It
has become virtually an article of faith these days: Improve a developing
country’s economy, and its political system is bound to become more open.
In Southeast Asia, however, the opposite has occurred.
Political reform was actually spurred on by economic collapse, and now that
economies are recovering, some of those reforms are in danger of slipping away.
The severe financial meltdown that
gripped the region has brought with it heavy political fallout. South Korean
voters ditched the country’s long-ruling party and elected the reformer Kim Dae
Jung. Indonesia, hardest hit by the financial crisis, also saw the most
political turmoil, bringing an end to the long reign of President Suharto and
the first free and fair elections in the country’s history. Malaysia’s economy,
meanwhile, managed to stay on a more even keel, and its prime minister Mahathir
Mohamed has remained in firm control, despite a burgeoning reform movement.
The experience of Thailand – which
sparked the region-wide crisis when it floated its currency on July 2, 1997 –
has received less attention, but political developments there have been equally
notable.
Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, prime
minister at the time of the baht’s devaluation and widely blamed for bringing
on the crisis, was turfed out in favor of Chuan Leekpai and his Democrat Party.
More importantly, the crisis spurred Thailand into passing a new, more liberal
constitution.
Admittedly, new Thai constitutions have come – and gone –
before. The current one is the 16th enacted since a military putsch
ended absolute monarchy in 1932.
This constitution appears to be
different, however. It has been called the People’s Constitution, because it is
the first charter created with the active participation of the public, and is
considered the last, best hope for providing Thailand with a framework for good
governance.
The best way to understand how
Thailand’s political system works is to think back to the time when the US was
undergoing industrialization. In America then, as in Thailand now, the politics
of the machine rules. Local bosses help round up the votes for the provincial
businessmen that run for office, and dispense favors in return.
In many cases, the patronage is
quite direct. Canvassers gain the loyalty of their constituents by handing out
funds raised by would-be MPs. But even Boss Tweed would be impressed by some
vote-buying tactics. In one reported case, villagers were given one shoe prior
to an election, and told they would receive the other if the right candidate
was elected. Meanwhile, any community leader brave enough to speak out against
vested interests is likely to be shot.
Once elected, MPs tend to view the debts they have incurred
to obtain office as an investment, to be recouped through kickbacks from
dubious government projects and regulatory favors to well-heeled backers. But
so long as the economy was booming, these political shortcomings were
overlooked.
Inevitably, however, the corruption spread to Thailand’s
previously well-regarded financial institutions. Capable technocrats were
replaced by politicians’ yes-men who failed to make proper macro-economic
decisions, helping to bring on the crisis.
The IMF bailout, although galling to
most Thais because of the loss of sovereignty it entailed, was therefore
actually greeted with a measure of relief despite the austerity measures that
had to be imposed.
“Nowhere else in the world do you
see the people actually welcoming the IMF coming in,” noted Anand Panyarachun,
a highly respected former prime minister who served as a leading member of the
Constitutional Drafting Assembly. “This
means the economic crisis is not the only problem. Everything starts and ends
with politics.”
The new constitution should help. It
will establish new institutions to make officials more accountable and new
rules to reform the electoral system. Voting will become compulsory. The
country’s millions of migrants will be allowed to send in absentee ballots,
instead of being forced to go all the way home to vote. Constituencies will be
shrunk so they have only one MP, rather than two or three, reducing campaign
costs. Votes will be counted in a central locale by an independent electoral
commission.
The only problem is, the provisions
of the new Constitution have yet to be fully implemented. Defenders of the
status quo fight at every turn to maintain their privileges, and the organic
laws needed to reform the electoral system have yet to be passed.
It is vital that Prime Minister
Chuan set about passing these laws as soon as possible. Failure to do so would not
only hurt Thailand’s political and economic stability, it would be a setback
for democracy for the entire region.