Back from holidays? Now hang on to your seats

The impeachment cases against former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, former Parliament president Somsak Kiatsuranont and his deputy Nikom Wairatpanij have not gone anywhere. In fact, they can get into full gear within the next 24 hours.

The biggest question is not whether the trio will be impeached or not. The answer(s) to that should come by the end of this month and there are not many scenarios. The biggest question is what will happen if they are impeached – or not. As we all know, Thai politics is a crazy web of interconnections, and anything can be a catalyst for an upheaval.

Let’s tackle the smaller question first. Will any of them be impeached? There are a few scenarios: 

A – All three will be found guilty.

B – All three will be acquitted. 

C – Yingluck will be found guilty but Somsak and Nikom will be acquitted.

D – Yingluck will escape impeachment but Somsak and Nikom won’t.

(It’s logical to assume that Somsak and Nikom will be impeached or acquitted together because they practically face the same charges of trying to overthrow Thailand’s political system.)

We might see so-called “technical acquittals”, meant to soothe the pro-guilty camp. A minimum of 132 votes out of 220 are needed to impeach, so Yingluck or Somsak or Nikom can get away with 131 “guilty” votes or fewer. Acquittals with high numbers of guilty votes would presumably keep one camp from boiling over while preventing the other side from getting too jubilant. In other words, “technical acquittals” should, hopefully, make anti-Thaksinites refrain from demanding interim Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s head and the other camp less vocal in asking him why he staged the coup last May in the first place.

(“Aren’t there technical impeachments?” you wonder. In the Thai political context, impeachment is impeachment. So, the answer is “no”. I mean, when the referee says it’s a goal, it’s a goal, no matter what.)

It’s not as easy to predict what will transpire in the aftermath of the interim legislature’s rulings. Ones don’t need to be experts to know that either “A” or “B” will have great ramifications one way or another. Just exactly how big the impact will be depends on so many things, not least Prayut’s eagerness to clamp down on dissent.

“C” and “D” will also be quite problematic. Politically, “C” equals “A” in terms of impact because Yingluck is the main focus. If she is impeached, it doesn’t quite matter whether Somsak and Nikom go down with the ship or not. The red shirts won’t set off fireworks if she is found guilty while the two men are not. If, however, Somsak and Nikom are impeached but she survives, as in Scenario “D”, the red shirts will uncork their champagne.

Still, “D” equals “B” as far as the other camp is concerned. They won’t set off fireworks if the men are found guilty while she is not. And, of course, the champagne will be uncorked if she is impeached, regardless of what happens to Somsak and Nikom.

Here’s the thing, though. We have been made to pay too much attention on the persons instead of the allegations. Somsak and Nikom, in fact, face more severe charges than Yingluck, ones that weigh badly on the Pheu Thai Party. Her case concerns corruption, albeit at a staggering level, but the men’s case involved alleged efforts to topple the political system. If Somsak and Nikom are found guilty, Pheu Thai will find it hard to escape responsibility, and a new political ball can be set rolling.

There are indications, however, that it’s not easy to find 132 interim Parliament votes to impeach the two men. It was a close call already when the appointed legislators decided to begin impeachment proceedings against them. The case of Somsak and Nikom is very much political and has stirred a bitter ideological debate on whether an unelected legislature should tell an elected Parliament what to do. Compared to this, Yingluck’s case is a primary-school test involving fiscal money, the amounts of rice sold, lost or poorly stored.

So January will set the tone for the whole year. It’s also worth noting that the impeachment case against Yingluck will affect her related criminal case, which the National Anti-Corruption Commission looks likely to pursue unilaterally. Since the public prosecutors are reluctant to join hands with the NACC in taking her to court for alleged corruption in the rice-pledging scheme, a “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict by the interim parliament will have added significance.

If impeached, Yingluck could be banned from politics, depending on the new Constitution. If the Supreme Court’s political division convicts her, she could end up in jail. Or she could be home free. It doesn’t matter what happens, really, because, either way, we all will have to tighten our seatbelts.