A BAD WEEK
>> Bad week for the military regime. The antediluvians in green absorbed punishment from foreigners galore. Worse, at home, protesters judged to be disloyal Thais went on the streets. And after three years, eight months and some days, the courts put on their steel- toed boots and confronted the regime’s rules.
Credit the general prime minister. He railed against people of the protests. He was convinced — or said he was; who knows, really? He seemed convinced that not a single protester among several groups of demonstrators and walkers had a pure heart. They only showed up on the orders of, and on account of, the dastardly, secret behind- the- scenes poltroons plotting perfidy.
Then he delayed the 2015 elections again, until some vague future time, but after February, 2019.
But not once ( up to press time) did he resort to that tired paranoia that green shirts trot out in moments of frustration: “third hand”. People are running workplace pools on when he or his faithful Minister of Truth will say it.
What he did say is that he has a plan. It doesn’t include a November election. It almost certainly does not include a February election. That is because it will take time to set up. Not that he is in any way responsible for delaying the election at least until 2019, maybe- but- no- promises.
The plan is the perfect Thailand. The Shangri- La being assembled by the general prime minister, for one thing, will have no protests, because under his envisioned “sustainable democracy” there will be no need for protests.
Of course, there are other views about that. For one, the dear leader apparently is unaware that ever y sustainable and indeed sustained democracy not only has but requires not just a loyal opposition that is just as capable as governing as the government.
Every currently sustainable democracy also has citizen monitors or “civil society”. Guess what? Civil society protests against bad things that governments do. This is known as freedom of speech. It’s quaint, but freedom of speech is as much a requirement as a basis for sustainable democracy as are elections. Just how Gen Prayut’s sustainable democracy will have neither will surely be a joy to experience and absorb.
Three groups didn’t much like the general prime minister’s current policies last week, and told him about it, as well as the country and any foreigners interested enough to watch. Or maybe that should be four. Judges of three quite different courts have got their opinions on, and none of them showed much respect to the green shirts.
The “We Walk” protesters who hoofed it to Khon Kaen, where they called for a 2018 election, trudged under specific protection of both levels of the Administrative Courts. At the Constitutional Court, pro- election groups ( plural) got a respectful welcome — there won’t be a decision for a while — when they submitted a lawsuit pointing out that the supreme law says public protests are legal, so therefore the junta has to right to block them.
The police, meanwhile, demanded that the Civil Court sign warrants to allow uprooting anti- coal protesters who plunked down on a city pavement weeks ago and wouldn’t move.
Before that could get out of hand in police humiliation, the cabinet dispatched Energy Minister Siri Jirapongphan to give them a big wai and a promise not to even discuss coal- fired power plants until at least New Year’s Eve.
Th ose pr ot es te rs we nt back to Songkhla.
And there were interested foreigners, some of whom were still or again unhappy about the regime, even while Cobra Gold war games were proving that all men love war equally.
The annual, thin ( 28- page) “Worldwide Threat Assessment” issued by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence ( ODNI) rated Thailand as a threat to, not a helper of, democracy in Southeast Asia. The ODNI judged that Thailand needed just a pithy one- liner in the report : “Thailand’s leaders have pledged to hold elections in late 2018, but the new Constitution will institutionalise the military’s influence.”
For the record, the other three threats to Southeast Asia, in the opinion of the US intelligence chief, are Cambodia’s Hun Sen, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and the Rohingya refugee- ethnic cleansing-genocide pogrom.
Add to all that humiliation, the general who actually overthrew the Voldemort regime and ended the Shin Empire’s dreams, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, demanded Gen Prayut revert to his promise to hold national elections by Nov 25.
It’s the fad to point out the declining popularity of the military regime and its leader. That’s true, but a far more significant point is their declining control. A regime that once could intimidate people from giving a three- finger Hunger Games salute now cannot scare away a substantial public protest, and the courts no longer dependably support anti- constitutional measures.
The regime isn’t going to fall like a matchstick castle this week. No doomsday is scheduled, but then, neither is an election.
The loss of authority is telling, now that not so many people are willing to take its orders without questions and scepticism.