Since the election results of December 23rd were announced, attention has been focused on whether the winners, the People's Power Party (PPP), will be able to form a coalition government - and whether they will be given the opportunity to do so.
The PPP fell just short of being able to declare an overall majority, despite being by far the largest vote-winner. However, many of their victorious candidate have been under assault from the Election Commission (EC), which has been deliberating whether candidates should receive yellow or red cards for any transgressions. The accusations of vote-buying have hung heavily in the air. It is certainly possible that vote-buying did take place because it has done so at every election in Thailand over the past three decades, if not longer. Since politicians have, apart from the now-dissolved Thai Rak Thai party, had no overarching ideology to sustain their position, they have relied upon personality politics and local patronage to persuade voters to mark their ballots in their favour. Voters have little reason to prefer one politician above another, consequently, since all offer more or less the same thing, hence the use of bribery.
Independent election observers report that vote-buying took place in various constituencies but on behalf of a variety of different parties. It comes as something of a surprise, then, that it appears that it is PPP that is being exclusively targeted for investigation. Inevitably, people suspect that the EC is acting as a puppet for the military junta, which has done little to hide its antipathy to the PPP and its willingness to prevent them from serving as a government. Yet the role of the EC is complex and indicates some of the ambiguity and ambivalence that often conceals reality in Thai politics. The EC was created as part of the 1997 Constitution - the "People"s Constitution' - which was torn up by the junta when their tanks seized control of the country. Yet the current EC members were appointed during the administration of now-ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Of course, Thaksin was not able to choose just anyone - not only must the Commissioners be suitably qualified but they also had to be accepted by those behind-the-scenes individuals who wield so much of the real power in the country. So EC members are neither wholly dedicated to the democratic side or the military side - in common with other elements of society, they are divided both within and without.
The deadline for forming a coalition approaches rapidly and it appears that PPP will succeed in doing so, in part because of the agreement of Puea Pandin to join - curious, since some people believed that party to be the secret nominees of the military. Then again, things are often not quite what they seem in the Land of Smiles.
