A costly misstep amid Thailand's recurrent brinkmanship

The uneasy truce in Thai politics since Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra came to power in August 2011 has given way to renewed street protests and familiar brinkmanship.

This time, the source of the controversy is a blanket amnesty Bill that would have absolved Thaksin Shinawatra and all major figures associated with Thailand's political conflict dating back to 2004.

As street demonstrations mounted, the Yingluck government and the ruling Puea Thai party retreated, signalling to pro-government senators to abort the Bill.

The amnesty Bill was duly voted down in the senate but the street protests led by the opposition Democrat Party have escalated into an open call for the government to resign or call a new election. The fallout from the amnesty debacle is at least threefold in the near term.

Impact on policies

FIRSTLY, the government's limited policy momentum has been lost. Ill-conceived and costly policies to guarantee rice prices and provide rebates for car purchases already eroded government credibility.

Its signature plan to invest US$67 billion (S$83 billion) from off-budget expenditures for a massive national rail and road modernisation over seven years will now be tougher to see through.

If Thailand's railways are revolutionised alongside some expansion and improvement of existing highways, the Thai economy could bank on the consequent multiplier effects from reduced transaction costs and efficiency gains for the next two decades.

The downside of this plan to make Thailand the centre of gravity in mainland South-east Asia centres on shoddy implementation and likely corruption and graft.

Yet it is a promising policy that is worth a try in view of other options. But now it will be hindered by the political maelstrom generated by the anti-amnesty fury. The same can be said of the US$11.5 billion flood management plan, which has been charged and accepted by the Constitutional Court for bidding irregularities.

Despite its overwhelming electoral mandate, the Yingluck government has had a limited policy drive because of Thailand's polarised political environment. Oppositional forces have been formidable even though they keep losing at the polls. In the wake of the amnesty controversy, the Yingluck government will now be hard pressed to push through its major policy schemes.

Merits of an amnesty

SECONDLY, the principle of promulgating an acceptable amnesty under agreeable terms for all major political players is now stigmatised.

The amnesty idea is unlikely to be revisited in parliament for at least the mandatory 180 days but its desirability and attractiveness as a way to resolve Thailand's conflict and start anew have now been tainted.

That the notion of amnesty has been discredited along with the aborted amnesty Bill poses longer-term problems when myriad politicians, activists, security officers, and members of the public from all sides across the political divide are tagged with criminal charges relating to the political conflict over the past decade.

At some point in the future, an amnesty that satisfies all sides will be needed to regain Thailand's footing.

In addition, the bit activists and minor players now in prison or on the run from criminal charges for taking part in political activities from Sept 19, 2006 to May 10, 2011 - the proposed original amnesty draft before it was twisted by Thaksin's Puea Thai Party loyalists - may now languish in jail indefinitely.

In original draft, the peripheral participants from all sides, excluding the organisers and ringleaders, would be let go. But this is no longer the case. Some of them and their supporters may later feel more radicalised, not moving towards the centre of the Thai political spectrum but to more extreme positions.

Political calculations

THIRDLY, the amnesty debacle will have implications for political parties and politicians. The Yingluck government has been lucky that its amnesty misstep was not compounded by the International Court of Justice's (ICJ's) decision on the Preah Vihear temple conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.

The ICJ last week ruled that Cambodia will gain much less land than it demanded and that Thailand will lose much less than it feared. Had the ICJ's clarification of its 1962 verdict gone completely in Cambodia's favour, anti-government demonstrators may have gained enough ammunition to topple Ms Yingluck.

Yet the amnesty miscalculation alone will now test the Thaksin-Yingluck working relationship. Whether Ms Yingluck will gain more leverage and autonomy vis-a-vis Mr Thaksin will be crucial for Thai political directions.

While the sibling dynamics are likely to have been impacted by Mr Thaksin's amnesty manoeuvre, it is still unclear whether he will keep at it in disregard of his sister's government stability or whether Ms Yingluck will be relatively more in charge and less under her brother's shadow going forward.

The amnesty failure has also caused dissension in the ruling Puea Thai party, whose constituency bases rest on the support of the "red shirts" under the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship.

The red shirts were alienated and angry with Mr Thaksin's amnesty bid but they quickly realigned with the Puea Thai party and the Yingluck government when they sensed the anti-amnesty movement turning into an outright government ouster.

The red shirts as a social movement and Puea Thai as Thaksin's party machine are still symbiotic but the red shirts and Thaksin are less cohesive and answerable to each other than before.

On the other side, the Democrat Party has had to do its own heavy lifting in the streets this time.

The last time Thailand's brinkmanship and confrontation of this scale transpired was in 2008 when the yellow shirts under the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) did the tough work in street demonstrations while the Democrats stood to gain in parliament once the pro-Thaksin party, prime ministers and politicians were sidelined by the Constitutional Court.

But now the Democrats are an opposition party and a street movement at the same time, although its leading demonstrators have resigned from parliament to fully partake in street-based activism. Unlike the PAD's persistence and perspiration in the streets over several months, the Democrat Party has gone for broke in several days.

Now the Democrats are hoping that the Constitutional Court will today rule that a Bill introduced by the Puea Thai party to install a fully elected Lower House is unconstitutional. Currently, only half of the senators are elected.

Having lost policy momentum and credibility from the amnesty fallout, Prime Minister Yingluck can show responsibility and consider an earlier rather than later election if she survives this round of political turbulence.

A new mandate can be sought after August next year, which would bring her premiership beyond three years in a four-year term. It would allow the Thai people to decide again in light of all that has happened and to enable Thailand to maintain its democratic course.

stopinion@sph.com.sg

The writer teaches international political economy and directs the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

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