The decision yesterday by the Thai Constitutional Court to annul the general election held on February 2 offers some slim hope that the country’s opposing parties will seek a compromise to end the kingdom’s latest political crisis.
It is a step forward and provides an opportunity for all parties. And they must take advantage of it.
The court ruled that the February 2 general election violated the charter because voting was not carried out in 28 constituencies in the south of the country, where the registration of candidates had been blocked by anti-government protesters.
Under the Thai constitution, a general election must be held on the same day nationwide, to avoid prejudicing the outcome of a follow-up poll.
The absence of voting in 28 constituencies was not the only oddity of the February 2 polls.
On election day, 10% of the polling booths nationwide could not complete the voting process, thanks to blockades by anti-government protesters or a lack of ballots or Election Commission officials at the booths.
The turnout was less than 50%, compared with about 75% in the previous election in July, 2011.
The polls were boycotted by the Democrats, the main opposition party which lost in 2011 to the Pheu Thai Party, whose de facto leader is fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The Democrats have lost every general election to Thaksin’s political machine since 2001, when the former billionaire telecommunications tycoon launched his own Thai Rak Thai Party on a platform of populist policies that proved immensely popular, especially among Thailand’s rural poor in the northern and northeastern provinces.
The Democrats, whose traditional power base is in the slightly more affluent southern provinces and Bangkok, have been increasingly frustrated by their inability to undermine Thaksin’s “majoritism” or “parliamentary dictatorship” aided by populist policies.
That frustration gave rise to the People’s Democratic Reform Commitee (PDRC), led by former Democrat secretary general Suthep Thaugsuban. It has been holding anti-government protests in Bangkok since early November in a bid to force the resignation of caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger sister.
The PDRC’s ultimate goal is to “uproot the Thaksin regime”. It wants an appointed government in place to implement sweeping political reforms before the next polls to ensure clean elections, which presumably the Democrats would have a chance of winning.
The big question is what kind of conditions the PDRC and the Democrats will set to ensure the next election will be clean and that political reforms will get the go-ahead.
The ruling Pheu Thai Party has made it clear that it will not condone anything that goes against the constitution, such as allowing an appointed prime minister to take power during a transition period before the next election.
Pheu Thai members suspect the PDRC and the Democrats are colluding with the Constitutional Court and other independent bodies to create a power vacuum, leading to a military coup or a judicial coup that would bypass electoral democracy.
The rival parties must now use the election annulment as a way to move forward and find a formula to end the crisis in the larger interest of the nation.
