Tag: Prayuth Chan-ocha

Legacy of 2014 coup haunts Thai reformist’s bid for PM

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Two months after Pita Limjaroenrat’s party triumphed in Thailand’s May 2023 election, the reformist politician failed to win enough votes in parliament this week to become prime minister. Thursday’s vote came just days after Thailand’s caretaker prime minister and former army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, announced his retirement from politics. But the junta chief’s legacy still haunts Thailand’s shaky democracy.

Gone, maybe, but not soon forgotten. As Pita Limjaroenrat, the 42-year-old Harvard graduate who won Thailand’s general election, leaned back in his black leather chair as vote after vote was counted Thursday at a joint session of parliament, did he feel his predecessor’s shadow standing over him? Before the final result was declared, it was already clear – Pita had not won the support he needed to follow former commander-in-chief Prayuth Chan-ocha as prime minister. 

Photographed in varying stages of frustration throughout the vote, the winner of the May 2023 polls needed 375 votes in both houses of parliament, the house of representatives and the senate, to become prime minister. He got 324. Across both houses, 182 lawmakers voted against his candidacy, with 199 abstaining.

A disappointing result for the reformist candidate, but not a surprising one. Under the military-drafted constitution promulgated in 2017, all 250 members of the senate – now 249, following an eleventh-hour resignation the day before – were appointed by the junta that seized power under then-army chief Prayuth in 2014. 

Only 13 of these senators supported Pita’s candidacy, with 34 voting against him. A further 159 senators abstained. Dozens more did not show up to the vote.

Thursday’s setback may mark the beginning of the end for the liberal frontrunner. On Saturday, Pita announced that if he failed again in a second ballot set for next week, he would withdraw his candidacy for the premiership.

Although he announced his retirement from politics just two days before the vote, caretaker Prime Minister Prayuth’s nine years in power cast a suffocating shadow over Thursday’s ballot. The arch-royalist seized power in part to ensure the smooth succession of unpopular crown prince Maha Vajiralongkorn as his father’s health continued to decline. The former army chief then spent years writing the long-standing alliance between the military and the monarchy into the nation’s highest laws. 

Despite the official end of absolute monarchy in Thailand in 1932, the sovereign continues to wield enormous influence over Thai politics and society.

In 2017, the junta amended the law to give the new king complete control over the nation’s Crown Property Bureau, which manages real estate and investments valued by Forbes in 2012 at $30 billion. The next year, those holdings were signed directly over to King Mahavajiralongkorn himself. The military has consistently justified its often-violent interventions into Thai politics as necessary measures to defend the Crown.

Since taking power, Prayuth oversaw a steep rise in prosecutions under the nation’s infamous lèse-majesté legislation, which makes any criticism of the sovereign punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Pita’s campaign promise to amend these lèse-majesté laws helped propel the US-educated politician to victory earlier this year. It has now made him a target for the backers of an institution that brooks no criticism. 

Read moreIs Thailand at a turning point after Move Forward party’s election win?

Prayuth played a decisive role in uniting the nation’s powerful business interests and conservative Bangkok elite behind the royal family in the face of mounting popular discontent with the Crown’s impunity, according to Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the faculty of political science at Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani University. 

“We can see the establishment and strengthening of the power of the conservative group, which was intended to prevent the rise of the liberal forces in the country,” he said. “To some extent he has been able to force the conservative mindset, to strengthen support for the monarchy among the conservative group.”

Thai political scientist Pavin Chachavalpongpun, who lives in exile in Kyoto, Japan, after facing lèse-majesté charges for criticising the junta and its royal patrons following the 2014 coup, said Prayuth’s role in fusing the monarchy and military had directly set the stage for Pita’s failure on Thursday. 

“Prayuth left a legacy of the immense power of the military in politics,” Pavin told FRANCE 24 on Thursday. “But it’s not just about entrenching the power of the military in politics, but more importantly that of the monarchy too. Hence they attempted to put in place an infrastructure that would maintain their footholds in politics, and that has been the setting up of the senate as [an] instrument of the old elites. Today the senate did its job as designed by those elites.”

A history of violence

Prayuth, who was born into a military family and graduated from the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy before becoming a commander in the prestigious and politically connected Queen’s Guards, is no stranger to the use of force for political ends.

In 2010, he was in charge of the troops that opened fire on the Red Shirt protesters who had stormed the capital from the opposition’s rural strongholds in support of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. 

In 2014, the commander would launch his own putsch against Thaksin’s sister Yingluck, who had also been democratically elected on a platform of lifting Thailand’s rural poor out of poverty. Under the military junta that he led, which styled itself the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), Prayuth oversaw the redrafting of the country’s constitution, which tweaked the electoral process to make it harder for any one party to win a majority and gave the military government the authority to hand-pick the nation’s 250-strong senate ahead of the 2019 elections – which Prayuth, unsurprisingly, won. 

