Populism In Thai Politics Then And Now: The Pot Calls The Kettle Black

[webfact]

THAI TALK

Populism then and now: The pot calls the kettle black

By Suthichai Yoon

The Nation

When the Abhisit government "soft-launched" its super-populist policy package last week, it was officially labelled as a plan that promotes "Thinking and acting outside the box".

At least two things strike me as strange and self-contradictory about this:

First, there is nothing more conventional or dogmatic as throwing money at voters. There is nothing radical or "outside the box" about following exactly what your political rivals have been doing.

Second, the last person in the Cabinet who should be using a megaphone to promote populist policy under uncertain economic circumstances is the finance minister. He is supposed to be the main man that we taxpayers want to see arguing against free spending and offering giveaways. If the finance minister will not defend fiscal discipline to the last baht, who will?

Now, pracha niyom (populism) has been replaced by pracha wiwat (people's prosperity). And that can only mean that there will be more justification for hurling money at targeted groups of voters under a new label that carries the very same political objectives.

The government is to unveil its action plan for the new Pracha Wiwat policy on January 9. And none of the political leaders will even try to deny the allegation that the sole purpose of this package is to win the hearts and minds of grassroots voters.

If Thaksin Shinawatra had invented the modern-day populist platform, it seems that Abhisit Vejjajiva is even more determined to outdo him. And he doesn't even appear to hide his desire to beat his rival at his own game.

The Pracha Wiwat plan includes measures to ease the cost of living for the poor and help hundreds of thousands of workers in the informal sector to join the social security system - and get cheap loans from state-owned banks.

Insiders say recent government surveys have found that pressing issues that worry the average citizen (with the right to vote, of course) include lack of farmland, the rising cost of living, the lack of a social safety net, and reasonable credit for informal-sector labour. Corruption and the rising crime rate are the two other common complaints.

Senior officials from more than 30 government agencies worked full-time at the new government office complex on Chaeng Wattana Road for five weeks to come up with ideas to address these issues. This is supposed to mean that it's not going to be any particular ministry's task alone. It's a concerted effort directed all the way from the top down.

Isn't the Democrat Party afraid of accusations of being a copycat, by doing everything it had said was bad when the party was in opposition?

Of course, the Democrats are fully aware of their own dilemma and that the pot is calling the kettle black. But they are in possession of the power to dispense budgetary allocations, and the temptation to politicise money for the next election is simply too strong to resist.

But in politics there is this very innovative art of claiming to "think outside of the box" while doing exactly the same things that you once were highly critical of. Give it a new name and throw in more money than your predecessors did, while creating new titles for the freebies - and get the expensive PR machine cranking.

That, I am afraid, may be renamed as "creative populism", which means you add so many new categories to the political platform that people don't really care what you call it as long as they get the impression that this government is more generous than the last one.

Don't ask me what happened to the "sufficiency economy" policy that the Democrats claimed as one of their top priorities. Don't ask why they were saying that populism under somebody else was bad because it created grassroots dependency on the powers-that-be, and that it could be so addictive that the withdrawal symptoms could be fatal.

Politics, after all, is about expediency and instant results - as well as "creative accounting" that allows the government to claim that it's not spending taxpayers' money while giving out freebies at the public's expense.

-- The Nation 2010-12-23

[asiawatcher]

I think it was said yesterday in a blog. If the PTP come up with hair brained schemes and no ability to back their promises, other than vote getters, it won't work. But when the PM's party is trying to reconcile and show intent, and come up with policies to benefit the under privileged sector, it is called populist policies! Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Just go for it Dems, do what you think is right and ignore the dunces that call themselves responsible journalists.

[Emptyset]

I think it was said yesterday in a blog. If the PTP come up with hair brained schemes and no ability to back their promises, other than vote getters, it won't work. But when the PM's party is trying to reconcile and show intent, and come up with policies to benefit the under privileged sector, it is called populist policies! Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Just go for it Dems, do what you think is right and ignore the dunces that call themselves responsible journalists.

