“…traditional, repressive and hierarchical institutions”

PM Abhisit owes his position to the PAD, the military, the palace and the traditiional Bangkok power-elite.

New Mandala and Bangkok Pundit have both linked to a recent Asia Sentinel article by Kevin Hewison, Director of the Carolina Asia Center and a Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so it’s hardly cutting edge for me to do the same, but I want to offer some lengthy excerpt from his article in this space.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has recently jetted to Hong Kong and South Korea, assuring investors that Thailand’s politics are back to normal.

But in Abhisit’s Thailand, normality means a depressing slide back to the past political configurations that can be called Thai-style democracy. This is a system where politicians, parties and parliament are made weak and where real power resides with traditional, repressive and hierarchical institutions….

[The monarchy, military and the bureaucracy] have provided Thailand’s “political stability” in the past: . Each of these institutions came under pressure from a developing parliamentary system.

With Thaksin as premier, the concentration of political and economic power in his hands and his obvious appeal to the poorest and weakest classes challenged the conservative consensus that concentrated political power with the conservative elite.

There is now ample evidence that the conservatives who have long considered themselves the country’s rightful rulers are now back in charge. Prime Minister Abhisit and his Democrat Party-led coalition are merely stage-managing this comeback for the conservatives.

…Getting back to normal means that the conservative establishment protects its own. Officials continue to operate outside the law, especially those who are part and parcel of the apparatus that protects the establishment and maintains its rule.

Letting the military operate with impunity is not just rewarding it for its service in shoring up the establishment’s rule but reflects its burgeoning political power. When Abhisit’s government was spawned in December 2008, it had three midwives: the People’s Alliance for Democracy, palace-aligned conservatives, and the military.

…

The military now provides a protective shell for the conservative re-establishment and for Abhisit’s government. The troops have intervened twice during the years of political turmoil. The first was in making the 2006 coup. The second was when General Anupong ordered troops tosave the government by putting down April’s uprising by red-shirted Thaksin supporters and other government opponents.

Getting back to normal in Thailand means a powerful and political military. It also means that parliament becomes a place of shifting loyalties. Coalition governments are the norm, so party support is tenuous and expensive. This government is less than six months old but the smaller parties are already destabilizing it. Smaller parties negotiate cabinet seats and other means that bolster their coffers and position them for expensive upcoming elections and the horse-trading that will follow.

…Like the conservative and military governments of the past, Abhisit’s administration is increasingly reliant on the coercive state apparatus to keep people in their place. The critical agencies are the military, the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), the Ministry of Interior, and the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology. Each has been given the budget needed to find and suppress perceived subversion and reinvigorate nationalist and royalist propaganda.

The government easily controls the mainstream media as much of it is state-owned. It is doing much more to intimidate the so-called new media, attempting to ensure that self-censorship becomes the norm.

This is especially the case when it comes to the monarchy, which is a pivotal element in re-establishing ideological consensus and determining “loyalty.” Several high-profile cases, using draconian lese majeste and computer crime laws, have targeted internet activity. These cases remind people that they are monitored and that transgressions are heavily punished.

Billboards, television and radio spots, and the prime minister exhort people to love and protect the monarchy. The security agencies are running seemingly endless campaigns that promote loyalty to the royal institution.

More insidious are the programs that exhort and train people as spies, asking them to inform on anyone they consider an enemy of the monarchy. Prime Minister Abhisit symbolically signed up as a volunteer spy. This is in addition to the hordes of government employed spies that trawl the media for acts of disloyalty.

…But getting back to this style of conservative normality is no easy task. The establishment and their supporters are not going to have it all their own way. The April uprising demonstrated that the poor and disenfranchised are angry about the reinvigorated conservative political agenda. They want to have their political voice heard. Keeping them quiet is not going to be easy.