Why a referendum |on extending junta's term is a bad move
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Calling a referendum on extending a military junta's term of office is not an uncommon practice worldwide.
But the procedure can take unexpected turns. Blaise Compaore, president of Burkina Faso, tried last year to renew his grip on power with a referendum. Within weeks, that attempt led to another coup and his flight into exile. In 2009 Manuel Zelaya, president of Honduras, tried a similar move and was promptly arrested by his own troops before being bundled into Costa Rica. There are many other examples of the misuse of referenda, including by Musharraf of Pakistan and Marcos of the Philippines. Both were driven from office in due course.
The basic problem is that power-extending referenda tend to suffer from a credibility gulf, since all sorts of pressures are put on the luckless voters. In 2007 a referendum in Thailand narrowly approved the rewritten constitution after a mighty marketing effort by the then-coup government. Even so, the turnout was less than 60 per cent and most voters in the northern provinces placed their cross in the “no” box. But that constitution was duly abolished when the next coup took place last year. In other words, today’s news is tomorrow’s history.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha deserves full praise for rescuing Thailand from its political impasse, corrupted “democracy” and the threat of civil war – which his detractors are now trying to downplay. But the referendum proposal to extend his rule for an extra two years, while reforms are undertaken, is a proposal just too hot to handle. Although General Prayut has ruled out personally standing in the 2016 general election, that notion is an infinitely safer solution for all concerned.
Barry Kenyon
