Dear Editor,
I was fortunate to be in Thailand for the country’s general elections held last Sunday. The campaign and the voting should serve as role models for other countries, including Guyana, holding democratic elections.
The election was the most peaceful I witnessed. There was no violence and there were no reported incidents of irregularities in the media. The parties or their leaders did not attack each other with the venom and nastiness we are accustomed to in elections in Guyana. And the candidates accepted the outcome peacefully. There were no street protests over the results. The losing party did not make any effort to render the country ungovernable.
The elections were held to elect a national legislature from which a Prime Minister and a government will be chosen. Thailand is a ‘democratic’ monarchy with a king serving as head of state. In fact, the king celebrated his 60th anniversary on the throne this month; he is 80 years of age. The king does not take part in governmental matters but from time to time the rulers consult with the king when things are not going right.
The last democratically elected government was toppled by the military 18 months ago. The military overthrew the popularly elected government of Prime Minister Thaksin accusing it of corruption. The military has had a tradition of toppling governments that threaten the interests of the dominant elite. The king (Bhumibol who traces his roots to the popular King Rama) gave his blessing to the toppling of the government last year although the majority of the people were opposed to the coup. Thailand was experiencing serious economic problems just before Thaksin was elected Prime Minister. The country experienced a boom under Thaksin who redirected the country’s wealth to the poor and began to transform the rural areas. The urbanites began to complain about the government’s focus on the rural areas and encouraged the army to overthrow the government under the pretext that it was corrupt. Indeed the government was corrupt, but not as corrupt as previous governments as reported by western political commentators including a recent commentary in the Economist magazine.
In the election last Sunday, Thaksin’s party (PPP) won 229 seats and the opposition Democrats won 164 seats. To form a government, a party needs 241 out of the 480 seats (400 seats under the constituency system and 80 seats under the PR system we have in Guyana). Thaksin has been in exile and cannot return to the country for some time as per an agreement made with the ruling generals. But his party is expected to form the government and he will be offered a pardon to return and serve as Prime Minister again. It is unlikely that the military would want to overthrow a democratically elected government twice.
This is my third trip to Thailand. I first came here in 1985 as a student. Bangkok’s airport had many features like Guyana’s Timehri. I returned in 1997 and the transformation was enormous, with a modern airport like JFK in the 1980s, although more beautiful. And today, Bangkok is like the downtown Manhattan skyline. There are tall skyscrapers everywhere, and a new metro that is even more modern than London’s or the NYC subway. This country has a bright future and Guyana should seek to emulate it as a developmental model. It was not too long ago that Thailand was poorer than Guyana. Today, it is one of the envies of the Third World.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
