Centralised power structure seen as Pheu Thai's achilles' heel
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Lack of responsiveness to voters' needs could limit success: critics
While many Pheu Thai members are under the illusion that their party is invincible, its top-down power structure has been blamed for what some consider a failure to sense the true wishes and needs of Thais, and is even seen by some as a threat to the party’s future.
Several of the ruling party’s populist policies have been under attack from critics since day one – or even before they got off the ground. Critics believe giving free tablet computers to students is not worth the cost as the students are too young and the devices cause parents too many headaches. From the Ua Arthon affordable-housing project to the first car-buyer scheme, the policies were criticised as not really benefiting the majority or the government’s target group.
The latest casualty was its highest profile policy – the rice-pledging scheme – which has seen global rating agency Moody’s Investor Service threatening to downgrade the country’s credit rating following reports that the scheme has suffered a loss of Bt260 billion.
Although the now-defunct Thai Rak Thai Party earned huge credit for reforming the healthcare system, which led to the birth of the highly popular Bt30-per-visit universal healthcare plan, under the management of the Pheu Thai Party, public healthcare is under threat with reports that politicians are attempting to take over the management of the scheme’s huge fund. In the 10 years since the party’s inception, it has become widely accepted that Thai Rak Thai, which was reincarnated as the People Power Party and then the Pheu Thai Party, enjoyed the strongest political structure with quality politicians serving as its executives.
The scenario of MPs hopping from one party to another was a familiar one in the past until the Thai Rak Thai Party entered the political arena with populist policies and new-breed politicians as its two selling points. Thai Rak Thai has gone down in Thai political history as forming the first one-party government with 376 MPs and the support of 19 million votes.
However, seeing the demise of Thai Rak Thai and the banning from politics of 111 of its executives, the structure of Pheu Thai was designed so that its key men would not have to face the same fate as the 111 executives. The Pheu Thai Party has only a few key men among its executives, including party leader and Interior Minister Charupong Ruangsuwan and secretary-general Phumtham Wechayachai. This is designed to ensure that if the party is dissolved, the Thaksin regime would be hit as little as possible.
Now, no one denies that ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra is in charge of the Pheu Thai Party and that the actual political structure of the party includes Thaksin’s trusted men who are members of the former 111 Thai Rak Thai banned executives and 109 executives who have faced a political ban after the People Power Party and other parties were dissolved, as well as red-shirt leaders such as Natthawut Saikua and Weng Tojirakarn.
Thaksin manages the party executives, MPs, senators and red shirts through Skype with the help of |his sister Yaowapa Wongsawat as coordinator.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is obviously not a party executive. For one thing, she is like the “king” in a chess game who must be highly guarded against the kind of political accidents that have happened to others. She joins the party’s meetings only when required by |law. A party source said that in the past whenever there were issues to be decided, both the party’s executive board and strategy committee would get to make the decision. But nowadays, decisions are left to the strategy committee because the party executives are just political pawns with no actual power.
Siripan Noksuan, a Chulalong-korn University lecturer, said the Pheu Thai Party power structure is obviously centralised around Thaksin, and without him the party would fracture into many factions.
Unlike Pheu Thai, Thai Rak Thai had a large base of 16 million members and branches throughout the country during its heyday. A large number of supporters and a strong executive board are crucial to the strength of the party, as a good political party must implement policies that reflect the public’s needs.
“Some of Pheu Thai’s populist policies are undeniably popular but they were designed by a few people and do not benefit the majority.
The party’s top-down management is the reason why it lacks policies that are economically sustainable and respond to the majority’s demands,” he said.
