of the powerful senate.

So, it is the sort of government resented by many young Thais.

Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this observation by Friedrich Nietzsche: “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.