Censure fiasco a win for Prayut
It comes as no surprise that the Prayut Chan-o-cha coalition government survived the no-confidence vote on Friday. The four-day debate which began on Feb 24 was the first for the military-backed coalition since it came into existence last July. It was carried out in quite a lacklustre manner amid reports about cracks in the opposition bloc, with the Pheu Thai Party taking a leading role. Members of Parliament from the now-dissolved Future Forward Party (FFP) claimed they were cheated out of debating time and some deployed tactics to enable Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon escape scrutiny as time ran out.
Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, former secretary general of the dissolved FFP, posted on his FB page that the censure debate “was plagued with trouble from the start, following rumours of a request to omit Gen Prawit from scrutiny. Future Forward insisted on grilling Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and four cabinet ministers including Gen Prawit.”
Key opposition figure Suthin Klangsang denied the allegations and claimed, albeit unconvincingly, that it was a problem of “time mismanagement”. The veteran politician from the northeastern province of Maha Sarakham apologised.
The failure in negotiating for extended debate time prompted the opposition bloc, with the exception of former MPs of the now-dissolved FFP, Seri Ruam Thai Party and some members of the Pheu Thai Party, to boycott the vote.
Gen Prayut won 272 vs 49 votes from 323 MPs in attendance. Also sharing the same approval points were Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu, Foreign Minister Don and Interior Minister Anupong. According to observers, DPM Prawit was the winner as he grabbed the highest 277 votes, while receiving the lowest votes was Thamanat Prompow, deputy agriculture minister, at 269 votes.
Such a vote pattern suggests, to a certain extent, weak checks and mechanisms in parliament. And this means the Prayut coalition is relatively free of serious threats from the opposition bloc.
The prime minister, while managing to keep calm during the debate, refraining from unleashing his often acid tongue, appeared not to be open enough to the queries. He complained most of the issues raised by the opposition “were the same old ones”. But the issues that he shrugged off include the failure of his government to tackle inequality as well as the economic downturn and its serious impact.
Due to weak parliamentary checks and balance mechanisms, some important questions remained largely unanswered. Some answers provided by the prime minister were not straight to the point, vague and meaningless.
Among the striking queries concerned the issue of intelligence operations (IO) by the army, raised by Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn of the dissolved FFP. He alleged late on Tuesday night when Gen Prayut had already gone home, that the government allocated a budget to fund an Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc) cyber war on activists, politicians and academics working to establish peace in the deep South which allegedly fuelled hatred.
The prime minister, however, told the media prior to entering Parliament the next morning that the government “has no IO policy”. The explanation by Isoc that the military IO “targeted only fake news” is no less upsetting.
Another important issue concerns the shady past of Capt Thamanat while in Australia. The deputy minister got away with a flimsy explanation: he was charged by Australian authorities with having knowledge of drug activities and for withholding information for which he “was detained for four years”. He insisted the case in Australia did not have any bearing on his qualifications as a minister.
It would be wrong if Gen Prayut and his coalition think they can be complacent after this easy triumph. Especially when considering that, in sharp contrast to weak check-and-balances mechanism in the house, a new challenge has arisen from young students across the country, following the controversial verdict by the Constitutional Court that dissolved the FFP over the loan saga on Feb 21.
Some critics compared the students’ move to that of the Oct 14 uprising in the 1970s that led to the fall of Thanom Kittikachon-led dictatorship. What is different is the use of modern and symbolic-yet-powerful tactics like the flash mob.
Prime Minister Prayut, however, blatantly dismissed the students’ move, as he believed the young voices are “misguided” with onesided information.
It’s necessary the prime minister is open to different ideas, and tries to understand public frustrations over his administration’s failures. His control in parliament is useless if he cannot connect to larger society while public anger is simmering.