Diplomats slam poll delay
PM urged to stick to November promise
Foreign diplomats have given the thumbs down to the National Legislative Assembly’s (NLA) decision to extend the enforcement of the organic bill on MP elections by another 90 days, which will effectively result in the general election being delayed until February 2019.
They have repeated calls for the general election to be held in November as previously promised by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Meanwhile, Thai critics have slammed the 90-day extension of the bill’s enforcement, saying the NLA has used legal technicalities to help the regime cling on to power.
The 90-day extension was proposed by the NLA panel vetting the bill on MP elections. The majority of the panel last Friday voted for it to take effect only 90 days after it was passed and published in the Royal Gazette, instead of immediately.
According to the constitution, an election must be held within 150 days of the four election-related laws being promulgated, and Gen Prayut had tentatively announced that an election would be held this November.
Pirkka Tapiola, EU Ambassador to Thailand, stated that relations with Thailand remain under review.
He said the EU would continue to call for the lifting of restrictions on freedom of assembly and the activities of political parties and civil groups, while expecting the kingdom to act in accordance with Gen Prayut’s earlier statement regarding the holding of credible and inclusive elections in line with international standards.
US embassy spokesman Stephane Castonguay yesterday said that Washington’s position on elections was also unchanged.
“We welcomed the prime minister’s public commitment to hold national elections no later than November 2018. We look forward to Thailand’s return to a democratic government via free and fair elections as soon as possible. This would allow us to strengthen our relationship and for Thailand to be a strong and stable regional leader,” the spokesman said.
Finland’s ambassador Satu SuikkariKleven reiterated the comments made by the EU ambassador earlier this week, calling for the lifting of the various restrictions and encouraging a return to democracy under the previously announced conditions.
Gen Prayut said in New Delhi, India, while attending the Asean-India Commemorative Summit yesterday that such an amendment to the organic bill on MP elections had been made by the NLA without external influence of any kind.
He said he and the NCPO would always comply with rules, principles and laws.
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon yesterday gave assurances that the general election will definitely be held in February 2019 and there will be no more postponements of the poll.
Gen Prawit, also defence minister, said there was no need to further explain the delay to foreign countries as the NLA already gave clear reasons.
Asked if Gen Prayut would lose credibility for failing to keep his promise to hold an election this November, Gen Prawit said that the election will definitely take place and has only been postponed by three months.
Responding to calls for the lifting of political restrictions, Gen Prawit said that the ban on political activities will be lifted in accordance with the procedures laid out by the charter.
Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said there was nothing surprising about the delay, but the more pertinent questions surround the purpose of the delay and who it will serve most.
His comments were construed by observers as a hint that the delay was designed to give new political parties more time to prepare themselves for the poll.
Speculation has been rife that one of the new parties that would be registered would be a military party, possibly in everything but name.
Democrat Party deputy leader Nipit Intarasombat said yesterday that it was clear that the 90-day extension was part of the regime’s game plan to prolong its hold on power by using legal technicalities.
“There is nothing the Democrat Party can do about it. We only feel sorry for the people who want the country to return to democracy,” Mr Nipit said.
Chusak Sirinil, chief of the Pheu Thai Party’s legal team, said the decision was only to be expected given that the NLA belongs to the same clique as the regime.
The decision ignored public sentiment and was obviously a tool to help the regime prolong its hold on power for as long as possible, Mr Chusak said, adding that the 90-day extension will only work to the advantage of new emerging parties which will be set up to run in the poll.
Former Chartthaipattana MP Siripong Angkhasakulkiat said that the regime has postponed an election four times now and the latest setback must be the last.
Mr Siripong said that NLA members should focus more on their work ethic rather than exploiting legal loopholes to serve the regime’s wishes.
The other day I saw some graffiti in a public toilet. It read, ars longa, vita brevis. Art is long, life is short, as the popular translation goes. Like a street artist, I decided to vandalise it, scratching out and changing the first bit with my poor Latin: dictatura longa, vita brevis. Dictatorship is long, life is short.
How long? At the moment, nearly four years and counting. It could be five, six, 20, 100, a millennium. In the past 85 years of constitutional monarchy, the years we have spent under military dictatorship are longer than that which we have had under elected civilians. History doesn’t just repeat itself. History has never gone away anywhere.
The reactionaries, the former “whistle blowers”, the online cheerleaders and the Ravana-like arms of the National Council of Peace and Order (NCPO) are popping champagne and doing the Panama Dance. There’s a cause for celebration: On Thursday the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) voted 196 to 12 (a slight improvement from 250 to 0) to pass the draft organic bill that extends the deadline for holding the election by another 90 days.
In the debate, if we can call a gathering of like-minded men appointed by the same coup-makers a debate, one NLA member argued that the election should be postponed for five years. Give Pol Lt Col Phongchai Warachit a medal please, for he has spoken the mind of many: The country is at peace, corruption purged, politicians stifled, so why do we have to rush the election?
If we really have to answer that, it’s because the past four years have seen the anaesthesia of democracy and the amputation of people’s involvement in public matters.
We’re not fond of politicians — let alone tycoon politicians — but we can’t ignore the fact that the current regime has trivialised its near-absolute power and treated its rule as a chance to mete out personal vendettas. Its inefficiency has a crippling effect, and its repeated, blithe about-faces on the roadmap and election date are simply an affront to the people and an embarrassment to the world.
The roadmap, yes, to where exactly? To the corruption-free utopia where politicians won’t cheat and a career soldier won’t buy 25 luxury watches and won’t claim, without his heart skipping a beat, that he has borrowed the timepieces from his dead school friend? The roadmap to a military wonderland where we have more tanks and submarines than our neighbours? To some imaginary, foolproof platform where people have no representation and public officials are handpicked by the military? Even China has a civilian at the top from where he commands the army, not vice versa.
Of course if they want to postpone the election date for three months or three years, what can we do? After the coup in 2014, the junta said the election would happen around late 2015 to early 2016. That came and went with nobody noticing. Then they said it would be August 2016, but the complication over the new constitution meant the deadline went up in smoke.
Then it was supposed to be July 2017, the tentative date Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha informed the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Then it was supposed to be November this year, as the premier boasted to President Donald Trump in that funny meeting at the White House.
And so, dictatura longa, vita brevis. The election is likely to be moved back again, and all we can do is blink the disbelief away. Life is short, art is long, but the junta is longer. No, the longest, an anomalous force that breaks all the rules.
This newspaper has a countdown clock on the front page, winding down to the tentative election date in November as announced earlier by the regime (303 days to go from today). It is futile, a countdown to an anticlimax. Though the junta has denied having ordered the NLA to pass the bill that in effect can postpone the election, it is hard not to question their sincerity. Just in case they forgot, we can read and think here. How can the government, the legislative and the NCPO be distinguished from one another when they’ve come from the same seeds of May 22, 2014?
It is astounding, in a disturbing way, that today a military dictatorship can last this long — almost four years, and will soon be longer than any elected government. In the 1950s, yes, or the 1970s, or even the 1990s, we could imagine the ease of total control, the leash put on the media, the propaganda against the “enemies”, and the mindset of former slaves paranoid of freedom. But to see that in the 2010s is painful, heartbreaking, an episode that reduces this chapter of our history to graffiti in a public toilet, where it truly belongs.