Reforms are amiss

Re: “Generals fear looser grip on reshuffles”, ( BP, April 22).

Ace military reporter Wassana Nanuam’s opening paragraph so perfectly captures Thailand’s national dilemma of these past 92 years as we wend our way along a most circuitous path toward a truly democratic constitutional monarchy: “Top military commanders are concerned that a proposed rejig of the laws could invite undue political interference in armed forces’ affairs, according to a military source.”

Yes, you read that correctly: “... undue political interference in armed forces’ affairs...”. In 2024, 92 years after the 1932 Revolution!

No wonder Defence Minister Sutin Klungsang is on his way out. Apparently, he didn’t get the message about the deal the owner of Pheu Thai worked out with the ruling elites for his jail-free return home. Among the many “secret” shackles willingly accepted by Mr Thaksin, all designed to bolster the defence of the ruling elites, “no reform of the military” was one of several inviolables.

Although Mr Sutin was obliged to abandon Pheu Thai’s major election promises relating to reform of the military, including ending conscription, goaded on by the Move Forward Party, and possibly his own conscience, Mr Sutin has proved to be a sufficient irritant to the military’s leaders, that he has to go. With his refusal to greenlight the submarine deal and talk of very light constraints on the military’s muchcherished independence from political oversight, let alone control, Thailand’s first civilian minister of defence, not concurrently serving as prime minister, bites the dust.

It will prove a pyrrhic victory for the defence establishment and its masters. The longer they delay reforms, the deeper the reforms will eventually cut.

And it’s the same with those other “secret” shackles Mr Thaksin submitted to in return for his frictionless reentry. There will be a big price to pay for blocking any coalition with the Move Forward Party, for ensuring any constitutional reforms exclude chapters one and two and be implemented very slowly, for demanding that any political amnesty bill must exclude Section 112, and for limiting Pheu Thai’s control to ministries selected by the ruling elite.

SAD OPTIMIST