I think you've missed the point. The point is that the Democrats denounced TRT's "populism" whilst running on a platform of "sufficiency economy" but in power they've been just as populist if not more so. Now PT is playing the same game as the Democrats used to by calling the Dems out for populism whilst running on what looks to be an even more populist manifesto. Why not just drop the term populism altogether? It doesn't seem helpful for the debate. Anyway, there's obviously a "populist" consensus (or should we call it "progressive"?), so I suppose voters will look at which party is more effective at implementing the schemes in practice.

[gregb]

Truly sad thing is, this is nothing more than a blatant attempt to buy votes. It doesn't help the people. It's a sham. The government knows it is a sham, we all know it is a sham, but the government can do it because there is no party which doesn't engage in the same dirty politics. Where else are you going to run?

I truly loathe these new schemes. I think they are incredibly damaging to the rural poor, who should be given assistance in adapting to the sufficiency economy. This is a truly enlightened idea by a benevolent man that honestly wants to help. Sadly, there is no political party that cares about the people.

So in the end you either vote for the Thaksin corruption party or the anti Thaksin corruption party. It really is too bad there is not a mainstream party that considers the good of the country. One that will denounce both the square faced fugitive and the current government giveaways.

Democracy doesn't work where there are no suitable candidates to select.

[hanuman1]

So what if one political party copies the policies of another. Effective government is all about delivering what you promise, not how or why you make that promise in the first place.

[Emptyset]

So what if one political party copies the policies of another. Effective government is all about delivering what you promise, not how or why you make that promise in the first place.

I agree.

[hyperdimension]

so I suppose voters will look at which party is more effective at implementing the schemes in practice.

Voters would first look at what's in it for themselves - how much more money will they have in their pocket. It's only afterward that they may consider whether the policies are achievable.

It seems that Pheu Thai, with their 300 baht per day minimum wage and 15K baht minimum per month for university graduates policies, are assuming or hoping that most people will not go that step further in their thinking.

Certainly, graduates would love to be able to earn at least 15K baht per month straight out of university, but will they actually see through Pheu Thai's promises and realize that they are hare brained unsustainable ideas that are unlikely to work in practice?

[whybother]

I never saw the TRT policies (did the PPP have any policies?) being "populist" as the problem. It was the sustainablity of the policies that was the issue.

Cash handouts are very short term solutions, usually used in the west to boost spending during recessions. The economy in Thailand at that stage was going well anyway.

Easy loans are just a recipe for disaster if they are not managed properly. If it's an easy loan to start or invest in a business, then it's more likely to be paid back. Otherwise it just gets people into more debt, and people have no way of paying them back anyway.

The 30 baht health care is a reasonable idea on the face of it, but if there is no funding for the hospitals, then all people get is bad health care that costs nothing. Also, if it costs more to collect the money than what is actually being paid, why charge for it at all.

There is no problem with policies being popular, but they have to be sustainable, costed, and funded.

[Emptyset]

I never saw the TRT policies (did the PPP have any policies?) being "populist" as the problem. It was the sustainablity of the policies that was the issue.

Cash handouts are very short term solutions, usually used in the west to boost spending during recessions. The economy in Thailand at that stage was going well anyway.

Easy loans are just a recipe for disaster if they are not managed properly. If it's an easy loan to start or invest in a business, then it's more likely to be paid back. Otherwise it just gets people into more debt, and people have no way of paying them back anyway.

The 30 baht health care is a reasonable idea on the face of it, but if there is no funding for the hospitals, then all people get is bad health care that costs nothing. Also, if it costs more to collect the money than what is actually being paid, why charge for it at all.

There is no problem with policies being popular, but they have to be sustainable, costed, and funded.

Yes, you're right. But Democrats are having similar problems funding the hospitals and their new strategy seems almost wholly based around micro-credit. I'm also fairly skeptical about too much micro-credit, I think it has a very limited use. "There is no problem with policies being popular..." - indeed, can something be popular without being populist? Yep. I really don't know where all this business about populism as a way to describe particular policies has come from, it's rarely used so much in the west. Things like increasing access to health care are progressive, not populist. Populism for me is more about style and how you define yourself in relation to others - generally, the "elite". Thaksin certainly became a populist, but that's not to say all his policies were populist.

Anyway, I certainly prefer the idea of increasing the minimum wage as much as possible & making sure health care is properly funded rather than endless loan schemes.

[Emptyset]

so I suppose voters will look at which party is more effective at implementing the schemes in practice.

Voters would first look at what's in it for themselves - how much more money will they have in their pocket. It's only afterward that they may consider whether the policies are achievable.

It seems that Pheu Thai, with their 300 baht per day minimum wage and 15K baht minimum per month for university graduates policies, are assuming or hoping that most people will not go that step further in their thinking.

Certainly, graduates would love to be able to earn at least 15K baht per month straight out of university, but will they actually see through Pheu Thai's promises and realize that they are hare brained unsustainable ideas that are unlikely to work in practice?

Don't know, but if I were on the minimum wage or a graduate, I'd likely vote for it. They have a commitment to at least try to achieve what they've promised. I haven't seen any details yet so whether they've thought it through or just plucked it from thin air I've no idea. Labour organizations would like a minimum wage of 400 baht, so 300 should be a reasonable compromise between labour and business. They can always offer other incentives to businesses that kept their end of the deal.

[rixalex]

I never saw the TRT policies (did the PPP have any policies?) being "populist" as the problem. It was the sustainablity of the policies that was the issue.

Cash handouts are very short term solutions, usually used in the west to boost spending during recessions. The economy in Thailand at that stage was going well anyway.

Easy loans are just a recipe for disaster if they are not managed properly. If it's an easy loan to start or invest in a business, then it's more likely to be paid back. Otherwise it just gets people into more debt, and people have no way of paying them back anyway.

The 30 baht health care is a reasonable idea on the face of it, but if there is no funding for the hospitals, then all people get is bad health care that costs nothing. Also, if it costs more to collect the money than what is actually being paid, why charge for it at all.

There is no problem with policies being popular, but they have to be sustainable, costed, and funded.

Well put.

[hyperdimension]

Don't know, but if I were on the minimum wage or a graduate, I'd likely vote for it.

... and if enough people think the same we may end up getting these incompetent thugs running the country.

I guess greed and selfishness is often the main driver of judgment, and that is a big problem.

[Emptyset]

Don't know, but if I were on the minimum wage or a graduate, I'd likely vote for it.

... and if enough people think the same we may end up getting these incompetent thugs running the country.

I guess greed and selfishness is often the main driver of judgment, and that is a big problem.

So people wanting slightly more than the pittance they're getting now are greedy and selfish, whilst the businesses that refuse to pay higher wages are... what... working in the people's best interests? If some of the elite (not in the sense of the amataya or anything like that, just the people with the money) were willing to give up, voluntarily, some of their huge slice of the pie, then the red shirt leaders and PT would have much fewer grievances to exploit. I wish Thailand had a real Labour party that fought elections on an explicitly ideological basis in the workers' interest, but there isn't one, so is it a surprise that the working class overwhelmingly fell for TRT and by association PPP and PT? I mean there are all these NGOs and supposedly progressive social movement types out there, many of which fell in with the PAD, why aren't they moving to get parliamentary representation for the people they're supposedly working in the interests of? It's really the only way to go if you want real change that makes a tangible difference to people's lives. Perhaps many of them are self-serving and feel it'll detract from their own privileged position in the current power structure.

[yellow1red1]

summary,,, populism is hand outs at election time to keep globaliztion in the wheel hosue.

Convening of a new Bretton Woods-type international conference which would bring to the table not only representatives of nation-states, bankers and industry, but an equal number of citizen organizations from every country to design economic models that turn away from globalization and move toward localization, re-empower communities and nation-states, place human, social and ecological values above economic values (and corporate profit), encourage national self sufficiency (wherever possible) including "import substitution," and operate in a fully democratic and transparent manner.

< from the Siena Declaration in 1998

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/siena-cn.htm

[metisdead]

An insulting post has been removed from view.