Lessons from Bangkok poll despite low turnout

By TULSATHIT TAPTIM

THE NATION

As with every contest, the losers have been left to contemplate "What could have been?" Sunday's City Assembly and district council elections in Bangkok produced tantalising results that raise the question of whether it would have been different if the voter turnout had been significantly higher.

Mass-circulation Thai Rath and ASTV can't be expected to agree on many things, but their headlines yesterday were strikingly similar. "Bangkokians bored of elections" was splashed across ASTV's front page, whereas "Bangkokians tired of polls, EC whines" was how Thai Rath saw it.

Both media outlets could be reflecting the same sentiments in different camps, though. The opposition Pheu Thai Party must be wishing Bangkok had given a clearer message through a bigger turnout. The Democrats swept the lesser elections of district councillors and boosted their dominance of the City Assembly, but was that really a "Lesson for the [red] mobs" as a Thai Post headline claimed?

Popularity of the three main rival parties - Democrat, Pheu Thai and New Politics - obviously played a part on Sunday. Just how big that part was remains debatable. The Democrats could point at former Pheu Thai candidates who defected to their side and won big, but the opposition party could take heart from a few relatively "narrow" defeats.

Maybe an analysis of the New Politics Party's highly disappointing showing yields some insight into the three-horse race. The newcomer deplored voters' indifference as the main cause of its failure, but on the other hand, the NPP's presence in the contest was enough to hand three seats to Pheu Thai, which narrowly beat Democrat candidates in the respective constituencies.

In this respect, the Democrats are also entitled to dream about an alternative, non-NPP scenario. A 48-seat sweep instead of 45 could have made the Bangkokians' message considerably clearer and even more convincing. It is safe to assume that without the NPP, the 95,000-plus votes it got (unofficially) would have gone Democrat or been waived. Those votes could have gone anywhere but to Pheu Thai.

The NPP will have just a little time to lick its wounds before the general election comes. The party has failed because of fledgling grass-roots election canvassing logistics and blurry leadership. Another reason, which it may find harder to accept, is that its leaders made a mistake by declaring an all-out war against a prime minister considerably popular in the capital. Drawing such an "us or him" line forced anti-red voters to make a clear choice instead of keeping the NPP as a friendly alternative to Abhisit Vejjajiva's party.

How this love-hate triangle transpires in Bangkok in the general election will be very interesting. The NPP can still have a role to play and still has a few options. The winner will be the one who manages to read Sunday's outcome best.

-- The Nation 2010-08-31

If you talk to many people who actually used to support the PAD in its anti-corruption drive, they wanted the PAD to remain a rpessure group outside of politics. Many are also not happy with the more lunatic movements of the PAD in its latter days and when it went on to become a party. If the PAD/NPP wants to be part of a future civil society it likely needs to return to its early days before all the anti-democratic stuff was grafted on. There is in Thailand a need for a pressur egroup on corruption issues and no other grouping has taken up the mantle. Even the reds while claiming pro-democracy high ground in their rhetoric can treally push anti-corruption messages as well as the PAD becuase the red movment is to beholden to tradtional up country power brokers whereas the PAD has attacked corruption across the board of governments of different ilk.

Be interesting to see where they go and of course it will also depnd to some extent on where the buisiness savvy Sondhi sees opportunity.