Titipol said that Prayuth’s nine-year grip on power had “left a big scar” on Thailand’s political system. 

“The constitution was initially written to make sure the NCPO, that is to say the coup-makers, could remain in power for another eight years after it was written,” he said.

As well as securing the military’s interests in parliament, Titipol said, the constitution gave the nation’s extra-parliamentary bodies broad powers to disband political parties – powers that a number of these institutions have used freely throughout Thailand’s shaky return to electoral politics. 

Ostensibly independent organs including the Constitutional Court, Election Commission and National Anti-Corruption Commission have all been accused by the opposition of selectively targeting challengers to a conservative coalition of forces that seeks to keep the royal family beyond any possible reproach. 

“The NCPO played its part in working closely with those politicised institutions,” Pavin said. “We must understand that those institutions predated the NCPO. If [the monarchy] would be a kind of network, then they are in the same network working to strengthen the prerogatives of the monarchy. The main objective is to eliminate challenges against the monarchy.”

Stacking the deck

On the eve of Thursday’s vote, the Election Commission recommended that Pita be suspended from parliament following an investigation that found that the lawmaker owned shares in a media company – prohibited under Thai electoral laws. Pita has said he inherited the shares in the iTV television station from his father, and that the station has not broadcast anything since 2007. 

The same day, the Constitutional Court accepted a petition filed by lawyer Theerayut Suwankesorn, who has claimed that by campaigning on reforming Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws, both Pita and his party have violated Article 49 of the 2017 constitution, which forbids citizens from trying to “overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State”. The party has been given a fortnight to present their defence.

That same court has been instrumental in restricting the number of players on the political field. In 2020, the Constitutional Court dissolved the Future Forward Party – the predecessor to Pita’s Move Forward Party – and banned its leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, himself an outspoken critic of the monarchy, from politics for a decade.

The year before, the opposition Thai Raksa Chart Party had also been dissolved for proposing the king’s own sister as its prime ministerial candidate.

In 2022, the court ruled that Prayuth himself could stay in power until 2025, effectively extending his term limit beyond the eight years provided under the constitution – a limit he was on the verge of reaching, having appointed himself prime minister in the aftermath of the 2014 coup. 

“If you look at independent bodies in Thailand, they are not truly independent,” Titipol said. “They were to some extent created and appointed by Prayuth Chan-ocha himself, and his people remain there.”

Pita has given himself one final chance to win the premiership. But with the threat of parliamentary suspension hanging over him amid mounting legal challenges in the courts, the deck seems increasingly stacked against him.

For Titipol, this cordoning-off of Thailand’s political field from popular pressure is the lasting legacy of Prayuth Chan-ocha’s nine years in power. 

“Prayuth didn’t do any good for the future of Thai democracy,” he said. “His so-called Thai-style democracy is not liberal democracy, as he, and the military, still have control over the process.”

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Thai activists facing royal defamation charges end 50-day hunger strike

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Two young Thai protesters facing royal defamation charges announced Saturday they were ending their marathon hunger strike following doctors’ fears they could suffer organ failure.

Tantawan “Tawan” Tuatulanon, 21, and Orawan “Bam” Phupong, 23, began their hunger strike on January 18 to urge political parties to support the abolition of the kingdom’s royal insult laws – among the harshest in the world.

Wednesday marked the 50th day of the young women’s protest. They were freed from custody last month as their health declined.

“Tawan and Bam would like to inform the public that we have stopped the hunger strike to save our lives to continue fighting,” Tawan said in a Facebook post on Saturday. “The medical staff are concerned our kidneys and other organs are affected by the long period without food and water.”

The pair were rushed to Thammasat Hospital near Bangkok on March 3 amid fears they would not survive the night.

Days later they were still alive and determined to continue their strike from hospital. “I talked to them: they are a little bit better. Still very tired,” said their lawyer, Kunthika Nutcharut, on Tuesday. 

Throughout the strike the activists reiterated three demands: justice system reform, the abolition of strict laws that make it illegal for people in Thailand to criticise the monarchy and government, and the release of three activists (who go by the names Kathatorn, Thiranai and Chaiporn) who were refused bail while awaiting trial for taking part in anti-government protests. 

They faced stiff opposition. Thailand has a recent history of pro-democracy protests that gain traction before being put down. Prime Minister Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha has served in his role since seizing power in a military coup in 2014, after which he expanded the use of lèse majesté laws, and successfully thwarted anti-government protests in 2020. 

The ruling Pheu Thai party, together with its previous incarnations, has won every Thai election since 2001. 

“People have said the activists are doing this knowing that they might not even win, but it’s a way to show the public the ugliness of the courts, the monarchy and all the key institutions,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, associate professor of politics and international relations at Kyoto University and a political exile from Thailand. 

Hunger strikes 

Tawan and Bam currently face charges for conducting a poll at Siam Paragon shopping mall on February 8, 2022, that asked whether royal motorcades were an inconvenience to Bangkok residents.  

