We must depoliticise the fight against corruption

Apart from how to “dissolve the colours” – the jargon for making both camps of the Thai political divide co-exist peacefully – a major question hanging in the air for everyone contemplating political reform has to do with the highly-politicised anti-corruption mechanism. The current National Anti-Corruption Commission will be a part of Thailand’s war on graft, most people agree, but without political will at the highest levels and a total change in Thai attitudes toward graft from the bottom up, the NACC will remain what it has been – a divisive political apparatus whose action is lauded by one side and condemned by the other. Unless our “reformists” come up with a magic formula regarding fights against corruption, Thailand’s political polarity will have just been swept under the rug.

This doesn’t mean the NACC has been an absolute failure. Among the first big-name politicians put away by the current anti-corruption mechanism was the late Sanan Kachornprasart. He was one of the country’s most influential power-brokers when, while serving as secretary-general of the Democrat Party, was investigated for a relatively small amount of debt that wasn’t supposed to be in his assets report. That he was subsequently banned from politics for five years did not feature much in claims that the country’s graft-busters were biased against Thaksin Shinawatra and his political troops.

It’s too late to support, defend or criticise the NACC. Of course, the past led to the present and the present paves the way for the future, but we know this much: If we combat corruption the same old ways, political crises similar to the ones that rocked Thailand over the past few years will be something waiting to happen. So, in addition to revamping the national conscience where graft is concerned and shoving ethics down our politicians’ throats, what can be done to make the country’s anti-corruption apparatus efficient, accountable and acceptable?

Firstly, we should start with the law. Thailand must be among the countries with the most complicated anti-graft laws and regulations. They do not make graft-busters’ work easy the way it should be. There have been dilemmas, political considerations and pressure all around. Graft-busters must be armed with the simplest laws and the process of dealing with the suspects must be swift and simple regardless of their political status.

Secondly, the graft-busters must be well-protected and well-connected to the public, whose cooperation, tip-offs and scrutiny will be crucial for their work. To prevent political influences from dictating the graft-busters’ performances, an atmosphere of total transparency must be initiated, turning “confidential information” into something highly accessible to the public. Whether or not there should be “confidential information” in executive affairs is debatable, but in anti-corruption fights, “confidential informa?tion” only gives rise to cover-ups, bribery or distortion. The transparency will also help reduce charges of prejudice, which have plagued the current Thai system.

Thirdly, a culture and legal means of protecting whistle-blowers must be 

cultivated. This is the only way for the future graft-busters to get useful 

help from the public. This measure, of course, must be carried out along 

with the other methods to ensure neutrality, greater public awareness and swift responses to “red flags.”

A lot of things have been wrong in Thailand. If not, the process of selecting or recruiting anti-graft officials would not have been widely-analysed or interpreted as one camp’s benefit or a rival camp’s disadvantage. We often say anti-corruption authorities need to be “independent”, but the truth is politics, the hotbed of corruption, often had a say in the process of combating graft from start to finish. 

Depoliticising anti-corruption fights is difficult, not least because politicians naturally still want to have a big say on the issue. But if “reformists” need a good reason to try, evidence of how much damage failures can cause is all around them.