The rise and fall of electoral violence in Thailand: changing rules, structures and power landscapes, 1997-2011.

• Author: Kongkirati, Prajak
• Position: Report

The period from 1997 to 2011 was highly transformative and turbulent for Thai politics and society. Within one decade, there were five elections (including the nullified 2006 election), six prime ministers, two constitutions, one military coup and countless violent clashes between state security forces and colour-coded mass movements which led to a large number of deaths and injuries. Parliamentary democracy and electoral institutions underwent a dramatic change. Initially, the new Constitution and associated political reforms produced a strong and stable civilian administration and political party structure. Programmatic politics and policy-based campaigning played increasingly important roles in shaping electoral outcomes, even though the particularistic elements of patronage, pork, personality and coercive force still existed. Political party and electoral institutions were, more than ever, strengthened and meaningfully connected to a majority of the electorate. Direct elections at the local level enabled by decentralization helped create stronger linkages between the electorate and elected politicians. However, the military coup in 2006 derailed the legitimacy and development of parliamentary democracy. The traditional royal-military-bureaucratic power alliance, which lost power but was unwilling to participate in electoral competition, employed an old-fashioned, coercive tool--the coup --to capture state power and overthrow the popularly elected government.

The 2006 coup profoundly transformed Thai politics--it polarized the country, exacerbated political divisions and radicalized political participation. As a result, electoral competition was infused with ideological contestation, rather than only particularistic (using vote buying, pork barrel or intimidation) or programmatic (focusing on policy-based) campaigns. The changing rules, landscape and power structure of Thai politics at the national level strongly affected local political settings--the balance of power between political groups and families, and between national parties and local bosses. In addition, the political changes at the local level, structured by national dynamics, shaped the supply and demand of coercion and electoral violence witnessed during this period.

This article demonstrates how major structural and institutional changes that came into effect after 1997--such as the new Constitution, electoral and party system, civil-military relations and political party-social movement linkages--have generated and caused fluctuations in the level and kind of electoral violence in Thailand. The rise of a strong party led by telecoms tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra in the shadow of these post-1997 structural changes transformed Thailand's national and local political structures and power balances. Thaksin's ambitious goal of monopolizing political power raised the stakes of electoral competition, forcing provincial boss-type politicians to employ violent tactics to defeat their opponents. As a result, the level of electoral violence increased, as witnessed during the 2001 and 2005 elections. After the 2006 military coup, the political landscape at the national and local levels underwent another major change. The royal-military intervention in the electoral process and turbulent street politics marginalized provincial bosses and overshadowed local political struggles, which resulted in declining levels of violence during the 2007 and 2011 elections (see Table 1).

To understand the peaks and troughs of violence from 2001 to 2011, it is necessary to examine political and institutional changes at the national level and how these affected local power structures. Three national-level factors contributed to transform Thai politics and patterns of electoral violence from 1997 to 2011: the 1997 Constitution and its newly designed electoral system; the political ascent of Thaksin Shinawatra and his strong populist party Thai Rak Thai (TRT); and the 2006 military coup. This article examines and analyses how each of these factors caused fluctuations in electoral violence from 1997 to 2011.

The New Electoral Administration System and the 1997 Constitution: Changing Rules and Unintended (Violent) Consequences

Thailand's political reform movement began after the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in May 1992. Reformists defined money politics and vote buying, as well as weak coalition governments, as core problems in Thai politics. Yet just as importantly, they viewed provincial businessmen-cum-politicians as contributing to the country's problems. Journalists and academics deplored rural politicians and accused them of using "dirty" money to buy votes from the rural poor and uneducated voters. They were accused of plundering public resources to win elections and advance their own personal interests. Immediately after the economic crisis of July 1997, the push for political reform galvanized vital support from the urban middle class, civil society and business elites as they blamed the crisis on incompetent government run by rural politicians. In October 1997, the legislative assembly passed a new Constitution which had two primary goals: first, to create a capable and stable government, and second, to eradicate vote buying and money politics. (2) The unspoken goal, however, was to prevent provincial politicians from assuming power, as had occurred earlier in the 1990s.

To curb the power of provincial and money politics, the constitutional drafters redesigned the electoral system, election administration and rules governing party organization. (3) An independent body, the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT), was tasked with administering and overseeing electoral processes, functions that had previously been undertaken by the Ministry of the Interior. The ECT was mandated to investigate violations of electoral law and misconduct, and it had the power to counter electoral fraud by disqualifying candidates before or after voting day. These sweeping powers effectively made the ECT one of the key players shaping electoral results--and effectively a gatekeeper to the House of Representatives. However, in the first election held after the promulgation of the new Constitution in 2001, the ECT's lack of experience and capacity, combined with unclear rules and mismanagement, became sources of conflict.

Apart from creating the ECT, the 1997 Constitution adopted several new organizations, mechanisms and rules. For the first time in Thai history, senators were to be elected directly rather than being appointed. Voting was compulsory for all eligible voters and party switching, a popular practice among Thai politicians, was restricted. However, the most far-reaching reform was a major overhaul of the electoral system. As part of an attempt to facilitate coherent political party and party-oriented politics, it replaced the block-vote system (used under the 1978 and 1992 Constitutions) with a mixed-member or two-tiered system. (4) Out of 500 parliamentary seats, 400 seats were elected from single-seat districts on a plurality basis (or first past the post, FPTP), and another 100 seats were elected from a nationwide district on a proportional basis. All political parties had to submit a list of candidates for voters to consider and those on the party list were ranked in order. Each candidate had to decide whether they ran for a constituency or a party list seat, and each voter cast one vote for their district representative and another for a party list. The constituency and party list votes were calculated separately and had no effect on each other. The introduction of a party-list system aimed to provide an opportunity for technocrats, businessmen, professionals or basically non-provincial boss-type candidates to enter politics without electioneering. It also aimed to strengthen party building and party identity.

The drafters believed that changing to the FPTP system would reduce vote buying because districts were smaller, they reasoned, candidates would be able to cultivate close relationships with their constituents without dispensing particularistic material benefits or cash. (5) The goal was also to allow non-affluent but quality candidates to compete with influential bosses. The drafters also claimed that another advantage of the FPTP system was its lack of intra-party competition (which typically occurred in the block vote's multiple-seat districts). (6) Despite the advantages of the FPTP system on party building and reducing vote buying, it created negative unintended consequences: it intensified electoral conflict in many provinces.

In general, there were no direct causal links between the FPTP system and the frequency of electoral violence; no study demonstrates or proves that the adoption of this electoral system led to greater violent conflict during elections. (7) Nevertheless, the sequence and context of the introduction of FPTP voting in Thailand encouraged greater levels of violence. It is critical to emphasize that the FPTP was taken up after Thailand's long standing use of the block-vote system. The block-vote system helped diminish the intensity of electoral competition by allowing strong candidates to avoid head-on confrontations with each other as it was unnecessary to win the most votes to get elected. For example, in a two-seat district with two rivals standing, both of them could collect just enough votes to win the first and second position to get elected. In the FPTP system, the competition became a zero-sum-game as there could only be one winner per district--only the strongest boss could go to Parliament. Theoretically, the best way for the boss to escape defeat was to avoid running in the same district as his main rival, but this was not an option for everyone. After competing under the same electoral system for decades, each political boss or family had successfully established their own political stronghold, usually...