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Chang Noi writes in The Nation about another red-versus-yellow battle in the upcoming Bangkok by-election (to be held on 25 July):

[…] In short, this constituency is a true marginal and so the result will be heavy with meaning.

And that meaning is colour-coded. Panich Wikisreth is not so much a Democrat as a yellow, a protégé of Kasit Piromya, a fanatical yellow-shirt. The New Politics Party was somehow persuaded to exit the contest so that the yellow vote would not be split.

Kokaew Pikulthong is not so much a Pheu Thai member as a red. He took a prominent role in the recent demonstrations, and is now in jail on the ridiculous terrorism charge. Panich has a background in local government and fully qualifies as a member of the establishment, an ammat. Detention confirms Kokaew as a member of the unfree masses, a phrai. The symbolism is exquisite.

Pheu Thai pretty much wrong-footed everyone else when they picked Kokaew to run in this by-election. Earlier they even contemplated choosing the more high-profile Natthawut Saikua but some technicalities stood in the way. Nonetheless, that the party decided to make a prisoner their candidate for a public office at all is quite astonishing in the Thai context. And of course, the symbolism wouldn’t be complete without a reference to Bobby Sands, which was duly made by the (still free) red leader and PT MP Jatuporn Prompan (see here).

If the choice of Kokaew shows how close the red shirts and Pheu Thai are to each other, the PAD’s withdrawal from the contest reveals how close the Democrats still are to the yellow shirts. Despite the occasional verbal spats between the two, it’s pretty much undeniable that — in Bangkok at least — the PAD and the Democrat Party rely on broadly the same support base. As Chang Noi points out in the article, the presence of a candidate from the PAD’s New Politics Party in this by-election would unnecessarily split the anti-Thaksin vote.

One thing is clear: it is reassuring to see the two colours, for once, willing to stay calm and allow people to speak their mind at the ballot box. Here’s hoping that the result will be honoured and respected by all sides.

h/t on_off_course

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The Nation reports:

Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra has vowed to mediate any peace effort between the government and Thaksin Shinawatra if his Democrat Party would allow him to do that.

The only man on the government side who has met Thaksin lately, Sukhumbhand told The Nation in an exclusive interview that reconciliation depends as much on the Thaksin camp as on the Abhisit administration’s efforts.

The keywords are “if his Democrat Party would allow him to do that”. It does not seem likely that this government will enter into talks with a man it brands a terrorist.  It appears that, over the last four or five months, Sukhumbhand has been something of an outcast among the Democrats. When it was revealed that for a while he conducted secret negotiations with key red-shirt figures, virtually no one in his party came out to support what the Bangkok governor was doing.

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(photo credit: isriya on Flickr)

The Nation‘s resident rant machine Sopon Onkgara in his latest piece:

With the appointments of three committees on political reform, reconciliation and fact-finding – each comprising prominent personalities – we are seeing the familiar act of buying more time to remain in power, while feigning ignorance of the real crisis, with Thaksin as the sole root cause.

The first act of courage by Abhisit and the committees in gaining credibility and public acceptance will be the utterance of a name: “Thaksin”. If we do not hear this word from them, it will be a waste of Bt600 million of taxpayers’ money in a futile three-year exercise of shadow chasing.

Sopon must be the only person in the whole of Thailand – no, let’s make that the whole planet – who thinks Abhisit or anyone associated with this government is ignoring Thaksin.

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Thai academics are well-known voices on television and radio as analysts and commentators providing lively debate on politics. But broadcasting freely is no longer a simple and safe matter since the government crackdown against Red Shirt protesters in May.

[...]

“Many professors are reluctant to take sides, often they censor themselves. If I talk about linguistics I have to be [politically] neutral,” said Suda Rangkupan, a lecturer in linguistics at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

[...]

Prestigious Chulalongkorn University in the heart of Bangkok sought to distance itself from comments made by its academics. In a letter, the university said they should not refer to their university affiliation when commenting on broadcast media or in interviews.

“We are not allowed to say we are from Chulalongkorn. The university authorities believe people will be convinced by what we say because we have respect in society as academics of this university,” Suda said.

[...]

“(…) In the second week of June I found in my mailbox an official note from the head asking for cooperation from every faculty member not to talk about politics in classes and not to encourage students to join the [red shirt] movement.”

So Chula did not say it would totally forbid its professors from airing political views; they only need to make sure they don’t “refer to their university affiliation” when they do so. Oh sure, the audience aren’t ever going to find out who they are.

Also, Suda Rangkupan is a red shirt supporter. It was not clear from the report whether any similar warnings were sent out to yellow shirt academics.

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Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban surrounded by reporters (photo credit: Prachatai on Flickr)

When things get tough for you in a debate, accusing your opposite party of being unpatriotic has been a tried and trusted method of ending the conversation – so long as you don’t care how silly that will make you sound.

According to at least three Thai-language sources (see here, here and here), Deputy PM Suthep on Friday had a heated exchange with reporters over the issue of the April-May red-shirt crisis. One particular thorny question was who were responsible for the violence and the deaths. When a reporter asked him what the CRES (the vastly powerful government-military agency set up to oversee the emergency situation) would do about people’s belief that civilians were shot by army troops, Suthep at once pointed to that reporter’s face and angrily asked “Are you Thai?” before quickly disappearing into his office.

