The Military and Democratic Backsliding in Thailand Panuwat Panduprasert Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Leeds School of Politics and International Studies January 2019 2 Declaration The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his/her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2019 The University of Leeds and Panuwat Panduprasert 3 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to a number of people who have provided me with support and encouragement throughout this PhD journey. Many thanks to my supervisors Prof Duncan McCargo and Dr Adam Tyson for their kindness, encouragement and thoughtful feedback throughout our time together at the University of Leeds. I also would like to thank POLIS staff members Matthew Wilkinson and Martin Pelan for helping me with personal problems and other practical issues. I also thank my parents, my colleagues at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and Chanidapa Piyawawattanakul for their constant support in financial and personal matters. Thanks also to all informants for providing highly valuable information during my fieldwork. A number of friends and colleagues helped me gain access to many of those informants, and for this reason I owe them a great deal of gratitude as well. Lastly, this thesis would not have been made possible without the scholarship from Thailand’s Office of the Higher Education Commission which I received in 2014. 4 Abstract This thesis aims to analyse the political role of Thailand’s military in relation to the country’s democratic backsliding in the twenty-first century. It has long been well known that the military is a key actor in Thai politics. The two most recent military coups, in September 2006 and May 2014, added to the long list of military coups that Thailand has seen since the end of the absolute monarchy era in 1932. Before 2006, however, there was a 15-year period during which the military was virtually absent from politics and electoral democracy appeared to take hold. As successive civilian governments won and lost power in parliamentary elections rather than through non-electoral means, Thailand at the time was evidently heading towards democratic consolidation, cementing its place as part of the global ‘Third Wave’ of countries adopting democracy and rejecting authoritarian rule. The 2006 coup was thus a sudden and largely unexpected event, putting a stop to the previous democratic trajectory while marking a return of the military to forefront of the domestic political scene. Drawing on first-hand empirical data, the thesis looks at how the military has manipulated politics and contributed to the weakening of Thailand’s democratic prospects. The thesis provides a detailed analysis of the role of the military that focuses on the period from 2006 to the present, a period spanning five elected governments and two military-appointed ones. 5 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 8 Chapter 2 Concepts and Context 25 Chapter 3 Thailand’s 2006 Military Coup 54 Chapter 4 The Military after the 2006 Coup 98 Chapter 5 The Military during the Abhisit Government 127 Chapter 6 The 2014 Coup and Anti-Democratic Politics 151 Chapter 7 Conclusion 183 Bibliography 186 6 List of Acronyms AFAPS Armed Forces Academy Preparatory School ASC Asset Scrutiny Committee BJT Bhum Jai Thai CDC Constitution Drafting Committee CNS Council for National Security CRES Center for the Resolution of Emergency Situation CRMA Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy DP Democrat Party NCPO National Council for Peace and Order NLA National Legislative Assembly NRC National Reform Council PAD People’s Alliance for Democracy PDRC People’s Democratic Reform Committee PPP People Power Party PT Pheu Thai PTP Pheu Thai Party RTA Royal Thai Army RTAF Royal Thai Air Force RTN Royal Thai Navy TRT Thai Rak Thai UDD United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship 7 List of Tables Table 1.1 List of Interviewees 21 A note on convention Throughout this thesis, Thai names are cited and alphabetised by given name (the first name) because Thai people are commonly known by their first name. For example, Prajak Kongkirati will be referred to as Prajak in the main text, and his full name will be listed in the bibliography. A note on transliteration All Thai words are transcribed into English using Leeds University Romanisation system, except Thai proper names which I adopt the form the person or organisation used. 8 Chapter 1 Introduction “For democracy, civilian control—that is, control of the military by civilian officials elected by the people—is fundamental. Civilian control allows a nation to base its values, institutions, and practices on the popular will rather than on the choices of military leaders, whose outlook by definition focuses on the need for internal order and external security. The military is, by necessity, among the least democratic institutions in human experience; martial customs and procedures clash by nature with individual freedom and civil liberty, the highest values in democratic societies.” - Richard H. Kohn (1997: 141) “Pro-democracy activists frequently, and rightly, remind us of the political problems that result when the military interferes in politics. Often overlooked is the damage that interference can do to the military itself.” - James Ockey (2014: 71) This thesis aims to analyse the political role of the military in Thailand, focusing particularly on how it has been involved in the country’s ‘democratic backsliding’ throughout much of last two decades. It has long been well known that the military is a key actor in Thai politics. The two most recent military coups, in September 2006 and May 2014, added to the long list of military coups that Thailand has seen since the end of the absolute monarchy era in 1932. Before 2006, however, there was a 15-year period during which the military was virtually absent from politics and electoral democracy appeared to take hold. As successive civilian governments won and lost power in parliamentary elections rather than through non-electoral means, Thailand at the time was evidently heading towards democratic consolidation, cementing its place as part of the global ‘Third Wave’ of countries adopting democracy and rejecting authoritarian rule (Huntington 1991). The 2006 coup was thus a sudden and largely unexpected event, putting a stop to the previous democratic trajectory while marking a return of the military to forefront of the 9 domestic political scene. Though electoral politics resumed at the end of 2007, another coup in 2014 again reversed the course, this time putting the country under a repressive military government that has remained in power for nearly five years at the time of writing. Instead of realising its earlier democratic promises, Thailand now finds itself as part of another global trend: the rise of authoritarianism and the decline of democracy throughout many regions of the world (Diamond 2016). Background: Thailand’s Military and Democratic Backsliding A major turning point in Thailand’s political development took place in 2001. A general election in January of that year resulted in the emergence of a strong elected government led by telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra (International Crisis Group 2014: 4; Ferrara 2015b: 225). Thanks in part to the widely admired 1997 constitution which favoured large parties and a strong executive, Thaksin achieved landslide electoral victories not only in 2001 but also in 2005, both times on a scale unprecedented in Thailand. His period in power was marked by an emphasis on decisive leadership, a heavy use of marketing principles borrowed from the business world, a general disdain for oppositional voices or the notion of checks and balances (McCargo and Ukrist 2005: 5), and—especially after the 2005 election—an electoral strategy geared towards voters in the mostly rural and poor regions in the north and northeast of Thailand. Though he came under growing criticisms for his authoritarian tendencies (Kasian 2006: 10), Thaksin’s political dominance in the first half of the 2000s created a sense of stability in sharp contrast to the weak, short-lived civilian governments of the 1990s (McCargo and Ukrist 2005: 11-12). In the end, Thaksin’s large parliamentary majority was unable to prevent his eventual downfall. After several months of anti-government mass protests by a movement known as the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the military launched a coup to topple him in September 2006, driving Thaksin into self- imposed exile with the exception of a five-month period in 2008 when he returned to Thailand. The fact that the Thai military re-emerged as a major political actor during the time of a strong civilian government, rather than a weak one, contradicts pre-existing assumptions which suggest that weak civilian governments are more 10 susceptible to military intervention (Alagappa 2001: 47-48). After the 2006 coup, the military remained involved in politics in various ways. It was responsible for abolishing the 1997 constitution and replacing it with one that considerably restricted the authority of the elected government. While Thaksin continued to fight elections and govern the country from afar—his party won further elections in 2007 and 2011—the military made efforts to cripple and obstruct him. At the end of 2008 it even played a key role in assembling a parliamentary majority to create an anti- Thaksin civilian government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva. Seeing that Thaksin remained a powerful electoral force, the military staged another coup in May 2014 against the elected government of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra and has suspended elections since then.