| Thaksin Shinawatra | ||||||
Billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra kept his job as Thailand’s prime minister, but only by the skin of his teeth and as a result of a split court judgement last month. An immediate political and constitutional crisis was thereby avoided – but only at the risk of buffeting the country’s fragile political system and storing up trouble for later.
The fact that Thaksin is the first elected Thai political leader to enjoy an outright popular mandate added to a dramatic situation that kept the Thai press and public enthralled for months. That Thaksin stood before the constitutional court accused of making false declarations of assets meant the case challenged soap operas as a subject for popular discussion.
Much rested on the outcome. If Thaksin were found guilty, he would be banned from public office for five years. Would the court dare to challenge the verdict of the 11 million Thais who voted for him just last January? That was part of the challenge thrown down by the prime minister and his supporters. On the other hand, what precedent would it set if such a rich man could get away with hiding his assets?
In the end, the court reflected the split opinion of the country. “If our judgment today disappointed you, I humbly apologize because we have to abide by the law and the constitution,” said Prasert Nasakul, president of the constitutional court. Prasert himself voted against Thaksin, along with six other judges. But eight judges voted to clear the prime minister.
That split judgment fuelled the controversy. The judges did not provide reasons for their decision, while in all previous cases the constitutional court had upheld the decision of the national counter-corruption commission and banned the offending politicians from office.
Indeed, on the day of the Thaksin judgment, the court banned another politician from Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thais) party for concealing his wealth, making him the ninth of 10 politicians – all except Thaksin – found guilty since the anti-corruption constitution was promulgated in 1997.
Thaksin had tearfully pleaded before the court that he had made an “honest mistake” in forgetting to declare billions of bahts that he had put in the names of household staff, business associates and friends in his various companies. The sums in question were only a fraction of his estimated $1.4 billion fortune. He also claimed the money was legitimately earned through business ventures, not corruptly obtained through political office. This missed the point that the law dealt simply with the declaration of assets, not where the assets came from.
Four of the judges claimed the article in question did not apply to Thaksin because it referred to a “political office holder” and Thaksin had already left the cabinet when he filed his declaration of assets.
Thaksin did not help himself in the eyes of his critics when he thanked only the eight judges who acquitted him and then pointedly asked whether unelected people should have such power. When he was criticized for attacking the two independent agencies, Thaksin blamed the press for reporting what he had intended to be off-the-record remarks and then he refused to talk to the media for the next two days.
The consensus was that it was a plus that the prime minister would be allowed to stay in office and fulfil his mandate – but he still has to prove himself. “We know Thailand has big issues to face and there is no quick fix,” says an investment banker. At the same time there was a fear that the rule of law, if not broken, had been shaken. The prime minister should realize, said several leading Thai newspapers, that he was not the nation nor a one-man band and there are many problems of bad debts, shaky financial institutions and a host of issues from the economic crisis to be solved. Rejoicing over the acquittal is premature.
