Polls favour reform first campaign

Academic, ex-senator blast govt stay surveys

Opinion polls and web pages supporting “reforms before elections” have been popping up, amid criticism the campaign is an attempt to justify proposals to extend the tenure of the interim government.

Suan Dusit is the first pollster to weigh public opinion about a proposal to delay a general election for two years to allow the interim government of Prayut Chano-cha to push through national reforms.

According to the findings of the poll, more than 75% of respondents agree the country should undergo reforms before the election takes place. Once reforms take root, the country will be stable and ready to move forward.

The remainder who disagree with the proposal do not believe reforms are a magic pill that can solve all problems and believe the process will take some time before it starts bearing fruit.

The poll was conducted between Wednesday and Saturday among 1,249 people throughout the country, shortly after the two-year delay proposal was floated by a group of National Reform Council members, led by Paiboon Nititawan.

Asked which area of reform should be implemented before others, 74% pointed to the economy, followed by education, and politics. About 36% said a twoyear time-frame is suitable to carry out reforms, while 31% preferred a one-year reform period. About 18% favour a reform period of three years due to the complexity of the issues.

Meanwhile, the Isra News Agency reports that several web pages have been launched to campaign for the proposal to extend the military-led government’s tenure, and are asking the public to sign up in support.

One of the campaigns is “Give 1 Million Likes to Gen Prayut” on Facebook. The page calls for netizens to demonstrate their desire for Gen Prayut to stay on as prime minister for the next four years.

The online poll launched on Friday is set to close later this month and the petition will be submitted to Gen Prayut on June 30.

As of yesterday, more than 8,200 had voted in favour of Gen Prayut’s term extension, while only about 450 voted against.

Kapook.com has also run a poll on the proposal with respondents being asked to choose between “two more years” or “stick to the roadmap”. The poll is set to close on Friday.

Some political observers see the campaign as predictable and designed to reflect the view of the powerful to justify the proposal for the coup-installed administration to remain in power.

Prapas Pintoptaeng, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, has warned that an opinion survey is by no means a public referendum and should not be treated as a reliable piece of information.

Citing his study on opinion surveys on political issues, he said most opinion surveys are flawed. He noted the findings cannot be used to hold a referendum on the proposed extended tenure for the Prayut government.

He said a public referendum is based on the majority-rule principle and it should be organised on certain issues such as a public policy or the scope of state powers, not on how long an administration should remain in power.

Jon Ungphakorn, a former Bangkok senator and social policy activist, has lambasted the proposed referendum on the government’s tenure, saying it is a tradition adopted by countries with an authoritarian rule.

Such surveys would not represent the whole populace.

However, Sukhum Chaloeysap, chief adviser of Suan Dusit Poll, defended the survey’s integrity, saying there is no hidden agenda.

The pollster runs a survey every week and the topics are those which have the public’s attention, he told Bangkok Post.

The proposal on “reforms before election” is the hottest topic of the week, he said, adding other pollsters will conduct similar surveys, he said.

He said the Suan Dusit Poll is not being used as a political tool and the survey is carried out in line with academic standards.

Maj Gen Veerachon Sukonthapati-park, deputy government spokesman, said the poll result has boosted the government’s morale, while pointing out the findings only reflect the opinions of a group of people. The spokesman said it does not mean the Prayut government will use such public support to keep itself in power.

Pheu Thai member Chaturon Chaisaeng said the proposal does not make the interim government look good. Their hold on power has already been extended by almost a year due to a planned referendum on a draft charter, he said.

If the interim government prolongs its stay in power further it will stir discontent both in and outside the country, he added.

“When a mistake is made by an authoritarian government, the damage is serious because no one can protest and the public can’t hold it to account. Reforms that lack vision and direction and pay no attention to criticism cause confusion,” he said.

Isara Wongkusolkij, chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, urged the public not to speculate on whether the government will spend longer in office.

He said the business sector is more concerned about economic security than a government’s tenure.

Meanwhile, Suriyasai Katasila, a former key member of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee, is urging the government to consider the proposal carefully, saying it takes about a year to push for reforms to take root.

He said political parties should see the positive response by the public as a warning and start reforming themselves.

