Political reform: been there, done that

Does all that sound familiar? Of course, because we have gone down that road before. Banharn Silapa-archa, with gritted teeth, decided in the late 1990s to allow an unorthodox political reform process that largely made Parliament an uneasy spectator. We had public forums. A Constitution Drafting Assembly was established. And, finally, we came up with the “People’s Charter”, with the “status quo” dragged kicking and screaming to its inauguration.

That Banharn is “coordinating” current efforts to kick-start fresh political reform talks is just a small irony. A closer look and the familiar road isn’t so familiar. The 1997 Constitution enforced the concept of “independent bodies” to check and counter-balance elected politicians; treated corruption and punishment seriously; and made Parliament well aware that while an electoral mandate was to be cherished, abuse of that mandate would be dealt with harshly.

The issue of military opportunism was also addressed by the charter, but on the basis that it takes two to tango. Drafters of the 1997 Constitution wanted to end the coup-uprising-elected government-corruption-coup circle by eliminating the generals’ most popular pretext for staging a military takeover. Graft, if impossible to eradicate, needed to be controlled, and therefore tough rules and measures were constitutionally introduced such as assets monitoring, party dissolution or impeachment powers wielded by more than just elected representatives. 

A TV station by the people and for the people came to existence. Freedom of expression was guaranteed. Last but not least, the People’s Charter set the stage for liberalisation of the lucrative telecom sector. If the most cynical analysts assumed that this Constitution was a part of a conspiracy to sabotage any tycoon’s political career path, it would be worth noting that this was a time when the likes of Banharn Silapa-archa and Chavalit Yongchaiyudh held sway and Chalerm Yoobamrung had virtual contempt for one Thaksin Shinawatra, who had been doing whatever was necessary to build his telecom empire.

What went wrong after the charter’s enactment depends on where you stand on the political divide. But what many people – on both sides of the acrimonious Thai polarity – saw as the best charter in Thailand’s modern history was short-lived. Its spirit of promoting good governance and promoting checks and balances was drastically weakened before the Army put it out of its misery in 2006. That was that. Years of hope and strenuous reformist efforts came to nothing.

Are we as hopeful as we were prior to the People’s Charter? Is the current process unifying politically weary Thais by convincing them that this is the right step to take? While the 1997 charter was obviously meant to solve problems, where will the current “reform” agenda lead us?

In the late 1990s, society was in harmony against political corruption and military interference. Today, it's hard to find someone who can wholeheartedly say no to both. The majority of Thais used to favour direct senatorial elections and extreme punishment like political bans and party dissolution. And, of course, there were days when the likes of the Constitution Court, Election Commission and Administrative Court were hailed as heroic. Now, a big portion of the population wants to keep selected (or appointed) senators so they can “guide” Thai democracy, and the independent bodies are decried by the ruling party as democratically disruptive.

The immediate question is whether Thailand urgently needs more constitutional reform. The ultimate question, however, is how long the new reform, if pushed through by the Pheu Thai-led government, will last. If a “People’s Charter”, created under largely optimistic and harmonious circumstances, can die less than a decade after it was born, how much hope can we have for the current “reform” process? How much can we expect from something that is being boycotted by the biggest opposition party and is fuelling hatred and mistrust on the social media?  

Pheu Thai says the people want it, because the party won the last election on a promise, among others, to get rid of the “military-installed” 2007 charter. The Democrats insist that the proclaimed “reform” will serve individuals more than national interests. A contentious point is an article in the present Constitution that protects all the legal consequences of the 2006 coup including all “summary” corruption investigations, convictions and assets seizures.

We have been there and done that. Why we failed us was not because of our idea of who we are and what we want, which we seemed to agree on and featured in the 1997 charter. We failed because of our inability to become who we wanted to be, and that inability is a result of our overpowering tendency to get what we want no matter what it takes.