Thaksin Landslide Will Bury Democracy - Opposition

[george]

Thaksin landslide will bury democracy - opposition

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra urged Thais to give his party an overwhelming majority in Sunday's election and dismissed opposition charges that would undermine democracy in the country.

Thaksin, expected to win a second four-year term easily on the back of a strong economy, is campaigning hard to capture seats in parliament to fend off any future opposition challenge to his policies.

"The economic solutions are bearing fruit, but this government needs stability to make decisions quickly," Thaksin, 56, told voters on Friday at Ban Pong market in Ratchaburi province, about 120 km west of Bangkok.

"A government with a small majority will take time to decide how to tackle problems."

The Matichon newspaper forecast Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party, which means "Thais Love Thais", would win 349 seats in the 500-member parliament, a result that would insulate it against political censure.

The paper suggested the opposition Democrat Party would capture only 101 seats in the lower house parliament, far below the 201 seats -- the minimum required to bring a vote of confidence against a government -- it is appealing for.

Democrats accuse Thaksin, a former policeman turned telecoms tycoon who won a landslide victory in 2001, of having an authoritarian streak that will only get worse if he is handed a bigger parliamentary majority.

"We have clearly taken a step backwards over the past four years in terms of checks and balances," Democrat deputy leader Abhisit Vejjajiva told Reuters.

"We don't believe in an authoritarian, interventionist government. We believe the way forward is to make Thailand more democratic," said Abhisit, who is expected to assume the leadership of his divided party if it falters on Sunday.

He blamed tight control of the media by the state and its business allies for keeping opposition voices off the airwaves.

"SOPHISTICATED GOVERNMENT"

But the Democrats and its recent offshoot, the new Mahachon party, are partly to blame for trying to match Thaksin's populist policies in this election, analysts say.

"All they are doing is mirroring Thai Rak Thai's policies and it's not going to work," said Giles Ungphakorn, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.

Giles is a staunch critic of the Thai leader, but disagrees with opposition charges that Thailand is sliding towards another dictatorship.

"This government is sophisticated and its power is winning votes. Whether you agree with its policies are not, they are not the ravings of a megalomaniac," said Giles, who argues only a stronger civil society will protect the country's democracy.

But a social movement that sent thousands of protesters into the streets to defend democracy in the wake of the last coup in 1991 has seen its influence wane in the Thaksin years.

That has corresponded with a steady rolling back of progress on human rights in the last decade, says Human Rights Watch.

It says a military crackdown in the Muslim dominated south has led to "severe human rights violations". These include the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters, most of them in army custody, last October which drew rare rebukes from Muslim neighbours.

Thaksin has also taken a harder line on dissidents and refugees from military-ruled Myanmar with which it is forging closer economic and political ties, the group said.

"Thailand has gone from being a beacon of freedom and respect for human rights in the region to being a country of high concern," it said.

The group also noted Thaksin's "war on drugs", in which 2,500 people were killed and critics accused police of extra-judicial killings, as evidence of his contempt for human rights.

But Thaksin defended the anti-drugs campaign as an example of what a strong government can do.

"It had been a chronic problem for years, which past governments did nothing about. But in my government, we have tackled it quickly," he said.

Thaksin's CEO-style of leadership has struck a vein with many voters and he points with pride at becoming the first elected leader to serve a full four-term term.

He bristles at critics who say he has used those four years to weaken institutions set up to ensure accountability and build democracy in a nation that has seen 17 coups or attempted coups.

"The Democrats have repeated this criticism of me. I just want to tell them they can continue to attack me, but I will concentrate on my work," he told supporters.

--Reuters 2005-02-04

[stumonster]

Thaksin set for second term

From correspondents in Bangkok, Thailand

February 05, 2005

PRIME Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is poised to become the first Thai leader elected to a second term in polls tomorrow.

Analysts say the only question is how powerful he will emerge.

Mr Thaksin's party aims to win a comfortable majority of the 500 seats up for grabs in the House of Representatives when Thailand's 44 million eligible voters hit the ballot booth.

"We want to be a single-party government," the billionaire tycoon turned champion of the poor reportedly told a cheering crowd in Bangkok at his last rally yesterday, distancing himself from coalition partner party Chart Thai.

His critics fear parliament will lose its ability to check his government's grip on power if Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party scoops up the 350 seats it wants.

Despite accusations that he runs the government like a dictatorship, Mr Thaksin has proved a popular leader, with 54.1 per cent of respondents to a survey saying their opinion of the premier had risen due to his high-profile handling of the tsunami disaster.

"My mission is to rid Thailand of poverty," he said at the rally.

"Our fellow countrymen have entrusted Thai Rak Thai and my government to continue to solve the nation's economic problems."

In a country where every previous elected government has fallen either to military coups or political squabbling, Mr Thaksin's is the first to survive a full four-year term.

The telecom mogul has largely delivered on his promises to revive Thailand's fortunes after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. His so-called "Thaksinomics" policies have revitalised the economy, with growth projected at 6.2 per cent last year.

With the election campaign unfolding in the wake of the deadly December 26 tsunami, political debate has been overshadowed by the massive effort to rebuild following the disaster, which left 5400 people dead in Thailand.

The tsunami also gave Mr Thaksin a chance to showcase his much-vaunted CEO-style leadership and to saturate the media with images of him comforting victims or directing the clean up.

Pre-election polls are officially banned, but a survey by the respected Matichon newspaper and Dsurakitvanid University predicted that TRT would win 349 seats of the 500 seats, up from its present share of 320.

The poll left the Democrats well short of their goal with 101 seats, giving Chart Thai 37 and the new Mahachon party 11, with one seat each for the Social Action Party and the Labor party.

The Democrats are only hoping for 201 seats, but they have been unable to recover from a leadership split two years ago that pitted the old guard against the rising stars, and ended with many heavyweights splitting off to form Mahachon.

The Democrat leader, Banyat Bantadtan, has failed to mend the rift or rally voters behind a political agenda, leaving the party's campaign essentially an offer to check Mr Thaksin's power.

The prospect of an even more powerful Mr Thaksin raises alarms among groups like Human Rights Watch, which now considers Thailand "a country of high concern".

"Much of the steady progress Thailand had made in the last decade has been rolled back under Thaksin's tenure," the group's Asia director Brad Adams said in a statement.

Critics cite particular concern over Mr Thaksin's military crackdown on a 13-month Islamic insurgency in Thailand's southernmost provinces, which has left more than 580 dead and sparked two controversial clashes that ended with the deaths of hundreds of militants or protesters.

Mr Thaksin's war on drugs left some 2275 suspected drug offenders dead in apparent extrajudicial killings between February and May 2003.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E1702,00.html