Detractors misunderstand the meaning of democracy

Democracy involves voting, but within a system of government that comprises many different “estates”, the grouping of which ensures efficient, representative and fair administration of the country. Without these estates working effectively together, democracy will only ever deliver a dictatorship by another route.

Recent administrations have failed because the other estates have been unable to balance the power of the elected government, allowing that power to be abused. Certain traditional estates, particularly the judiciary, might never be sufficiently impartial or proficient to complement or constrain an elected parliament. Instead, a working model for Thai democracy might substitute its own estates for those that elsewhere would normally check and balance an elected government. I wouldn’t presume to say which these might be, but I would advise against trying to impose on Thailand any external model, however well it works in other countries.

Whatever the result, it must be balanced and sufficiently transparent, or we are back to abuse of power again. I wish that some of democracy’s detractors, some here in these pages, would appreciate that Thailand’s good friends who call for a speedy transition to civilian rule have been quite vague about how this might be achieved, and critically, have not imposed sanctions. They only urge that government should be civilian and preferably democratic. These sentiments are noble and we should thank them for their understanding and for caring enough to risk expressing their opinions.

The military government has the stated aim of transitioning to a civilian administration as soon as possible. I am sure it will take quite a few more months before Thailand is ready to make that change, but in the meantime, I urge Premier Prayut Chan-o-cha and his colleagues to remain focused on the task at hand and not to squander this opportunity to fix an obviously broken system.

Alan Mehew