Election commisioners jailed — in Thailand

BANGKOK — Today’s papers scream with the astounding news that rocked this city yesterday: three election commissioners accused of malfeasance have been jailed, after being sentenced to four years imprisonment by the Criminal Court.

It was a spectacle never before seen in Thai, or for that matter, Philippine politics. Last night, the three top officials of the Election Commission (EC) were hauled off to Bangkok’s Klong Prem jail just hours after their sentencing. They will now likely be forced to vacate their posts, paving the way for their replacement just two-and-a-half months before new parliamentary elections will be held.

For sure, many Filipinos are probably wishing they can see that kind of swift justice in their own country. After all, the ruling of the Thai Criminal Court sounds like it could apply to our own scandal-wracked Commission on Elections (Comelec).

“The three commissioners are senior figures who should know that their office is vital for the development of democratic rule,” the EC decision read. “[But they] have stubbornly pursued their way even after the people and political parties lost trust in them.”

The ruling, which also barred the three officials from voting for 10 years, continued: “This court suspects the three of putting their own interests before those of the nation and fears they will inflict more damage if set free.”

The commissioners have been accused of bending the rules to favor the Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai Party in last April’s parliamentary elections. Much like our own Comelec commissioners, the EC officials had stubbornly clung to their posts despite widespread dissatisfaction with their handling of the polling and calls for their resignation by opposition parties and civil society groups.

Yesterday’s surprise ruling offers Thais a way out of the current political crisis. It also demonstrates the independence of the Criminal Court and allows democratic institutions to resolve the impasse, a remarkable contrast to the Philippines, where the justice system still has to hold a controversy-wracked Comelec to account.

But yesterday’s court ruling is a blow to Thaksin, who remains under increasing pressure to vacate the prime ministership. In April, Thaksin was forced to dissolve parliament and call for elections amid mounting protests in the streets of Bangkok over allegations his family evaded payment of billions in baht of taxes when they sold their telecommunications empire to a Singaporean company.

Thaksin won, but the opposition boycotted the elections, which were marred by allegations of fraud. The charges compelled the Constitutional Court to nullify the results of the April 2 elections and the Administrative Court to suspend the results of the by-elections held in districts where lone candidates were unable to get the required minimum 20 percent votes. Because of these court rulings, new polls needed to be called and were scheduled for October.

The Criminal Court began trying the election commissioners on June 19 and issued its verdict in less than five weeks, just barely enough time to allow for the selection of new commissioners. Its decision, said Thai journalist Thanong Khantong of The Nation newspaper, means ” Thaksin will not have “home-field advantage as in previous elections…his key fortress has been destroyed.”

Uncanny similarities

For sure, the similarities are uncanny. Like Thaksin, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been facing a crisis in legitimacy. In both countries, the crisis has has spurred people-power-type protests and caused unrest in the military.

The difference, it would now seem, is that the institutions for holding officials accountable, particularly the justice system, seem to be working better in Thailand.

In the Philippines, despite a Supreme Court ruling finding six Comelec commissioners guilty of signing a P2.3-billion fraud-ridden contract to computerize the 2004 elections, the courts have barely budged. The Office of the Ombudsman has dragged its feet, despite the high court’s order that the commissioners be charged. When the Ombudsman finally issued its ruling last month, only one commissioner was indicted.

Astute Thais and Filipinos cannot but see how the crisis in their countries mirror each other. Thepchai Yong, whose family runs The Nation newspaper in Bangkok, was in Manila recently and wrote that Thaksin and Arroyo were both “two-faced devils” who managed to survive challenges to their corruption-marred rule.

Political twins

Here are excerpts from Thepchai’s piece on how Arroyo and Thaksin are, in many respects, political twins:

“Both Thaksin and Arroyo have been struggling for their political survival, rejected by segments of their people who believe they have lost all legitimacy to stay in office. The only reason they are hanging on, according to their critics, is to protect their own self-interests. But both argue they are not going to give up what they have legitimately won through the ballot box because of mob pressure.

“Take out Arroyo’s name and a recent news analysis in one of Manila’s dailies might as well be talking about Thaksin. ‘The biggest asset of the Arroyo administration in playing the political game and doing the serious work of government is Mrs Arroyo’s tough and never-say-die character. She is, above all, politically courageous – willing to do everything to stay in power. Many of her political moves have been smart. Others have been cynical, brazen – worthy of Sun Tzu’s teachings… ‘ said the Sunday Times in a report analysing why the opposition has failed to dislodge the Philippine leader.

“Well, Thaksin and Arroyo are no strangers to each other. Arroyo was so impressed with what was touted back then as “Thaksinomics” that she wanted the Philippines to adopt the Thai leader’s brand of populism. The Philippine president was also said to have been inspired by Thaksin’s bloody war on drugs and the Thai leader’s one-tambon one-product initiative.

