Populist policies aren't reaching the right voters

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday made merit on elephant-back before a mobile Cabinet meeting in Surin province, in a grand return to the Pheu Thai Party’s main support base. Yingluck and her Cabinet members will this week attend meetings across the Northeast, which will also serve the purpose of solidifying support for the party by promoting its populist policies. Before going to Surin, the premier visited Roi Et to launch a farmers’ credit-card programme. The event marks a strategic political move by the government.

The Cabinet meeting was held a day after Pheu Thai MPs met in Pattaya to review the party’s political direction amid changing circumstances. The Pheu Thai Party can no longer be complacent about the votes it might receive from its traditional supporters in the rural Northeast. This is not to mention the friction inside the red-shirt movement, which is closely allied to the ruling party. Some farmers have said they enjoyed no benefit from the government’s farm subsidy policies as Pheu Thai promised they would. 

During the party summit in Pattaya, Nakhon Panom MP Paichit Sriworakhan criticised the government for failing to improve the wellbeing of farmers in the Northeast. He was quoted as saying the party should have paid 10 times more attention to Isaan people. 

Surin was an electoral stronghold of the now-defunct Thai Rak Thai Party, the predecessor of Pheu Thai, until the defection of Newin Chidchob of the Bhum Jai Thai Party, which managed to snatch votes from Pheu Thai in the last election. The decision to host the Cabinet meeting in Surin could be seen as a shrewd political move by Pheu Thai, to either persuade Bhum Jai Thai to join the Pheu Thai camp, or to lure away Bhum Jai Thai supporters with more promises of populist handouts. 

The first Isaan Cabinet meeting of the Yingluck government was held in February, in Udon Thani, a stronghold of the red shirts, to thank voters there for supporting Pheu Thai in the election. The party did not visit Ubon Ratchathani province, apparently because Democrat MPs hold some sway there.

Pheu Thai has a good chance to continue controlling the overall vote in the Northeast, but it should take nothing for granted. Some of its supporters have already voiced concern about the negative consequences of the party’s populist spending programmes.

In Surin a small group of farmers yesterday held banners protesting the misuse of the government’s subsidy money. The farmers are aware that a substantial amount of money is being spent on populist schemes, but they feel that no benefits have reached them.

A group of non-profit organisations in the province also came out to raise awareness of the environmental impact of industrialisation. The local non-governmental organisations called for public participation in the decision-making about power plants that are due to be constructed in Surin. The farmers fear that discharges of waste from industrial plants will affect the livelihood of people in the area who work on various types of plantations, including sugarcane, cassava and eucalyptus.

Yingluck and her ministers should look at ways to improve the wellbeing of people in Isaan in a sustainable manner. They should seriously consider a departure from cash handouts, populist give-aways, subsidies and crop-price guarantees. Populism is not always a magic solution. In fact, some of the government’s current spending programmes will have negative consequences because they don’t encourage or enable people to stand on their own two feet.

Many Pheu Thai supporters are still struggling on unproductive farms, with virtually no hope of being able to stay in their communities in the longer term. Many have already sold their land to big investors or influential people, and migrated to the cities to do menial jobs. 

Every election season politicians flock to the Northeast – where the majority of votes lie – to bargain for power and ultimately a Cabinet seat. But the fact is that, right after the election, the Isaan people are forgotten until a crisis arises, the government’s popularity falls, or it’s election time again.