As is repeated time and time again, the official version of what transpired during the red-shirt encampment is that all violence was perpetrated by “some” red-shirt protesters and mysterious unaligned paramilitary forces. None of the deaths were caused by the army, who, lest we forget, were authorised to fire live rounds in the protest zone.

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[T]he government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva clearly cares about how foreigners view Thailand and how foreign takes should be consistent and conform to official positions.

The government does not seem to detest the foreign media per se. It selectively prefers the foreign perceptions that toe the official worldview from Bangkok, support the status quo, and obey the mainstream narrative.

For example, the appointment of Ambassador Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Thailand’s permanent representative in Geneva, as president of the United Nations Human Rights Council, has been touted and portrayed as the acceptance and understanding by the international community of the Thai authorities’ handling of the domestic unrest and deadly violence in recent months.

Prior to this high-level international appointment, senior Thai officials have lambasted certain foreign governments for allowing convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra freedom of movement in their countries.

I suppose the government is not worried as much about the Thai media, given that Colonel Sansern seems to have been attracting much of their recent attention.

p.s. Read more about Sihasak’s appointment as the UNHRC president here.

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Bangkok’s Democracy Monument (photo credit: minikin on Flickr)

The Nation’s Thanong wrote this on Twitter (h/t Bangkok Pundit) :

Don’t be misled by Freedom, Human rights, Democracy, globalisation and other crazy fashionable ideas. They are poisonous and hollow.

And this is what PAD’s Sondhi Limthongkul said on ASTV two months ago :

Sondhi also opines that he does not believe in the majoritarian system because Parliament is a place of evil. He will fight against the one-man-one-vote system because he wants a ‘Dharma-ocracy’ instead. If Mr Abhisit cannot achieve it, there should be a military coup. He adds that no one is bloodthirsty; people are just doing their duties.

Look, people like these two actually deserve some credits for speaking their minds so clearly. As a friend told me a while ago, these openly anti-democratic folks are much, much more tolerable than those confused, delusional politicians and elites who claim to stand for democracy but whose actions suggest otherwise.

Adding to that, ‘democracy’ is a loaded term anyway, and there are plenty of perfectly valid criticisms that can be made against what we perceive as a democratic system of government in today’s world. Is representative democracy the best system of government out there? Do politicians really listen to the people? Do ethics matter in politics? Some of what people like Sondhi say may sound crazy, but one should not be so quick to dismiss all of them as irrelevant or outdated. What Thailand really needs today is a serious, honest debate about the kind of politics we want to see and why. Everyone, at least within reasonable limits, should be free to voice their opinion without any inhibition or threats. I would encourage more of those who share Thanong’s and Sondhi’s views to similarly speak up rather than continue to pretend to love democracy for whatever fuzzy reasons they can think of.

p.s. In Sondhi’s case, why he still remains a co-leader of a movement that calls itself an alliance for “democracy” is beyond me.

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No matter which government we have in power, human rights remain essentially an alien concept in Thailand. The Rohingya affairs, the drug war, the perpetual emergency decree – you name it. And yet things have taken a strange, or should I say depressing, turn when the country was elected as president of the UN Human Rights Council (see here). Yes you heard it right. A country with serious human rights problems like Thailand now gets to chair a global agency in charge of promoting civil liberties and scrutinising human rights situation worldwide!

The Nation was quick to portray this as a significant achievement of the Abhisit administration:

Kudos must go to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who did not budge when they were urged by international and Thai human rights groups to withdraw from bidding for a seat at the Human Rights Council.

The result was telling. Thailand came in second with 182 votes after the Maldives (185), despite the political crisis that was brewing on the streets of Bangkok. The result indicates the country’s diplomatic and human rights credentials. [...]

However, Pokpong Lawansiri in The Guardian provides an illuminating insight into what actually happened during the selection process (emphasis added):

Can this election of the council’s presidency be viewed as a realistic reflection of Thailand’s human rights standards?

The council was set up in 2006 to replace the contentiously debated UN commission on human rights. The election of the presidency is done on a rotating basis from five regional groups: Latin America and Caribbean, eastern Europe, Africa, western Europe and other states, and Asia. Since 2006, representatives of all four regional groups have served as presidents to the council, with the exception of Asia.

Based on this, Thailand was not competing against countries with better recognised human rights records such as those governments of Switzerland or Norway. Instead, Thailand was competing against countries in Asia, namely Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan and Maldives – all of which are criticised by rights watchdogs as human rights violators.

[...]

Maldives, a relatively young democracy, has only just emerged from a history of military coups and held its first democratic election in 2008. The country was ruled by Maumoon Gayoom, who denied free and fair elections, for 20 years. Being a small country, the Maldives lacked the political leverage required to convince member states of their leadership.

This is how the council was left with Thailand. As chair of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2009, Thailand had strong support from the member states in addition to many other states that could be provided by its ambassador.

Interestingly, one thing that The Nation and Pokpong seem to agree on is that this new privilege will also increase the pressure on the Thai state to do more to protect civil liberties and rectify existing human rights violations in the country. If pressures from rights groups around the world have not been strong enough for the government to act, now it has the added burden of chairing a UN body to live up to.

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Kiat Sittheeamorn (photo credit)

Asia Society will be hosting a live webcast-only event featuring Kiat Sittheeamorn, a Democrat member and Thai Special Envoy to New York and Washington. He will be discussing the political situation in Thailand. The live webcast will take place on 14 June 2010, 4:00 – 5:00 ET and can be watched at www.AsiaSociety.org/Live.

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