“But it’s in bad times that the two leaders seem to have more in common. Many Thais and Filipinos are fed up with their leaders under whose administrations corruption, conflicts of interest and abuse of power are alleged to be rampant. They only needed a trigger for their frustrations to explode. For Thais, the last straw was Thaksin’s decision to sell his family’s stake in Shin Corp to Temasek of Singapore. For the Filipinos, it was the “Garci tape” scandal in which Arroyo called an official of the Election Commission to allegedly discuss fixing returns from the 2004 presidential election.

“The scandals gave opponents of Thaksin and Arroyo ammunition to escalate their campaigns to drive them out of office. And for a while it seemed like “people power” would triumph.

Thieves and two-faced devils

“And consider these similarities:

“Thick-faced”, “Thief”, “Devil”, “Dictator”. The two leaders share these common labels.

2) Both may be rejected by the urban middle-class but remain popular with their rural electorates who benefit from their populist policies. Surprisingly, the ratings of both leaders have not suffered as much as one would expect. The Arroyo camp would argue that there was never a mass uprising against the president. The anti-Arroyo movement is more the work of the “oligarchs” and interest groups. Thakin’s explanation? It’s those who stand to lose from his pro-poor policies who have been working against him.

3) Both reportedly have no love lost for independent mechanisms that would ensure checks-and-balances. Thaksin stacked most of the independent bodies, such as the Election Commission, Constitution Court and the National Counter Corruption Commission, with his loyalists. Because of the “Garci tape” incident, Arroyo is accused of compromising the independence of the Election Commission. She described it as a “lapse of judgement” but her critics see it as nothing less than outright cheating. The ombudsman who was supposed to hold politicians accountable for their misdeeds has been rendered ineffective by what Philippine journalists believe to be political intervention.

4) Thaksin’s family members have been at the centre of charges of conflicts of interest, having allegedly exploited his political power to pursue business interests. Arroyo’s relatives are no different. Her husband is accused of receiving money from an illegal gambling racket while her son and her husband’s brother also are alleged to have received payoffs.

Restive barracks

5) Both face rumblings within the armed forces, the rank-and-file level of which became restless because of their disenchantment with their political leaders. Thaksin and Arroyo know that support of the military is crucial to their survival and have not hesitated to do anything to buy their loyalty.

6) Both believe everyone has a price. Their critics claim they use both political power and wealth to buy allies at all levels of the armed forces and bureaucracy. Arroyo is even accused of trying to bribe church leaders who wield tremendous moral authority over Catholic Filipinos. And there is a long list of people who are reported targets of Thaksin’s buyoffs.

“But just as three months of street demonstrations failed to dislodge Thaksin, eight months of people power also never came close to ousting Arroyo. Thailand and the Philippines had their own versions of people power that brought down dictatorships and unpopular governments before. But it looks like their current governments are much more entrenched, stubborn and definitely more adept at keeping their opponents at bay.

“Despite the continuing threat to their leaderships, Thaksin and Arroyo probably can congratulate themselves for having survived their most challenging political crises. Surprisingly, both the Thai and Philippine economies could be in worse shape. Thailand has its export sector to thank for this, while the US$10 billion (Bt379 billion) in annual remittances from overseas workers are helping to keep the Philippine economy afloat.

No alternatives

“If there is one reason why people power has failed to bring about political changes in Thailand and the Philippines this time around, it is probably because no matter how frustrated they are with their current leaders, Thais and Filipinos see no immediate viable alternatives.

“And in the case of the Philippines, more and more people have become disillusioned with street protests as a means of toppling governments. Filipinos have been let down by the two decades of political turmoil that followed the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos through the first people power movement. The euphoria that greeted the toppling of President Joseph Estrada in 2001 by the second people-power movement has given way to weariness because of the political instability that ensued.

“Aquilino Pimentel, one of the outspoken senators behind a campaign to drive out Arroyo from office, points out that the Philippines doesn’t have a “revered king” to unify its people in times of crisis. But it may be a little presumptuous for him to believe that the Philippines does have its own version of monarchy that would somehow manifest itself. “It’s the people of the Philippines who are king,” he pointed out and expressed confidence that sooner or later they would assert their power to affect change. In Manila these days the talk among intellectuals and the media is less about people power but more about people-power fatigue.

“In Thailand, however, people power is far from being on the wane. But like in the Philippines, people power is essentially a question of numbers. At least for now, both Thaksin and Arroyo can take comfort from the belief that it is very unlikely that another show of people power of the size rivalling those that drove out their predecessors will happen very soon.”