History of Thailand since
| History of Thailand |
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Early history |
Thailand became a democracy following the revolution of 1973 but the democracy was initially unstable, with military rule being reimposed after a coup in 1976. The military rule was unstable, with several coups and attempted coups. The revolution of 1992 and the intervention of king Rama IX restored democracy. The populist Thai Rak Thai party, led by prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has governed since 2001.
Revolution
In October 1973 enormous demonstrations were held in Bangkok, demanding the end of military rule. General Thanom Kittikachorn responded with force, and up to 70 demonstrators were killed in the streets - something not seen in Thailand for many years. This prompted Rama IX to make his first intervention into politics by withdrawing his support for the military regime, and on October 14 1973 Thanom resigned and left the country.
The events of October 1973 amounted to a revolution in Thai politics. For the first time the urban middle class, led by the students, had defeated the combined forces of the old ruling class and the army, and had gained the apparent blessing of the king for a transition to full democracy, symbolised by a new constitution which provided for a fully elected unicameral legislature.
Unfortunately Thailand had not yet produced a political class able to make this bold new democracy function smoothly. The January 1975 elections failed to produce a stable party majority, and fresh elections in April 1976 produced the same result. The veteran politician Seni Pramoj and his brother Kukrit Pramoj alternated in power, but were unable to carry out a coherent reform program. The sharp increase in oil prices in 1974 led to recession and inflation, weakening the government’s position. The democratic government’s most popular move was to secure the withdrawal of American forces from Thailand.
The wisdom of this move was soon questioned, however, when the victorious communists took power in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in May 1975. The arrival of communist regimes on Thailand’s borders, the abolition of the 600-year-old Lao monarchy, and the arrival of a flood of refugees from Laos and Cambodia, turned public opinion in Thailand back to the right, and conservatives did much better in the 1976 elections than they had done in 1975. The left wing of the student movement did not accept this and continued to agitate for radical change.
Military rule
By late 1976 the political situation in Bangkok had become ominous. Moderate middle class opinion had turned away from radicalism as the students, with their base at Thammasat University, grew more militant. The army and the right-wing parties fought back against the radicals though paramilitary groups such as the Village Scouts. Matters came to a head in October when Thanom Kittikachorn returned to Thailand to enter a monastery. Violent student protests were met by equally violent counter-protests. On 6 October 1976 the Thammasat student uprising culminated when the army unleashed their paramilitaries, and used the resultant orgy of violence, in which hundreds of students were killed, to suspend the constitution and resume power, with the apparent approval of the king.
The army installed an extremely conservative former judge, Thanin Kraivichien, as prime minister, and carried out a sweeping purge of the universities, the media and the civil service. Thousands of students and other leftists fled Bangkok and joined the Communist Party’s insurgent forces in the north and north-east, operating from safe bases in Laos. The economy was also in serious difficulties. The new regime proved as unstable as the democratic experiment had been. In October 1977 the army dropped Thanin and General Kriangsak Chomanand became prime minister, but he was overthrown in February 1980 by General Prem Tinsulanonda.
Under Prem, Thai forces had to deal with the situation resulting from the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. There was another flood of refugees, and both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces periodically crossed into Thai territory, sparking clashes along the borders. To strengthen the country’s security, Prem invited the U.S. back to Thailand, and also forged a tacit alliance with China. The Chinese government agreed to end support to Thaliand`s communist movement; in return, the Thai authorities agreed to give safe haven to the Khmer Rouge forces fleeing west following the invasion of Cambodia. Revelations of the crimes of the defeated Khmer Rouge also sharply reduced the appeal of communism to the Thai public.
In 1981 extreme right-wing officers tried to overthrow Prem’s government, but were foiled when the king refused to accept their coup. This episode raised the prestige of the monarchy still further, and also enhanced Prem’s status as a relative moderate. A kind of compromise was therefore reached. The insurgency ended and most of the ex-student guerillas returned to Bangkok under an amnesty. The army returned to its barracks, and yet another constitution promulgated, creating an appointed Senate to balance the popularly elected National Assembly. Elections were held in April 1983, giving Prem, now in the guise of a civilian politician, a large majority in the legislature.
