Thailand’s Democracy in Transition Charas Suwanmala

 Our lessons learnt  A quick glance on the new constitution

Our lessons learnt

During our 75 years of democratization, we had…  35 years of bureaucratic politics  55 years of unstable government, weak political institutions, occasionally intervened by militant coups, which last year came the last one.  5 latest years of extremely strong and stable government, but with…  Insufficient check-and-balance mechanism,  High rent seeking, high political and fiscal illusion, and high corruption,  High degree of civil right violation  high irresolvable conflicts among groups and territories, then lead to the military coups,  10 years growing up of direct democracy and decentralization, still not sustainable and had been weakened by national patronage politics.  Is democracy still viable in Thailand?

A quick glance on our new constitution Charas Suwanmala

We want to achieve four fundamental areas on Democratization  Strengthen the check-and-balance mechanisms  Enhance direct democracy  Reinforce and enhance civil rights  Prevent political illusions and corruptions

i. Strengthen the check-and- balance mechanisms  Activate the parliamentary control measures.  Our new constitution  Free MPs from party control over their debates, votes, and etc. (162).  1/5 of MPs can propose to have inconfidential debate against the Premier and  1/6 MPs can do against ministers (155).

i. Strengthen the check-and- balance mechanisms  Prevent the overwhelming majority government.  Our new constitution…  prevent party merging in the parliament (104)

i. Strengthen the check- and-balance mechanisms  Activate the control power of judicial branch  Our new constitution  Have the supreme court in charged of cases against political posts (263), election frauds (139), and civil rights enforcement (212)  Have the constitution court review the administrative law- making (184).

i. Strengthen the check- and-balance mechanisms  Strengthen independent institutions  Independent institutions can propose budgets directly to the parliament (168), to free this institutions from fiscal burdens.

ii. Enhance direct democracy  Strengthen the media  Our new constitution  Not only address the principle of free media, no public censer allowed, and no state subsidies (45,46), but also…  Mandate that political posts are not allowed to own, directly or indirectly, the media agencies (48)

ii. Enhance direct democracy  Open political spaces for citizens  Our new constitution  10,000 peoples can propose to initiate laws (163)  20,000 peoples can propose to recall and impeach political posts at all levels, including leaders of independent institutions (164)  50,000 peoples can propose for constitutional amendment.

ii. Enhance direct democracy  Open political spaces for citizens  Our new constitution  Referendums are required for state actions that have serious impacts on citizens’ way of life, including FTA engagement (165) and constitutional amendment (291)  Establish “the civic political development fund” to provide resources in supporting the civic movement.

ii. Enhance direct democracy  Strengthen community and local self- government  Our new constitution  Streamlining intergovernmental relations, with respect to fiscal and functional devolution, personnel management, and others (281, 283, 288).  Acknowledge community rights to protect their environment (67)

iii. Reinforce & enhance civil rights (26-62)  Remove legal preconditions to automatically activate civil rights once the constitution is promulgated.  Reinforce right to access to free primary education, basic health facilities, and the right of civil disobedience.

iii. Reinforce & enhance civil rights (26-62)  The Human Right Commission can bring cases directly to the court (257).  Enhance basic rights, such as…  the right of disadvantages (the elderly, the homeless poor, and the disabilities) to access to basic living facilities.  The right of public employees to form labor unions.

iv. Prevent political illusion and corruptions  Strengthen fiscal democracy  Our new constitution Mandate to have…  Tax reform to attain a fair- taxation principle.  introduce the public finance administration act that founds the principle of fiscal democracy.

iv. Prevent political illusions and corruptions  Prevent conflict of interests in politics  Our new constitution mandate that…  Political posts are not allowed to involve, directly or indirectly (via nominee agents), public concession and purchasing, or receive benefits from public organizations (265).

iv. Prevent illusions and corruptions  Activate political ethics  Our new constitution  Put political ethics in place, enforced by the Ombudsmen, the parliament, and citizen, through the impeachment process (280).

The progress and next steps  The drafted constitution passed the national referendum on August 19, 2007, with 58.18% accepted.  The general election is coming up in the next three months, December  The new democratic government is expected to assume power in the next four- five months, January-February 2008.

 That’s all, and thank you.  More discussion is preferable in the question-answer session.