In 2006, Joe Biden, Les Gelb and many others proposed plans to decentralise power in Iraq. Mr Biden, then a US senator from Delaware, Mr Gelb and others recognised that Iraqi society was fracturing into sectarian blocs. They believed that governing institutions should reflect the fundamental loyalties on the ground. According to the Biden plan, the central Iraqi government would still have performed a few important tasks, but many other powers would have been devolved to regional governments in the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish areas.

The administration of George W Bush rejected that federalist approach and instead bet on a Baghdad-centric plan. The Iraqi prime minister at the time, Nouri al-Maliki, and his band of Shia supremacists enflamed sectarian tensions even more, consolidated power, excluded rivals, alienated the Sunnis and Kurds and drove parts of the opposition into armed insurrection.

The Obama administration helped oust Mr al-Maliki and replace him with a group of more moderate and responsible leaders. But that approach is still centralised and Baghdad-focused. The results are nearly as bad. The Sunnis continue to feel excluded and oppressed. Faith in national institutions has collapsed. Sectarian lines are hardening. Over the last several years, the number of people who tell pollsters that they are Iraqis first and foremost has plummeted.

Vastly outnumbered fighters for the Islamic State (IS) keep beating the Iraqi army in places like Ramadi because the IS terrorists believe in their lunatic philosophy while the Iraqi soldiers no longer believe in their own leadership and are not willing to risk their lives for a dysfunctional, centralised state.

This attempt to impose top-down solutions, combined with President Barack Obama’s toofast withdrawal from Iraq, has contributed to the fertile conditions for the rise of the IS. Mr Obama properly vowed to eradicate this terrorist force, but the US is failing to do so.

That’s largely because, mind-bogglingly, the Iraqi government has lost the battle over the hearts and minds to a group of savage, beheading, murderous thugs. As Anne Barnard and Tim Arango reported in The Times on Thursday, the IS is hijacking legitimate Sunni grievances. Many Sunnis would apparently rather be ruled by their own kind, even if they are barbaric, than by Shia, who rob them of their dignity.

The United States is now in the absurd position of being in a de facto alliance with Iranian-backed Shia militias. Up until now, these militias have ploughed through Sunni territory “liberating” villages from the IS and then, often enough, proceeding to execute the local leaders, loot the property and destroy the towns.

The Obama administration is hoping that these militias will restrain themselves and listen to the central authority. But that would be to defy all recent Iraqi history. The more likely scenario is that the militias will occasionally beat the IS on a tactical level while making the larger climate even worse.

The centralising strategy has been a failure. Instead of fostering cooperation, efforts to bring Sunni and Shia elites together have only rubbed at raw wounds, exacerbated tensions and accelerated the slide toward a regional confrontation. The IS is now targeting Shia pilgrims in Saudi Arabia in order to enflame that country and widen the religious war that is brewing across the region.

Iran is sponsoring terror armies across the region and trying to turn Shia Iraq into a satellite state.

A brutalising dynamic is now firmly in place: Sectarian tension radicalises the leaderships on both the Sunni and Shia sides. These radicalised leaders incite bigger and uglier confrontations. Maybe it’s time to shift course. America’s goal should be to help lower sectarian temperatures so that eventually a moderating dynamic replaces the current brutalising one. The grand strategy should be to help the two sides separate as much as possible while containing the radicals on each side. The tactic should be devolution. Give as much local control to different groups in different nations. Let them run their own affairs as much as possible. Encourage them to create space between the sectarian populations so that hatreds can cool.

This was the core logic of the Biden-Gelb style decentralisation plan, and it is still the most promising logic today.

The best objection has always been that the geography is not so neat. Populations are intermingled. If decentralisation gets out of control and national boundaries are erased, then you could see ferocious wars over resources and national spoils.

That’s all true, but separation and containment are still the least terrible of the bad options.

The US could begin by arming Iraqi Sunnis directly and helping Sunnis take back their own homeland from the terrorists, with the assurance that they could actually run the place once they retook it.

Central politicians love centralisation. But this is the wrong recipe for an exploding Middle East.

The tactic should be devolution. Give as much local control to different groups in different nations.