Thailand protests: An ancien régime faces a reckoning

9 September 2020

“Where is my freedom? Where are my rights?”

“Why are these generals so rich? All they do is cheat. They should be in prison.”

These are some of the questions to which tens of thousands of Thai protesters in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and beyond are demanding answers. For most, the answer is democracy, of which the ruling military junta robbed Thailand with their 2014 coup.

Thailand’s ongoing protests are unique not only for their size but for participants’ willingness to openly criticise the monarchy—“No god, no kings, only man”, one sign proclaimed—despite aggressive lèse majesté laws prohibiting such criticism. So far, however, the government and palace have shown no signs of accommodating protesters’ demands, instead arresting a number of students and activists. Both institutions, meanwhile, have lost much of their popular legitimacy; without tangible reform, neither will be able to quell Thai discontent. Absent of such reform, Thailand’s future promises continued protest and, potentially, increasingly brutal crackdowns.

A divided Thailand facing weakened institutions

Thai demonstrators’ sense of malaise stems from a number of factors: The unfair nature of the 2019 election; a restrictive political environment in which activists, even those who flee abroad, are disappeared; the forced 2020 disbanding of the popular opposition party; vast economic inequality (the widest in ASEAN); and an economy that was already anaemic even before the COVID-19 pandemic (which promises to wreak further financial havoc).

In some ways, these protests are the unsurprising result of a politics that have long been polarised, with the great divide being largely along class lines, between the establishment — the military, monarchy, and business elite — and the rural majority, as well as students. It was the billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra who for a period became the latter’s champion: He and his allies won six straight elections, from 2001-2011, but military and judicial coups repeatedly removed them.

Demonstrators have called for dividing the king’s personal property from that of the Crown Property Bureau, a quasi-governmental agency that manages the monarchy’s assets; barring the monarchy from intervening in politics; ending state pro-monarchy propaganda, and investigating the deaths of anti-monarchy activists.

The most recent coup, in 2014, saw then-Army General Prayuth Chan-ocha seize power from Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister, to purportedly restore order amid anti-government protests. Within weeks of taking over, Prayuth’s military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), repealed the 2007 constitution (save the chapter concerning the king), cracked down on dissent with media controls and internet censorship, imposed nation-wide curfews, and arrested both politicians and anti-junta activists. In July 2014, Prayuth issued an interim constitution that granted himself amnesty for the coup and an array of sweeping powers. The constitution’s 44th section, for instance, allowed him to take “any action” on the basis of social harmony, national order, and security.

Some four years later, in 2018, the NCPO finally promised to hold elections, which took place in 2019. These elections were neither free nor fair: The junta held onto power by disqualifying some candidates and reapportioning seats after voting.

In February 2020, a Thai court then dubiously dissolved the Future Forward Party, which in 2019 ran on a “platform advocating the breaking up of monopolies, decentralising power and removing the military from politics” and came in third, winning support from many young, urban Thais.

The party’s dissolution prompted protests at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University; other student-led demonstrations popped up across the country. The coronavirus pandemic quelled this dissent for a bit, but restive young Thais began protesting again in late June, propelled mainly by their opposition to the junta-imposed restrictive political atmosphere.

“We don’t hate the country”, one protestor proclaimed, “but we hate you, Prayuth Chan-ocha”.

In August, these mass protests then crossed a line, with activists publicly calling for reform of the Thai monarchy — essentially, to make it accountable under the law. Any critique of the monarchy has long been taboo.

And while the former King Bhumibol Adulyadej was widely beloved, after dying in 2016 he was replaced by his son King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who does not hold the same moral authority nor enjoy the same popular support. King Vajiralongkorn has concentrated political and financial power, all while living mostly in Germany.

“Vajiralongkorn”, as the Thai dissident Pavin Chachavalpongpun writes, “simply does what he does, without any concern for the law”.

This overreach, coupled with the public’s lacking reverence for King Vajiralongkorn, has seen respect for the monarchy dwindle, as evinced by both demonstrators’ demands and Thai social media.

Demonstrators have called for dividing the king’s personal property from that of the Crown Property Bureau, a quasi-governmental agency that manages the monarchy’s assets; barring the monarchy from intervening in politics; ending state pro-monarchy propaganda, and investigating the deaths of anti-monarchy activists. A Thai-language hashtag asking “Why Do We Need a King” has been tweeted over a million times in Thailand.

No reform — continued protests

The government and the palace have shown little interest in responding to such requests, instead remaining confident in their own power. While Prayuth has said that he is willing to listen to the students, he has also said that student protestors “went too far” by criticising the monarchy and joked that he would like to execute journalists who have critiqued the monarchy.

Given the international community’s unwillingness to side with the protestors against Prayuth — with whom the United States, in particular, has sought stronger ties — the regime, with the monarchy’s backing, could clamp down even further on dissent to create a harsher form of authoritarianism. For domestic elite political purposes, Prayuth cannot be seen as failing to defend the royal palace, even with an iron fist. It is thus no surprise that his government has already arrested rappers, a lawyer, and other critics on charges of sedition, which can carry a seven-year prison sentence.

And while the standoffs have so far been peaceful, history frequently rhymes, and Thailand’s history is littered with dark days of state violence against unarmed activists. If the past is prologue, the royalist state may once again coat Bangkok’s streets in the blood of the unarmed and idealistic.

But the protests have already become so widespread, and the protestors have remained so brave, that the government will struggle to disperse them without major government action — or widespread and brutal crackdowns. The latter, however, would spark a vicious cycle: State-sanctioned violence will further undermine the existing order’s legitimacy, begetting even more public frustration. Unless they are truly draconian, these brutish governmental tactics are unlikely to stem the tide of opposition.

More likely is a continued game of cat and mouse in which the government, acting with a relatively light hand, arrests the perceived leaders of what have been leaderless protests, only for new leaders to pop up and take their place, with the frustrated government becoming more devastating in their crackdowns as the game drags on.

Still, short of real reform, the Thai government and monarchy will see their influence decline, particularly as the country’s economy continues to shrive. Some 500,000 students will enter the labour market in September; most of them are unlikely to find a job. It is hard to imagine that they will not continue cluttering Thailand’s streets.

Indeed, unless the government and monarchy meet some significant portion of the demonstrators’ demands, Thailand will remain on course for yet another collision between an illiberal ruling regime and the protestors seeking to reform it.

The authorities “have asked us to stop dreaming”, Arnon Nampa, a young human rights lawyer, proclaimed at a mid-August Bangkok protest. “I am announcing here”, he continued, “that we will continue dreaming”.

Nampa was arrested days later, only to be released after a global outcry. Even incarceration could not extinguish his democratic fire.

“We will go on with our movement as previously planned,” he told reporters moments after exiting prison. “We will definitely join in the protest on 19 September and others”.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Charles Dunst is an associate at LSE IDEAS, the London School of Economics’ foreign policy think tank, and a journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He was previously based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Image credit: Claudio Accheri/Flickr.

Pacific9DLSeptember 9, 2020China, Southeast Asia, Thailand