Kupp mot författningen 1997

[Mr Chiangen]

På begäran, Chang Nois åsikt om vad kuppen handlar om, håller du med eller inte?
Fyll på intressanta åsikter o nya perspektiv..

A coup against the 1997 constitution

The makers of the September 19 coup seem to have had a two-point plan: 1) overthrow Thaksin, 2) rip up the 1997 constitution.

These two points were achieved in their first announcement. Beyond that, they don’t seem to have had much planning at all. General Sonthi admitted that subsequent coup announcements were improvised on the fly. The course of events since suggests they had little idea on the follow-through.

The point is, there were two points, not one. The overthrow of Thaksin was only half the goal. The other half was the abolition of the 1997 constitution.

Of course, this second point was technically necessary, since the coup was illegal under the 1997 charter. Section 63 states that nobody can overthrow the democratic regime or acquire power by methods other than those prescribed in the charter. Section 65 gives people the right to resist any such unlawful seizure. But the coup-makers could easily have finessed these provisions by temporarily suspending the 1997 constitution until they had given themselves an amnesty and made a few amendments. Instead, they ripped up the constitution as soon as possible. That is very telling.

The 1997 version was the fourth of Thailand’s great reform constitutions. The first in 1932 lasted six months. Those in 1946 and 1974 were both shredded within eighteen months following a military coup. The 1997 charter did much better. It was ripped up just eight days short of the tenth anniversary of its approval in parliament with not a single vote cast against.

Why was this shredding point two on the coup plan? Just recall the massive opposition against the 1997 charter. The military chiefs played a very prominent part in this opposition. They objected specifically to two provisions.

The first was the “right to resist a coup” enshrined in Sections 63 and 65 mentioned above. A prominent general objected strongly to these clauses, and joked that the charter should instead have a clause guaranteeing the military’s right to stage coups.

The military’s second objection was to Section 40, which declares that “transmission frequencies for radio or television broadcasting and radio telecommunication are national communication resources for public interest”, and mandates a commission to manage these resources “to utmost public benefit”. This clause threatened to destroy the military’s octopus-like control of Thailand’s broadcast media. This control delivers a large income, both official and unofficial. It allows the military to put out a constant stream of propaganda on its own importance. It was justified by an argument about “national security” which had lost any meaning since the collapse of any communist threat, internal or external. Hence it was very vulnerable to challenge.

The military chiefs were not the only powerful group that was horrified at provisions in the 1997 charter. The Ministry of Interior was opposed to decentralisation. Bureaucrats in general were irked by the freedom of information law. Police disliked granting rights to suspects. MPs grumbled about the separation of powers that would deny them access to becoming a minister. And so on. Most of all, there was a general conservative horror at a constitution which gave the people such a long list of rights and freedoms (40 clauses) and which introduced some tentative elements of direct democracy, such as the right to introduce a bill or impeach a politician with the backing of enough signatures.

Since the introduction of the 1997 constitution, there has been a massive effort to sandbag its more ambitious clauses. The Ministry of Interior has slowed down decentralisation. The police have simply ignored constraints on their mode of operation. No people’s bill has passed through parliament. The Freedom of Information Act delivered only minor triumphs. Most of all, the military fought a brilliant rearguard action against the 1997 constitution’s intention to liberalise the broadcast media.

These various campaigns of resistance show the strength of the conservative hatred of the 1997 charter. This hatred explains why its shredding was point two of the coup plan. It also explains why the interim charter gives the coup group an iron grip over the drafting of a new constitution.

Of course, the 1997 constitution is wide open to the criticism that it failed to deliver on the hopes it generated. It opened the way for the expansion of executive power, which Thaksin gleefully exploited. It failed to check corruption and the abuse of power. But those who are arguing that it would be better to reform the 1997 draft rather than starting again are missing the point. The people now in charge want to start again.

Their ideal would be a return to something like the “semi-democracy” of the Prem era in the 1980s. Power restored to the senior ranks of the bureaucracy. A discreet oversight role for the military. Politicians allowed to go through all the democratic motions without much real power. Popular participation through representational bodies under strict bureaucratic management. And a massive propaganda campaign to persuade everyone that this is “democracy”.

But this ideal form is almost certainly unattainable. The massive 1986-96 economic boom has changed Thai society in extraordinary ways. There are many more interests to protect and promote. There are much sharper conflicts raging. The country needs a more complex political system to balance competing interests and resolve cross-cutting conflicts. In recent weeks, the Surayud government has been pole-axed by its growing realisation that this society is no longer manageable through bureaucratic paternalism alone.

The old politicians have noticed the government’s gloom, and have begun to exert themselves. They will probably be able to influence the constitution that eventually emerges. In that case, we may return to the early 1990s, with some sharing of power between politicians and bureaucrats, though probably with the division better structured than before.

Either way, those aspects which made the 1997 draft deserve its title as the “People’s Constitution” will have disappeared, and point two of the plan of September 19 will have been achieved.

chang NOI

På begäran, Chang Nois åsikt om vad kuppen handlar om, håller du med eller inte? Fyll på intressanta åsikter o nya perspektiv..

[Nille]

Detta befäster mina åsikter om att det är de militära som styr. Senioritet råder. Ålder före kompetens. Inget nytt men nu tydligt.

Och kungens råd, vilken är deras egentliga uppgift? Hålla kungahuset på mattan? Jag undrar vem det är som bestämmer på riktigt.

[Author]

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