Thai soldiers cast their vote in Bangkok last Sunday. Credit Rungroj Yongrit/European Pressphoto Agency

Thailand’s Power-Hungry Generals

Editorial Board / New York Times | 12 August 2016

Voters in Thailand on Sunday approved a new Constitution that vests extraordinary powers in the military and treats electoral politics like a dangerous game that requires close supervision by the country’s generals. That outcome was hardly surprising. The Thai military, which took control of the country in 2014 in a coup, stifled debate about the Constitution by harassing journalists and charging critics with sedition.

The new charter mandates a voting system designed to leave the military firmly in charge by preventing any political party from winning a majority in the lower house of Parliament. A related ballot measure, which also passed, gives the armed forces the authority to appoint all 250 members of the Senate. This means that parliamentary elections scheduled for next year can only produce a weak and fragmented legislature, leaving Thailand’s increasingly repressive generals at the controls while creating the illusion that military rule has ended.

“I am sad and regret that the country is stepping backward by accepting a Constitution that may look democratic but really isn’t truly democratic,” former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was ousted two years ago, said in a statement.

Thailand’s deep political polarization — which has pitted rural and urban factions against each other for years — has often erupted in street clashes and kept previous prime ministers in survival mode for long stretches. Some Thais welcomed the coup in May 2014, seeing it as a chance to restore order, improve the economy and clear the deck of a political class many in the country regarded as pervasively corrupt.

Military rule did, in fact, bring an end to protests and street clashes. But the junta also censored the press, shut down television and radio stations, blocked access to international media and detained scores of people for challenging its rule. In one egregious case, it charged eight people for mocking the prime minister and the head of the junta, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, on Facebook.

The new Constitution justifies such repression by arguing that freedom of expression can be restricted in order to maintain “public order or good morals of people.” That language seems an open invitation for abuse by the authorities. A string of bombings this week, mostly in tourist towns, suggested that dissidents may have had enough and are now willing to protest with violent means.

The new charter purports to strengthen anticorruption institutions and policies by giving the government greater authority, but provides little oversight of the military, which controls large segments of the economy and has never been particularly transparent. For example, the military has never provided clear answers about a multimillion-dollar purchase of fake devices to detect bombs that it bought from a British firm. Officials continued to use the devices long after its manufacturer had been exposed as a swindler. Likewise, it has never justified its extraordinarily bloated corps of generals and flag officers.

Thais are now gearing up for an election next year. A major question facing a new class of elected leaders will be how to trim the military’s authority in the years ahead. Yet that important debate will never happen if the country continues to be run under de facto martial law, without freedom of speech or freedom of assembly.