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| New blood: People Power Party candidate Chinnicha Wongsawat campaigns at a market in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Sukree Sukplang/Reuters |
Thaksin looms large in Thailand's first postcoup vote
Politicians echo the exiled leader's populist promises ahead of elections next week.
from the December 18, 2007 edition
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"If you want to buy authentic jeans, why would you buy a fake pair?" she asks. Ms. Chinnicha's allegiance is deep rooted: Thaksin is her uncle on her mother's side. Her first-time candidacy, at the age of 26, is the result of a controversial court ruling in May that disbanded Thai Rak Thai for electoral fraud and barred 111 party executives, including Chinnicha's mother, a former lawmaker, from politics for five years.
Overnight, the pool of qualified politicians in Thailand shrunk to a puddle, cueing up a trickle of newcomers, such as Chinnicha, and a surge of semiretired political dinosaurs to contest the elections. The result is an election run under a new Constitution that is awash in old faces, including Samak Sundaravej, leader of the front-runner PPP and a veteran power broker.
That makes the current spate of populism even more brittle, say commentators. "The sorry and dirty fact of this election campaign is that party leaders, candidates and literature are making promises they know will not be kept," wrote the Bangkok Post in a recent editorial.
Abhisit Vejjajiva, who as leader of the anti-Thaksin Democrat Party is tipped as a potential prime minister, has promised to implement four key pledges within 99 days of taking office. They include free schooling up to Grade 12 and lower prices for gas and cooking fuel. He argues that, despite a slowing economy, his agenda is budgeted for and geared toward long-term economic development, not short-term fixes.
While the national campaign is dominated by grand pledges, some races in Thailand still turn on local factors.
In Phrae, a tobacco-growing province with a lawless reputation, the once-dominant Democrat Party is losing out to the rival PPP camp. Many observers credit a sympathy vote for PPP after the Oct. 22 murder of Charnchai Silapauaychai, a popular provincial chief and former Democrat who had recently switched sides. He was gunned down during a predawn jog around a sports stadium where a wooden shrine to him now stands.
Five men were quickly arrested and accused of the crime; one of them was the cousin of a powerful, thrice-elected Democrat member of parliament. Both he and his lawmaker cousin have denied any involvement, but police suspect a political motive.
But even in Phrae talk among PPP supporters is how Thaksin loyalists will return Thailand's rapid growth. "People in the countryside know who can deliver the goods," says Anuwart Wongwan, a former pro-Thaksin lawmaker.
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