The 2006 anti-Thaksin movement in Thailand: An analysis

Abstract

This article examines the mass protests against Thailand's billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006. Over a series of several months, hundreds of thousands of people took part in demonstrations that created a deep political crisis and forced Thaksin to call snap elections. This political crisis was partly a result of intra-elite conflict between the old power elite and Thaksin's “CEO-style” rule, which opened up space for a broader politicisation. However, a closer look at Thaksin's own mass support and a comparison of his populism with Venezuela's President Chávez leads us to the analysis that the crisis resulted from deeper contradictions within Thaksin's “post neo-liberal” capitalist restructuring project. The movement against Thaksin thus drew on and brought together different sections of Thai society rebelling against Free Trade Agreements, privatisation and authoritarian, corporate-dominated politics. The article concludes with some reflections on the movement and the question of royal intervention and the coup d'état.

Key words:

• Thaksin Shinawatra
• People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD)
• anti-Thaksin movement
• populism
• post neo-liberalism

Acknowledgement

The authors would particularly like to thank Ae and Somkit from the Thai Volunteer Service, Luen from the Assembly of the Poor, Suraporn from Fa Dieo Kan[Same Sky] magazine and Wipaphan Korkeatkachorn for their time and help. They would also like to thank Michael Connors and Kevin Hewison for their editing.

Notes

¹ Ji Ungpakorn (2006: 1) implied this by characterising the protests as a “conservative royalist movement.”

² The authors spent several weeks in Thailand during the mass movement against Thaksin in February and March 2006, and again during the coup d'état and the Thai Social Forum in September and October. Unless otherwise stated, this analysis draws on workshops, discussions, interviews and participatory observation during this time.

³ For both, the central criticism was that using taxes for health care was not sustainable. Before the introduction of the universal coverage of the 30-Baht scheme, one third of the population was without any health insurance at all, so this criticism can be countered easily with the argument of Venezuela's Minister of Health and Social Development: “You can't fail to deal with a disaster because you haven't worked out the specifics of sustainability” (cited in Gibbs, 2006: 272). On the Thaksin programme, see Hewison (2003a: 13).

⁴ The term “post-Washington Consensus” is often used to describe a shift in the economic and development guidelines of the World Bank at beginning of the new millennium – away from the narrow agenda-setting fundamentals of the Washington Consensus such as zero inflation, broadening market access and promotion of privatisation, towards the recognition of the role of the state especially for social programmes (Drache, 2002; Williamson, 2000). Whereas some authors interpret this shift as a correction of a failed neo-liberal policy (Kohlmorgen, 2004), others have criticised it as mere window-dressing, where the core of neo-liberal dogma remains unchallenged (Gibbs, 2006). In our analysis of Thaksin's economic policy we follow Gibbs' view.

⁵ The weekly television show “Aló Presidente” in Venezuela and Thaksin's weekly radio talk-show being just one striking parallel. For a different approach, see Pasuk and Baker (2008).

⁶ For example, the anti-Khor Jor Kor movement in 1992 or the Assembly of the Poor in 1997. Khor Jor Kor is the abbreviation for a military-led plan for the restructuring of Thailand's forest reserves. If implemented as scheduled, it would have deprived thousands of families of their livelihood. On the anti-Khor Jor Kor movement, see Pye (2005).

⁷ The Octobrists are activists from the 1973-76 democratic uprising, and the “Senior Citizens” are respected senior or retired officials. Kasian (2002: 333) listed the National Salvation Community, the Bangchak-lovers Club, the United Thai for National Liberation Club, the Free Thai Movement, the Withithas Project, the Thai Graduates' Group, the Patriotic People Club, and the Democracy for the People Group.

⁸ For a more detailed analysis of different capitalist groups and the connection between domestic capital and Thaksin's ascent see Brown and Hewison (2005: 358ff) and Pasuk and Baker (2004).

⁹ At the same time, the Democrats continuous embrace of notions like “good governance” and “fair competition” as a means to solve problems of poverty and underdevelopment explains why their recent turn to a social agenda was not convincing enough to challenge TRT's electoral basis. For a critical discussion of the ideological use of “good governance” with references to Thai political discourse, see Jayasuriya and Hewison (2004).

¹⁰ However, the term “post neo-liberal” itself overstates the extent of the paradigm shift. While we agree with Gibbs' analysis, we reject the term “post neo-liberal,” as well as the term “post-Washington Consensus” used by other authors for the same phenomenon (cf. Fine, 2001; Kohlmorgen, 2004). The prefix “post-” suggests a paradigm shift away from the doctrines of the Washington Consensus or the neo-liberal principles.

¹¹ This critical line was followed by Sondhi Limthongkul's Phujatkan raiwan[Manager Daily]– see, for example, “Kongthun muban fanrai prachaniyom”[The village fund. A populist nightmare], 24 February 2006.

¹² FTA Watch's website is at: http://www.ftawatch.org.

¹³ In rural areas the proportion of medical doctors per head of population fell to one per 10,000 compared to Thailand's average proportion of one per 2800 (The Nation Online, 4 April 2006).

¹⁴ The network consisted of Thai Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS (TNP+), Foundation for Consumers, Doctors without Borders (MSF), and many others. For a detailed description of the campaign see Weeraboon (2004) and Ford et al. (2004).

¹⁵ The Thai Labour Campaign gives a good chronology of the EGAT protests at http://www.thailabour.org/campaigns/privatiz/chronology.html

¹⁶ A detailed analysis of this conflict has been offered by Duncan McCargo and his collaborators in a special edition of Critical Asian Studies (McCargo (ed.), 2006).

¹⁷ In his presentation at the workshop “Botrian thangkanmueang jak rathaprahan 19 kanya”[Political lessons of the 19 September coup d'état], Thai Social Forum, Thammasat University Rangsit Campus, 22 October 2006.

¹⁸ In an interesting exchange with Supalak in the Fa Dieo Kan magazine, Piyamiton (2006) recommended democratising the PAD and the anti-Thaksin movement itself as a first step towards a democratic revolution along the lines of people's councils.