Public, not politicians, must judge party laws

Thailand’s biggest political parties probably need to be more selective in condemning proposed legal changes that could affect their future functions. While their bitterness is understandable, the Pheu Thai and Democrat parties are in danger of being accused of overreacting and being protective of vested interests. While it’s true that the designed measures are being mapped out when the country remains under a military dic?tatorship, not everyone of them is bad.
After the charter draft passed a national referendum early last month, the leading parties can be forgiven for suspecting that the military rulers are not finished in their efforts to keep future elected politicians in check. Fuelling the parties’ fears are contin?uous official talks about how new laws are needed to further reform the political landscape, starting with how a party can be formed all the way to how it could “sell” policies before elections.
Let’s, for the time being, ignore the chicken-and-egg question of whether elected politicians should be controlled and by whom. Let’s concentrate on the accusations being hurled at political parties at the moment.
Was pre-coup politics some sort of “investment” because the people involved were more concerned about recouping their losses than serving the country? The answer is “Yes”. Maybe not everyone was after money, but the majority of politicians were.
Was it true that parties could be “owned” or “mortgaged” or “sold” for a price? Were MPs little more than “enslaved employees” of the “owners”, who could instruct them to vote in Parliament according to agendas and against their wills? Were those votes regularly needed for vested interests rather than public good? Yes, yes and yes.
Was it true that crooked lawmakers sometimes demanded payment or big favours in exchange for their support of certain parliamentary pushes? Again, the answer is “Yes.” While this question seems to clash with the “enslaved employees” issue, both categories of lawmakers truly existed in Thai politics.
All the questions concern regular practices, not one-off incidents. Of course, it’s quite a shame that the issues have to be addressed while Thailand is under military rule, and people who may or may not have ulterior motives. A bigger shame, however, is the fact that elected or democratic parliaments rarely discussed the problems, let alone tried to introduce concrete measures to solve them.
Parties’ outcries over proposed rules are expected to intensify. The military is being accused of trying to bring the political party system back to a “zero setting”.
Pheu Thai, in particular, has accused the military of wanting to destroy it for good. It has the backing of its arch-rival, the Democrats, whose leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, doesn’t like the draft charter but has toned down his criticism after the referendum.
The proposed “control” of political parties ranges from membership registration, to dissolution of parties that fail to filed candidates in an election, to severe punishment for “vote buyers”, and scrutiny of parties’ “policies” by the Election Commission before an election.
Of course, the devil is in the details. But the devil is also in moves to block some details.
From now on to the day of the next election, debate will focus on the intention of both the military and conventional politicians. It’s up to Thai society to keep its eyes open and looking for possible hidden agendas. After all, the real outcry must come from the Thai people, not those too deeply involved in the game.