Prem was also the beneficiary of the accelerating economic revolution which was sweeping South-East Asia. After the recession of the mid 1970s, economic growth took off. For the first time Thailand became a significant industrial power, and manufactured goods such as computer parts, textiles and footwear overtook rice, rubber and tin as Thailand’s leading exports. With the end of the Indo-China wars and the insurgency, tourism developed rapidly and became a major earner. The urban population continued to grow rapidly, but overall population growth began to decline, leading to a rise in living standards even in rural areas, although the north-east continued to lag behind. While Thailand did not grow as fast as the “Asian tigers” like Taiwan and South Korea, it achieved sustained growth.
Prem held office for eight years, and remained personally popular, but the revival of democratic politics inevitably led to a demand for a more adventurous leader. In 1988 fresh elections brought former General Chatichai Choonhavan to power. But Chatichai proved both incompetent and corrupt. By allowing one faction of the military to get rich on government contracts, he provoked a rival faction, led by Generals Sunthorn Kongsompong and Suchinda Kraprayoon, to stage a coup in February 1991. The military brought in a civilian prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, who was still responsible to the military in the form of the National Peacekeeping Council with General Sunthorn as chairman. Anand's anti-corruption measures proved popular, but in March 1992 the military strongman General Suchinda, stepped in and took power himself, breaking a promise he had make to the king.
The triumph of democracy
But the Thailand of 1992 was not the Siam of 1932. Suchinda’s coup brought hundreds of thousands of people out in the largest demonstrations ever seen in Bangkok, led by the former governor of Bangkok, Chamlong Srimuang. Suchinda brought military units personally loyal to him into the city and tried to suppress the demonstrations by force, leading to a hideous massacre in the heart of the city in which hundreds died. The navy mutinued in protest, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war. In May the king intervened. In a televised confrontation, he reprimanded Suchinda, who promptly resigned. The prestige of Rama IX was thus even further heightened, and the king was elevated to his current semi-divine status among the mass of the Thai people.
The king re-appointed Anand Panyarachun as prime minister until elections could be held in September, which brought the Democratic Party under Chuan Leekpai to power, mainly representing the liberal voters of Bangkok. Chuan was a competent administrator who held power until 1995, when he was defeated at elections by a coalition of conservative and provincial parties led by Banharn Silpa-acha. Banharn’s government was derailed by the 1997 Asian economic crisis. As first the currency and then the economy collapsed, Banharn’s government fell and was succeeded by one led by Chawalit Yongchaiyudh.
Chawalit’s attempts to deal with the crisis were ineffectual, and in November Chuan returned to power. Chuan came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund which stabilised the currency and allowed the economy to begin to recover. What was remarkable about these events was that they did not lead to a military coup, as a crisis of this dimension would certainly have done in earlier years. The events of 1992 seemed to have cured the military of its taste for direct power, and also to have pursuaded the king that the only way to solve Thailand’s problems was through the processes of democratic politics, no matter how unsatisfactory these might be.
Instead of a coup Thailand experienced the formation of a mass populist party, Thai Rak Thai ("Thais Love Thais") led by a mobile phone millionaire, Thaksin Shinawatra. Chuan’s second government was as competent as his first, and Chuan deserved great credit for the rescue of the Thai econony, but he was no match for Thaksin’s demogogic appeal to the mass electorate. Thaksin campaigned effectively against the old politics, and also against corruption (despite being himself far from above suspicion in this respect), and in January 2001 he had a sweeping victory at the polls, winning a larger popular mandate than any Thai prime minister has ever had in a freely elected National Assembly.
In power, Thaksin had the good fortune to preside over the rapid recovery of the Thai economy, for which he naturally claimed credit. By 2002 Thailand, or at least Bangkok, was once again booming. As low-end manufacturing moved to China and other low-wage economies, Thailand moved upscale into more sophisticated manufacturing, both for a rapidly expanding domestic middle class market and for export. Tourism, and particularly sex tourism, also remained a huge revenue earner. As the AIDS epidemic became more threatening, Thaksin made some effort to crack down on Bangkok’s burgeoning sex industry, but the power of the economic vested interests were too powerful even for him.
Thus by 2004 Thai democracy and prosperity seemed firmly established, but the dominance of Thaksin, whose rule was highly personalied and in some ways authoritarian, was seen by many as an unhealthy development. Thailand’s stability depends to a large extent on the personal authority of the king, who will turn 77 in December 2004 and is not in good health. The heir to the throne, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, has little of his father’s popularity. The real test for Thai democracy will come when Thaksin’s dominance in challenged and Rama IX is no longer present to arbitrate political conflict.
Categories: History of Thailand