Referendum ‘mirrors Myanmar vote’

The coming August 7 referendum on the draft constitution – which experts say is being conducted in the style formerly practised in Myanmar rather than the relatively free process demonstrated during the recent Brexit – could lead to even more intense political uncertainty in the near future.

While government officials have said people could learn to “modestly” express their opinions just like British people did while campaigning for and against Britain’s exit from the EU, Thailand’s junta has not organised the vote in the same manner as British authorities did last month. 

The military government, however, has not referred to the plebiscite neighbouring Myanmar conducted eight years ago when citizens voted on the junta-written charter draft, which won by a landslide in the aftermath of the deadly Cyclone Nargis and prevalent reports that authorities infringed on the rights of people and the media.

Naruemon Thabchumpon, a political scientist from Chulalongkorn University, said the August referendum is almost a copycat of Myanmar’s 2008 referendum.

Myanmar’s former junta did allow campaigning for three weeks prior to the May 10, 2008 referendum, but only articles, songs, poems, cartoons and messages encouraging the “Yes” vote were run in state and local media, Naruemon said.

What happened to “Vote No” campaigners? Junta-controlled organisations and civilian militias seized their materials while detaining and even attacking activists and politicians, many from the National League for Democracy, which is now in power.

People’s voting rights were suppressed because of a sense of fear, Naruemon said, adding that monitoring agencies and other international bodies were barred from entering Myanmar, even to provide aid after the devastating cyclone hit days before the vote. There were also prevalent reports of fraud and bribery.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Myanmar junta’s practice prior to and during the referendum included using the State Law and Order Restoration Council Order No 2, banning gatherings of more than four people, regardless of whether they intended to create a disturbance or commit a crime.

The junta also enacted Law 5/96, punishing anyone criticising the “roadmap to democracy” with up to 20 years in prison, and the 1962 Printers and Publishers Registration Act, which required publishers to submit materials to authorities for prior approval.

Naruemon said Myanmar’s military government needed to gain legitimacy for their charter draft through the referendum process to secure power amid fractious relations with the country’s ethnic groups.

The current Thai junta, meanwhile, needs approval from the plebiscite to reorganise the power structure because authorities believe normal general elections would not bring their favoured political actors to power.

“To me, our [political] problems can be solved via the normal process,” she said. “But the power-that-be choose to adhere to other [ideas] somehow.”

Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee, a governance expert also from Chulalongkorn University, said public platforms for discussion should be much more open to engage public participation about the charter draft in the domestic arena.

With authorities swinging back and forth on the vaguely written Referendum Bill, the political atmosphere has become opaque with a fearful bias against “Vote No” opinions as junta authorities limit the actions of their critics and draft opponents, Siripan said.

A prominent example is the case of the recently released activists from the New Democracy Movement, who were initially jailed by the Military Court for breaking the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) ban on political gatherings of more than four people. 

The activists were arrested while distributing pamphlets critical of the charter draft.

Also many red-shirt anti-fraud centres were closed down by the government, which said the centres broke the same NCPO ban on public gatherings, while adding that red-shirt monitors would be redundant because the Election Commission (EC) was performing the task. A couple of weeks after the closures, however, the government established its own centres to “support” the EC operation.

Siripan said she feared that stifled discussion about the draft could lead to limited public knowledge, which in turn could contribute to even more intense political uncertainty in the near future.

“The government wants a charter that will be in place for a long time, but their drafters wrote the charter with content that is hardly acceptable to the people,” she said. “The recent political process also denounced the government’s own legitimacy. This is all a paradox to me.”

Many analysts believe the Brexit has morphed into “Bregret” as many British people reportedly regret their “Leave” decision, with additional divisions among voters from different generations and social statuses having made different choices.

Natthanan Kunnamas, an EU expert from Chulalongkorn University, said that phenomenon has been caused because British voters were insufficiently aware of how the EU benefits the UK.

Natthanan said the reasons were rooted deeply in the UK’s political structure as a unitary state, meaning that the Westminster parliament imported EU policies from Brussels with discussions about what was accepted or rejected staying within parliament.

Not only did this affect the perception of ordinary British citizens about the EU’s visibility, she said, but even that of the political elite, which is why many “Leave” campaigners admit that they do not exactly know what the UK should do when it eventually leaves the EU.

Natthanan did not compare the Brexit referendum with Thailand’s impending vote because the junta is a “certain kind” of government. “But we can learn that an insufficient knowledge [on voting matters] can consequently lead to rooted factionalism,” she added.