Charter change won't solve the root of our problems
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The question is not about whether Thais want a brand-new Constitution written by specially-elected drafters. A much-hyped public referendum will ask this particular question, but everyone knows that whatever the answer Thai voters give, it's not going to
The “real question” could be “Why now?” Why is the government risking not just it’s own stability, but also Thailand’s fragile peace, for a constitutional agenda that is unwarranted at best and conspicuous at worst? Whether Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva is politically motivated or not in his campaign against the charter move, the truth is, a new Constitution won’t prevent potentially explosive street protests, or re-unite Thailand. In fact, we can count on the government’s charter plan having the exact opposite effect. Opinion polls have echoed these fears, but while Thai politicians break promises for a living, the ruling Pheu Thai Party is not going to renege on one particular vow, which is to enact a new Constitution.
Don’t let the apparent complexities fool you. Thailand’s charter issue is a simple-enough story. The government, backed by millions of its supporters, wants to remove Article 309 of the current Constitution. They say this article is unwanted residue of the 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin Shinawatra, the patriarch of the present regime. Using its parliamentary strength to erase the article is possible, but that could be decried as abuse of democratic power. Having it done by elected drafters is much more preferable.
The other side says they see right through the government. They claim that suggested changes not concerning Article 309 are either a smokescreen or intended as cool-if-we-get-it-but-we’ll-live-otherwise windfalls. The government’s key target is Article 309, as it constitutionally safeguards the legal consequences of the coup, primarily Thaksin’s conviction, his two-year jail sentence and seizure of his assists. He wants to come home a free man and get his money back. The current state of Thai politics is that simple.
You are paranoid, the government tells its critics. Assuming that drafters, who will be democratically elected, will go after Article 309 is extreme prejudice and totally undemocratic. And if Article 309 is really removed, what’s wrong with doing it in a perfectly democratic way? What’s wrong with doing away with what the “people” don’t like?
Thaksin will escape punishment and that’s what's wrong, insist the other side. Democracy can endorse wrong things but there are limits to that exception. When democracy is used to paper over what is badly wrong, a big mess will ensue, they say. And we don’t need to look too far for an example.
And the government has yet to explain its own discrepancy. On one hand, Thaksin and his supporters call for the return of the 1997 Constitution, but on the other, his camp keeps attacking one key essence of that charter, a check-and-balance system designed to be independent from politicians. The compositions and roles of the likes of the Constitution Court or Supreme Court’s special section handling cases involving political office-holders have been subjected to heavy criticism, which has gone as far describing the system as part of an anti-Thaksin conspiracy. This is not to mention another core value of the 1997 Constitution, which balked at allowing people with huge business interests to lead the government.
What many have failed to mention is that the 1997 Constitution was born out of public exasperation with the vicious circle of political corruption, coup and bloody popular uprising. The checks and balances and anti-graft mechanisms were meant to solve the problem at its root, but they proved to be no match for holders of combined business and political stakes. In the late 1990s, it was a democracy that favoured a non-compromising approach, with influential figures like Sanan Kachornprasart swept aside along the way. In the early 2000s, leniency returned, and the rest is history.
Now Thaksin wants us to believe that he favours a return of the 1997 Constitution. First of all, he should answer this question: For a political system that lets the sister of a fugitive be prime minister, allows her government to implement all kinds of policies, empowers her to name anyone to head the bureaucracy, and condones moves to facilitate his overseas travels, what is there to change by the way? If Article 309 blemishes the existing Constitution, perhaps it’s there for a reason. Two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s true. But one wrong usually leads to another.
Who will benefit from a charter rewrite? It certainly will not improve Thailand’s education. Corruption in the rice price pledging scheme and other projects will not go away. The judiciary, the only pillar capable of counter-balancing political supremacy, is not going to get stronger. Schools will keep demanding “tea money”. The deep South will continue to burn. Narcotics factories will go on functioning.
What some may get is a sense of having “slapped” the military, of giving future “opportunists” a lesson that they cannot mess with politicians. Is that worth rekindling ideological strife to another boiling point? And we can be sure on one thing: the best way to prevent a coup is not rewriting a “coup-makers’ charter”. We can write our own highest law of the land and put anything we want in it, but if we don’t respect it ourselves at the moment of truth, don’t ever think a new charter will make the men in uniform squirm.
