Thailand: Will Prayuth Chan-ocha ruling unleash a new political crisis?

Thailand’s current constitution stipulates a term limit of eight years for a prime minister. However, there are different interpretations, depending on the political camp, as to when Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s term should be counted as having started.

Opposition parties said the ex-army chief has overstayed his tenure, which they contend started when he seized power in a military coup in 2014.

However, since the current constitution only became effective in April 2017, Prayuth’s supporters argued that the term limits cannot be applied retrospectively, and that his term officially began in 2017 when the new constitution was put in place.

On Friday, Thailand’s constitutional court agreed with this interpretation, ruling Premier Prayuth’s tenure began in 2017, leading the way for him to serve as PM for two more years if he is reelected after the completion of his current term in 2023.

The verdict follows the temporary suspension of Prayuth on August 24, when the court decided to hear a petition from opposition parties. The decision in Prayuth’s favor threatens to exacerbate long-running political tensions in Thailand between the miliary-backed government and opposition groups.

“Even though Prayuth is coming back, it will not be easy for him to survive,” Virot Ali, a political analyst at Voice TV, a liberal-leaning Thai television channel, told DW.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha took power in a military coup

The United Front for Thammasat and Demonstration, one of the core groups in the pro-democracy movement, had promised to organize prolonged demonstrations if Prayuth was allowed to remain in office.

Constitution put into question

The ruling essentially extending Prayuth’s term has raised questions about the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court.

According to Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, law professor at Chulalongkorn University, the verdict does not indicate a constitutional crisis in a strict sense, where all parties no longer follow the constitutional order.

“But it points to the larger problem of an ill-drafted constitution, deliberately misreading the text of constitution, and the constitutional court’s lack of public trust,” he told DW.

When the current constitution was drafted in 2017, it was done in secrecy without much public discussion, leaving many people unaware of what the prime minister’s term limit is and how it should be understood, he added.

Thailand’s political divide a generational conflict

As the face of the military coup in 2014, which ousted the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, Prayuth is deeply unpopular with Thai liberals and progressives.

According to Siripan Nongsuan Sawasdee, political science professor at Chulalongkorn University, Prayuth is also unpopular due to “clear administrative management shortcomings, particularly from an economic standpoint.”

During his period in office, Thailand has recorded its worst economic performance in three decades. Failed reforms and the coronavirus pandemic further intensified criticism of his mismanagement and created what analyst Ali described as a “generational conflict” between young and old.

In 2019, young Thais took to the streets in mass protests against the government.

“One of the issues the youth wanted to push forward was political reform, which never happened. Despite the constitutional change, it is very clear that everything is designed for Prayuth to be in power. I think that is why people were feeling he must go,” Ali said. 

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  Three-finger salute

  In Myanmar, people show the three-finger salute as a sign of protest against the military coup. The gesture stems from the dystopian novel and film series “Hunger Games” and has also been a symbol of resistance in neighboring Thailand, which has been under a military dictatorship since 2014. There, some protesters were arrested when they showed the salute.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  Kneeling as a sign of solidarity

  “I can’t breathe” — that sentence went around the world in the summer of 2020, when African American George Floyd was brutally killed by police officers in the US. People around the world demonstrated against racism and police violence. At Black Lives Matter demonstrations, they showed solidarity with the victims of police violence by kneeling down.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  A clenched fist

  In the 19th century, the clenched fist was a symbol of the labor movement. Later, it became a sign of the Black Power movement, which grew out of the US civil rights movement and was criticized for its call for violence. The symbolic power is still effective today. At the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year, protesters posed with their fists raised.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  Red as a color of protest

  Protests are increasingly taking place on the internet and social media. This is evident in Russia: Under the hashtag “Don’t be sad, everything will be fine” (Russian: #негрустивсебудетхорошо), people post pictures of themselves in red clothing. It is a way of showing solidarity with opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s wife Yulia, who wore a fiery red sweater on the day of her husband’s sentencing.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  Protest in green

  In the struggle for the legalization of abortion in Argentina, the green scarf has become a symbol — for the right to abortion, but beyond that also for women’s rights and the fight for equality. When parliament legalized abortions in December, people spoke of a “marea verde,” a green wave that swept the country and the entire continent.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  When high-vis vests become a symbol of protest

  Not only colors or gestures have what it takes to be a protest symbol, as the yellow vest movement shows. The high-visibility vests were the distinctive symbol of the “Gilets Jaunes,” hundreds of thousands of whom poured onto the French streets in 2018. The movement was organized mainly via social media and protested for months against the political course taken by President Emmanuel Macron.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  Umbrella revolution

  In 2014, thousands of people in Hong Kong took to the streets for more democracy. The fact that these protests were dubbed the “Umbrella Revolution” by the media was due to the fact that the demonstrators took umbrellas with them to protect themselves from the sun, pepper spray and police batons.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  Flowers for Belarus

  Reacting to the police’s brutal crackdown on demonstrators following the contested reelection of longtime President Alexander Lukashenko, in 2020 Belarusian women adopted powerful symbols of peace to pursue protests. Dressed in white and bearing flowers, they marched and formed solidarity chains in the streets of Minsk, the country’s capital. Flowers have often served as a revolutionary symbol.

• Protest movement symbols grab attention

  The Carnation Revolution

  When tanks rolled through the streets of Lisbon in 1974, red carnations adorned the uniforms of soldiers and also stuck out of their rifles. Military rule in Portugal was at an end, and the upheaval ended in a peaceful revolution. The “Carnation Revolution” marked the beginning of a new democratic movement in Europe, and dictatorships were also overthrown in Greece and Spain.

  Author: Maria John Sánchez

Prayuth still popular with political establishment

Despite his unpopularity among liberals, Prayuth remains popular with the conservative base.

Punchada Sirivunnabood, political scientist at Thailand’s Mahidol University, told DW that Prayuth remains the preferred leader among Thailand’s pro-junta political establishment and this could have influenced the decision to extend his premiership.

Thailand’s next general election is scheduled for May 2023 and the coalition led by Prayuth’s Palang Pracharath Party has no candidate for premiership other than Prayuth.

Moreover, the currently ruling coalition will want to keep opposition parties from forming a new government.

This bodes well for Prayuth’s continued role within the Thai political framework.

“He seems to have everything locked and connected. The constitutional court, the anti-corruption committee, the election committee — everything is in his pocket,” said analyst Ali. 

Edited by: Wesley Rahn

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/thailand-will-prayuth-chan-ocha-ruling-unleash-a-new-political-crisis/a-63296828?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf