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The fate that has befallen Samak Sundarajev, the most recent former
prime minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, could led some Filipinos
to enviously think that Thai democracy has reached maturity.
But the way Samak lost his job could have been a
subplot in a P. G. Wodehouse or James Wilcox novel. Accused of being
nothing more than a surrogate for ousted (and criminally accused)
former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Samak was elected PM by a
coalition of his own party made up largely of Thaksin’s people and
other parties whose members were welldisposed toward Thaksin.
Some say the antiThaksin and antiSamak
People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) is the street force of
Thailand’s elites. It had orchestrated the protests that led to
the military coup on September 19, 2006.
Despite PAD’s having pushed Samak into the
ridiculous position of continuing to be the prime minister but
holding office at home, the police and military neither did anything
against him nor acted to drive the PAD demonstrators from Government
House.
What finally did Samak in politically was a
ruling of the Kingdom’s Constitutional Court. And this is where a
Jeeves could have been a behind- the-scenes player.
Samak, a gourmet cook, was ousted on the Thai
Constitutional Court’s order after it found him guilty of the
crime of receiving fees for hosting the cooking program “Tasting
and Complaining.” He was found guilty of having another job while
working as prime minister and of having conflicts of interest as a
TV host of a show that endorses products.
Thai’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej had
urged the judiciary to solve the political crisis in 2006. This time
he was not heard telling the judiciary to move against Samak.
Analysts are worried that the politically
emboldened Thai justices have become still another force—in
addition to the military —that prevents normal Western-style
political democracy from striking deeper roots in Thailand.
In 2007, the courts forced out of office the
foreign minister and two other cabinet officials, they convicted a
speaker of parliament of vote fraud, and found Thaksin’s wife
guilty of tax evasion. Thaksin fled to London because he learned
that he was about to be re-arrested on corruption charges.
Many of these recent cases have sprung from the
new Thai constitution written after the 2006 military coup.
Political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak however
believes despite Samak’s unusual ouster by the court, “the
democratic process was still maintained. It wasn’t the PAD that
ousted him. That is positive.”
But Paul Handley, author of The King Never
Smiles, a biography of King Bhumipol, said “The rulings against
Thaksin and Samak and a few other politicians recently have all
fallen on one side and potentially can be seen as the manipulation
of justice by one group against the other . . . Until we see more
even-handed trials and convictions—and there are many
opportunities out there to show it—we cannot be sure this isn’t
a kind of perversion of the justice system. “ he added.
David Streckfuss, a historian at the University
of Wisconsin, has observed that Thai courts are not open to public
scrutiny. “It’s still not clear whether you can criticize a
court judgment or whether that will be deemed contempt or defamation
of the court,” AFP quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, posing another question about
Thailand’s political stability, the leaders of the ruling party
decided on Monday to nominate acting prime minister Somchai
Wongsawat for permanent prime minister. He is married to Thaksin’s
sister. And this is likely to make the PAD demonstrators angrier
than they are now.
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