"Road show" will be an uphill battle

Politicians sell false hopes for their own survival. Optimists, sometimes at least, see politicians as dream merchants. What is the Bt2-trillion borrowing scheme, exactly? A dream too big, as sympathetic critics proclaim, or a massive political deceit, as charged the government’s political rivals? The Yingluck administration has kick-started a “road show” to put forward its views, but opinions will remain divided.

If Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is selling a dream, her performance earlier this week did not match the price tag of the proposed transport infrastructure revamp. Never an eloquent public speaker, she did what she could do – read a prepared speech in the usual unconvincing manner. It would have been all right if she had been defending an annual budget bill. It was anything but reassuring when what she tried to justify was the need to borrow Bt2 trillion outside the government’s normal budgetary channels.

Even her big brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, admitted in a recent interview that the staggering amount of money could be obtained through conventional budgetary means. But he, like other defenders of the unorthodox borrowing programme, pointed out that the other option would subject infrastructure development to political uncertainties. New governments often put the projects of their rivals on the backburner, say advocates of the Bt2-trillion loan programme.

The government’s road show is being held amid looming legal trouble. Critics have pointed at a possible breach of constitutional responsibilities and rules on how to acquire and spend funds. Since the government has made it clear that this borrowing is a top priority, a constitutional setback could have major repercussions. The government, moreover, has gone too far to backtrack now, and, like much other controversial legislation, the future of the loan lies not within the assembly hall, but in the Constitutional Court.

The simple question is, can we go step by step? In her speech, Yingluck cited competitiveness, wellbeing and the need for a solid “backbone” for Thailand so that smaller parts of the body can function in a more organised and healthy manner. We can hardly argue with that, but the key issue was left largely untouched. And that issue is whether we can do this in a more organised and healthy manner.

People, including governments, take leaps of faith. There’s a fine line, however, between a leap of faith and reckless borrowing with both known and unknown risks. The possible dangers involve lack of transparency, since much would be done outside the normal parliamentary channels, and the threats that financial institutions would face.

The borrowing programme would make the rice price-pledging scheme pale in comparison. And yet, despite repeated government assurances, a great deal has gone wrong in the rice project. It’s encouraged widespread corruption and nepotism and put a heavy financial burden on the government. This is not to mention the political trouble that is still boiling.

The road show will do nothing to pacify critics. And it’s not necessary as far as the government’s supporters are concerned, because they’ve already embraced the loan programme, regardless of what Yingluck says about it. As long as the government fails to seriously address the possibility of a safer way to create functional infrastructure, the road show will be just like its controversial legislation. It will serve only to reinforce political stubbornness that carries with it sizeable risk.