Curbing populism divides critics

Academics, politicians and reformers yesterday lashed out at the political reform proposal to regulate “populist” policies promoted by parties during election campaigns, saying such a measure was impractical and anti-democratic. 

“I disagree with using the term ‘populist’ to regulate political party policies because it can create confusion during implementation,” said Paiboon Nititawan, a former senator and NRC member for political reform.

Nipit Intarasombat, a former Democrat MP, said: “The proposal would mean reducing the power of political parties to a very limited role. What’s the point then of having political parties? Why not just let public servants run the country?” 

The junta administration has made it clear that it would slap controls on what policies political parties can offer during elections. It views “populist” policies as a threat to the economy and has suggested measures are needed to curb them.

Article 35 of the provisional charter of 2014 outlines a 10-point framework for a new permanent constitution, including creation of an “efficient mechanism for restructuring and driving an economic and social system for inclusive and sustainable growth and preventing populist administrations that may damage the national economic system and the public in the long run”. 

The political reform agenda proposed by the Office of the Permanent Secretary of Defence also states the need to “prevent populist policies being promoted in general elections”.

The suggested measure includes regulation of policies by the Election Commission before parties can promote them in their general election campaigns. 

Alternatively, parties will have to declare to the public how much their policy would exceed the four-year budget limit set by the EC and Finance Ministry. 

Innovative populist policies – such as the landmark Bt30 healthcare plan, the Village Fund and a four-year debt moratorium for farmers – were unveiled by Thaksin Shinawatra when his Thai Rak Thai Party contested its first election in 2001 and was key to the party’s victory, which opened the door for him to become prime minister.

The success of political parties later linked to Thaksin – People’s Power and Pheu Thai – was largely attributed to their populist policies, which made them very popular with the rural poor. They swept all general elections since 2001.

However, some populist policies were criticised for imposing long-term adverse effects on government coffers and the economy and for using “the central budget to buy electoral votes”.

The rice-pledging scheme, at the forefront of Pheu Thai’s populist platform that helped it win the 2011 election, was condemned by critics for creating massive public debt and allegedly being riddle with corruption.

The NACC found that the rice scheme overseen by Yingluck Shinawatra government caused a loss to the state of more than Bt500 billion. This was mainly because the government bought rice at 40 per cent above the market price.

Paiboon and Attasit Pankeaw, a political scientist at Thammasat University, both agree that there is no universally accepted definition of a “populist” policy, so measures to curb such policies are likely to create confusion and uncertainty among the regulators and political parties.

Some politicians have attempted to come up with their own definitions, but they differ with one another. 

Nipit, the former Democrat MP, said a populist policy is “a policy whose sole purpose is to win votes and can cause severe damage to the country”.

Korkaew Pikulthong, a former Pheu Thai MP and red-shirt leader, said a populist policy is “a policy that is popular among the people”.

However he observed that “the universal definition of a populist policy remains very obscure”. 

Anek Laothamatas, a prominent political scientist and NRC member for political reform, wrote in his book, “Thaksina-Prachani-yom”, there are in total five different definitions. In Russia and the US, it means a social development plan that emphasises the people, usually the poor or farmers, for social change. 

In Latin America, it refers to a policy that focuses on helping the poor, who in return become the support base of a strong and charismatic leader. 

In Western countries it refers to political parties that are supported by the people who like their policies and political ideology.

It could also mean a developmental policy focusing on rural and agricultural areas. And finally “populist” could mean policies aimed mainly at the people, especially the poor. 

The suggestion that an independent organisation or the Finance Ministry should screen policies promoted in a general election is not welcomed by academics and politicians.

“I do not agree with the proposal to have an independent organisation or the Ministry of Finance regulate political parties’ policies during campaigning, because that means we look down on ordinary voters, that they cannot make a good judgement,” Attasit said.

He referred to the democratic principle where political parties and the people should be free to make their own decisions. The former design policies and the latter vote for parties with policies they prefer. 

 

A body to help voters decide?

However, academics or the EC or another independent organisation should present the facts of policies to the public, such as their effect on the budget, “in order to help people to make a rational decision”. 

“People should get to choose freely. If they make a bad choice then they should suffer, so they learn.”

Nipit said the proposal to regulate policies before an election goes against democratic principles because it will shift policy-making power to public servants, rather than political parties supported by the people.

The democratic principle is that politicians should direct the country’s administration, including policies, and public servants should implement them, he said.

Korkaew pointed to the lack of democratic legitimacy and credibility of independent organisation officials to regulate policies. 

“Independent organisations should not intervene in political parties’ policies during an election campaign. People do not trust independent organisations, and who are they to screen policies? In fact, they were the cause of many political conflicts in the past,” he said.

Paiboon suggested that measures for regulating policies should be narrowed to budget discipline, while Korkaew said measures should be put in place to limit policy expenditure to within a certain percentage of GDP. 

Somkiat Tangkitvanich, chairman of the TDRI, wrote in his research paper on a “Reform proposal to ease populism problems in democratic ways” that the election law could be amended to require political parties to declare the source of the budget that will be used to finance a policy project, for example, the type of tax or how they are taking out a loan.

Then voters become aware of the source of money, and responsibility is placed on political parties. 

Once elected to government, there must be measures to prevent them from spending more than the declared budget. 

Attawit Suwanpakdee, a former Democrat MP for Bangkok, suggested the passing of a fiscal disciplinary bill that requires political parties to project estimated government income, and whether the cost of populist projects would exceed the budget ceiling. 

He stressed that there must be a “financial” income projection rather than an “economic” income projection, as the former had proved to be a more accurate gauge of budget income.