INSIGHT - Thais split over change, stability before draft vote

By Max Constant

BANGKOK (AA) – On the eve of Sunday’s referendum on a post-coup constitution, Thais appear to be hesitating between prioritizing stability in the short-term -- by submitting to the aspirations of the junta ruling the kingdom -- or challenging the regime by shooting down the draft charter.

For those who attended a recent political event within the campus of Bangkok’s prestigious Thammasat University, a symbolic place of resistance against past dictatorships, their assessment of the draft charter is clear-cut.

“Many articles in this text are just unfair,” Phanom Weerapong, a 65-year-old retired civil servant, told Anadolu Agency at the end of July as he read the full text plastered by students on a series of whiteboards.

“Democracy is something which has to do with human rights. It is not something coming from a small group trying to impose their commands on the people,” he asserted -- a clear reference to the junta which has ruled the country since the May 2014 coup, led by Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha who also serves as prime minister.

Weerapong then placed one of the grimacing emoticon stickers available to participants on the board next to an article stipulating that the junta-appointed senate should be able to vote alongside the lower house to choose the prime minister.

The article was surrounded by a large number of unhappy emoticons, as well as a post-it reading: “in democracy, the people’s power is the biggest power."

The draft charter has been widely criticized by civil society representatives and political parties as “undemocratic” and intended at prolonging -- either directly or indirectly -- the power of the military, which seized power under the pretext of re-establishing order following protests against the elected government.

Most of those attending the gathering at Thammasat University agreed with Weerapong.

“This draft charter only protects the interest of some groups, not the interests of the majority of people,” Achariya Lawansarith, a 21-year-old fine arts student, told Anadolu Agency.

“I can’t accept this constitution because it gives an enormous power to civil servants and puts down the people,” concurred Pao Vichayuth, a bank employee.

Among the most controversial clauses of the draft charter, written by a junta-appointed committee of legal experts, figures one establishing a 250-member senate, fully appointed by the military. Another allows for a non-elected “outsider” -- including a retired military officer -- to be chosen prime minister through a vote by two-thirds of parliament -- also consisting of the 500-member lower house.

Gothom Arya, a former election commissioner and prominent independent analyst, told Anadolu Agency this week that he has no doubt “whatsoever that [junta leader] Chan-ocha wants to prolong his power”.

“If the military can control 251 MPs [in the lower house], they will be able to govern through them and the 250 senators,” he added.

Outside of Bangkok, however, it’s more about stability than democracy.

The farmers of Thailand’s rice bowl, located around 150 kilometers north of the glistening capital appear to have other concerns and priorities.

“I will accept the draft,” Prasert Noisuwan told Anadolu Agency while cutting long beans in her field along a lake in Suphanburi province.

“If the draft does not pass, disorder will continue to prevail and the situation will get worse and worse. We want a more comfortable life and voting ‘yes’ [to the draft] is the way to go,” she added.

Her views were echoed by several rice farmers and traders in the area.

“The draft charter has many positive points. It is a tool to fight against corruption,” said Woralak Sawang, who owns a small grocery store along a country road where rice bags are piled up to the ceiling.

“Dishonest politicians will not be able to enter parliament anymore. I will vote ‘yes’ to support the military,” she added.

Norachit Preuksa, a 75-year-old farmer, described the draft charter as “a good job” and expressed hope that “it will help old people like me”.

“This constitution will help poor people. At least we will be able to pay our water and electricity bills,” he told Anadolu Agency.

A clause in the document stipulates that the State must provide a small amount of monthly financial support to people who register as “poor”.

While support for the draft charter is prominent in this half-urbanized, half-rural area on the rim of greater Bangkok, other provinces in the north and northeast are said to be fiefdoms of the “Red Shirts” -- opponents of the junta and staunch supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in an earlier 2006 coup.

Despite the popularity of Thaksin and his younger sister Yingluck -- deposed in the 2014 putsch -- local media has reported that even in these regions, a majority seemed to favor the military-sponsored draft charter, mostly due to pragmatism prevailing over more idealistic endeavors.

“From Chiang Mai to Bangkok to [southern] Pattani, it seems that most people intend to vote ‘yes’, also many of those who supported the charter did so with a sense of resignation that it is the only way forward for the country, with the ‘anti-corruption constitution’ as its driver,” Bangkok Post reporters wrote in a combined special report last Sunday, after being dispatched countrywide.

Pool surveys, however, are themselves often unreliable in Thailand, especially as -- in such a tense context -- people hesitate to answer questions from anyone resembling an “official”.

In a survey conducted July 17 by the National Institute of Development Administration, a public graduate university, 60 percent of respondents said they were undecided.

Two visions seem to be in opposition: a pro-democratic side fed up with military interventions in politics (19 coups in 84 years of constitutional monarchy) and advocating a more mature political system, and a large part of the population prioritizing stability in the short-term.

Back in Bangkok, those campaigning against the draft charter expressed bitterness over the very strict constraints imposed by the regime on freedom of expression.

A referendum act punishes with a maximum jail term of ten years those deemed to spread “false information” that might influence voters, as well as “violent, aggressive or coercive information” related to the referendum and the draft charter.

Rangsiman Rome, a leader of student activist group New Democratic Movement who was arrested and detained for 12 days in July alongside 12 peers for distributing brochures explaining their analysis of the draft, insisted that debate “should not pose any problems”.

“There are different sides and we debate together about what is right and what is wrong by forwarding various arguments. In this manner, we can see quickly what is true or not and the debate is closed,” he told Anadolu Agency. “But the military prefers to use their absolute power for block us from presenting our argument.

For Rome, a law student, the charter’s details matter less than its role of representing a stand for or against the junta.

“Those who vote ‘no’ reject the military regime. Those who vote ‘yes’ accept it,” he said.

“Of course, even if the ‘no’ wins, the junta will maintain his power, but they will know that the majority of the people disavowed their actions. It will send the message: ‘you can keep the power because you have weapons, but the majority of the population does not want you’.”

For some observers, the real issue indeed is not whether the constitution will be accepted or rejected, but whether the fundamental questions with which Thailand has been confronted since the political crisis that started ten years ago -- with the coup against Thaksin -- can receive adequate answers.

“Who will tackle the fundamental issues? Who will bring together on the same platform the former [political] enemies?” asked Gothom Arya. “The issues of corruption and of the judicial and the education systems need to be solved. But can it be done before organizing elections?”

Underlining that such a process “can take a lot of time”, he stressed, “the best solution would be to work at trying to solve these issues while at the same time opening the door to a larger political participation”.