While awaiting trial, Tawan, a university student, and Bam, a supermarket worker, were released on bail in March 2022 on the condition that they ceased participation in protests and activities that insult the royal family.  

On January 16 their bail was revoked at their request, to call attention to the practice of pretrial detention for political activists in Thailand. On January 18, the pair began their hunger strike while housed in Bangkok’s Central Women’s Correctional Institution. 

Within days their condition had deteriorated. “They did dry fasting on the first three days,” Kunthika said, meaning the women refused food and water. “It was so extreme that their bodies became sick to the point that doctors are not usually faced with cases like theirs.”  

The pair were eventually transferred to Thammasat University Hospital near Bangkok, where they received small amounts of water and vitamins on doctors’ orders. On March 3, the 44th day of the strike, they discharged themselves to join dozens of protesters supporting their cause outside Thailand’s Supreme Court. 

A special tent had been set up outside the court to house the women, but by evening doctors feared they were at risk of kidney failure and may not survive the night without medical intervention. Tawan was so weak that she became unresponsive, Kunthika said. “She’s already doing her second hunger strike since last year, and her body has not fully recovered since then.”  

The lawyer says the pair agreed to return to hospital on the basis that while they remain alive, other activists may see charges against them dropped. 

Of the 16 people detained without bail pending trial since anti-government protests in 2020, only three now remain in jail. Many activists were granted bail in February, during the hunger strike. “And some people argue that [their protest] is why the court was willing to set free a number of people charged under these laws,” said Pavin. 

Kunthika said in the same period, dozens of political prisoners have had their obligation to wear electronic tagging devices removed. Some have also had restrictions lifted limiting the hours during which they can leave the house.  

Criticising the monarchy 

Breaking lèse majesté laws, which forbids defamatory, insulting or threatening comments about senior members of the royal family, comes with a penalty of a minimum of three and a maximum of 15 years in prison under article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code.  

Although the law officially forbids criticism of senior members of the royal family, activist groups say it is widely misinterpreted by authorities to cover negative comments on any aspect of the monarchy whatsoever. Sedition laws also prohibit criticism of the government. 

Since anti-government protests flared in Thailand in 2020, more than 200 people have been charged with lèse majesté crimes. The law has been used by all political factions to silence opposition, activist groups say. 

Lifting charges for Tawan and Bam’s fellow activists means the Thai court is at risk of undermining its own authority. On one hand, the number of lèse majesté cases in Thailand has “increased significantly” in the past year, Human Rights Watch reports. On the other, if activism can force through legal reversals it shows, “the king could also force the courts to do something. It raises very, very important questions about Thai jurisprudence”, Kunthika said. 

In parliament, two opposition parties, Pheu Thai and Move Forward, have called for two of Tawan and Bam’s three demands to be met – the release of political prisoners and judicial reform. Only Move Forward has broached the third demand, calling for reform – but not removal – of the lèse majesté law. 

As Tawan and Bam’s health has deteriorated, human rights groups have urgently called for the government to engage with the activists, to no avail. “To date, the Thai government has shown little political will to address the situation of the activists on hunger strike,” said Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong, researcher for Amnesty International’s regional office in Thailand. “In general, they are not giving due weight to the voices of young people involved in protests.” 

Last month the prime minister, through his office’s spokesman, said he hopes the two activists are safe but urged parents to “monitor their children’s behavior and build the correct understandings to ensure that [the children] do not believe and fall victim to political manipulation”.  

‘Imploring and pleading’ 

Anti-government protesters in Thailand are typically young, often children, who rely heavily on social media to spread their message. Tawan and Bam’s case has received more mainstream media coverage within Thailand than expected, their lawyer says, with major newspapers and television channels all reporting on their hunger strike.  

Throughout the protests the pair have tried to strike a non-confrontational tone. Their legal team has said that rather than trying to “force and coerce” authorities the activists are “imploring and pleading … with their own suffering”. 

The sight of two young adults willing to edge so close to death for the release of their fellow activists and the integrity of their country’s institutions is rare. “This is the first time [in Thailand] that people are doing a hunger strike for other people,” Kunthika said. 

There is also international support. Thousands have signed an open letter from Amnesty International appealing to the prime minister to withdraw charges against activists like Tawan and Bam, and to release others. 

“It is still not enough to push the Thai government to take the appropriate actions,” said Chanatip. “It is clear that more support is needed both domestically and internationally to ensure that Thailand stops its crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, which prompted the hunger strike.” 

The timing of their hunger strike brings also complexities on the ground. General elections are scheduled for May, bringing hope for some that opposition parties will succeed at the ballot box.  

Until then, there is low appetite for anti-government protest – which the hunger strike may have otherwise inspired. “Even among the pro-democracy groups it seems like election is something that they think will be the light at the end of the tunnel,” Pavin said. “[They think] maybe we can hold for the next few months because the election will come. Then if the result doesn’t fulfil us, we can think about protest.” 

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