Coffee-shop trade suffers as the General keeps Thais guessing if he'll run for office
ANNE HYLAND IN BANGKOK Anyone who claims to understand Thailand's politics should be sectioned. The country is preparing for a national election in December and the leader of last year's bloodless military coup, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, is retreating on his promise to drive his tank back to barracks. Instead, he's flirting with the idea of clinging to power by running for prime minister. Sonthi, 60, retires from the military at the end of September, and is already being courted by a phalanx of political parties. The last time the military overstayed their welcome was in 1992 when efforts to perpetuate their dictatorship met with widespread anger that led to bloodshed and eventual royal intervention. But in Thailand political lessons are seldom learned: the country has endured 12 successful coups plus 11 attempted ones since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932.
The news that Sonthi may run for office has been received badly at my local Bangkok coffee shop. Gan Aramwit, a sassy 24-year-old who works there, is representative of many Thais who are fatigued by men in fatigues. Business has been bad since last year's coup. Customers used to buy coffee and cake, she says; now they've become penny-pinching and just grab a coffee — if they come at all. That neatly sums up the damage done to the Thai economy by the coup. The military installed a geriatric cabinet — average age 63, though Thais prefer to point out that the combined age of its 26 members is about 1,600 years and have dubbed it collectively Old Ginger. It has made a series of policy blunders involving the Thai currency and foreign investment laws. It has also dithered on opening up the public purse to spend multi-billions on much-needed infrastructure projects which would have created jobs and shored up confidence. Instead, cabinet bumbling has helped snip two percentage points off this year's GDP forecasts. Now the economy, dubbed `the Thaitanic', is expected to expand this year at a relatively meagre 4 per cent, compared to an average of 6 per cent for its regional neighbours.
While some foreigners have upped and left Thailand as the economy worsens, many locals who don't have that choice have instead turned to the occult. A talisman known as the Jatukham Rammathep has become Thailand's hottest-selling commodity.
An unusual and unattractive amulet — resembling a digestive biscuit — the Jatukham apparently bestows luck and wealth on the owner. Thais who have reached a point of seeking hope anywhere they can will spend as much as £650 million this year on the charm and its related businesses. That may partly explain the rise in Thailand's household debt, which hit a record high of 31 per cent of GDP in August, as families borrowed to cope with rising prices of consumer goods as well as to buy lucky charms. Still, household indebtedness in Thailand has a way to go before it matches Britain, where the debt orgy is now more 100 per cent of GDP To ugh economic times in Thailand have I caused the popularity of the government and coup leader Sonthi to plunge. But this hasn't dissuaded Sonthi, who is keeping the airwaves, editorials and blogosphere abuzz, speculating on whether he'll try to make his current position more formal and deal with that annoying issue advocates of democracy tend to harp on about — governing with a mandate. Few Thais expect Sonthi to tell the truth about his future plans until the last minute, because he has a reputation for telling fibs. In May 2006 he denied the need for a military coup: 'Whenever soldiers get involved in politics, it seems that the nation's problems begin to escalate and become worse. Military officers, accordingly, must step back from politics. With that firm and clear stance, I assure everyone that there definitely won't be a coup.' Four months later, Sonthi deposed the controversial billionaire prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thaksin, who has been jobless since last year's coup, has kept himself busy buying luxury homes across the globe, and Manchester City. His £82 million bid for the Premier League club appeared to upset Sonthi, who is a Manchester United fan. After the coup, Sonthi posed regularly for the media in a football strip rather than military uniform, but since Thaksin bought City he has not appeared in his sportswear at all. Meanwhile, City fans were tongue-tied as to how to pronounce Thaksin's surname, so they solved the problem by calling him Frank — even though Shinawatra sounds nothing like Sinatra. In football-fixated Thailand it's much the same. Fans here have resorted to calling Manchester City `Maew City', Maew being Thaksin's Thai sobriquet. Name-calling aside, City fans, who are ecstatic with their team's golden start to the season, will be hoping that Thaksin lovesthem-long-time, which of course depends on whether he can hang on to his fortune.
The military and its government dallied for some time before choosing to freeze Thaksin's billions in June. Now it remains to be seen if Thaksin, who twice won landslide elections, will be prosecuted on the allegations of corruption and abuse of power that were levelled against him to justify the coup. Hoping to use alleged graft on a small land deal to blow the final whistle on Thaksin and his unpopular wife Pojaman, the generals have issued arrest warrants for both of them. No doubt Thaksin, who is living in exile in Britain, has his lawyers working overtime to fight extradition. In 2001 a British court threw out an extradition request for a Thai businessman because Thailand doesn't offer trial by jury. But even if Thaksin were to return to Thailand, a conviction is no certainty. In Thailand's modern history the number of cases where a politician has been successfully prosecuted for corruption can be counted on one hand.
Noris Thailand's forthcoming national election a certainty. It has been scheduled for 23 December, following the 80th birthday celebrations of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who Thais treat like a deity. The EU offered to supervise the election but this has been rejected by the military-backed government. If Sonthi joins the election campaign it's likely there will be claims that he staged the coup for his own political gain, and protests could derail the vote. Not surprisingly, there have been rumours swirling in the past few weeks of — yes, you guessed it — another coup.
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