In the latest twist in the country’s political power struggle. Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, Thai army chief and head of the new ruling junta, has suspended the constitution, rounded up politicians and flushed protesters off the streets.
A coup in Thailand? I thought that already happened this week. The military declared martial law on Tuesday – which some saw as a coup. Yesterday’s, however, was indisputable: grim-faced top army brass announcing the takeover; television stations playing nationalistic music; and demonstrators forced home, some with gunfire ringing in their ears. The military has had a fair bit of practice at such interventions. This was the 19th successful, or attempted, coup in 82 years for an institution that sees itself as guardian of king, country and people – and has few checks on the way it interprets its role.
Why has army done this now? The junta’s spin is that it is the only institution with the authority to end a seemingly intractable, and periodically deadly, political fight between opposition forces, aligned to the urban elite, and a government, backed by many rural Thais. On this argument, Gen Prayuth is a reluctant interventionist, approaching retirement, who in the end just lost patience with uncompromising civilians. The more cynical view is that an army deeply embedded in the establishment is yet again toppling an elected government that it does not like: Thailand’s crisis may have been spilling blood and damaging the country – but not on a scale that justified military intervention. Even on the more benign reading, the military has a huge, perhaps impossible, task ahead.
Generals who have arbitrarily declared martial law and ripped up the constitution are casting themselves as the overseers of reforms to deliver peace and democracy. Still more problematically, a military that has massacred protesters several times during crises – most recently just four years ago – is presenting itself as the honest broker in a deeply divided country.
What do most Thais think? Their views are as wide as the gulf between the politicians that helped bring the country to this state.
People are almost used to military interventions – even an eight-year-old Thai child will have seen two military coups. But beneath the rhetoric, sincerely believed by some, of the army as the great protector, the intervention cannot suppress forces tearing at a country that is modern and worldly in many ways but also retains a deeply formal and traditionalist core.
Those tensions are distilled in a widely held worry about the destabilising impact of potential conflict over the succession to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, head of state since 1946 and a living bridge between Thailand's past and future.
What happens next? The biggest fear is confrontation between the new military rulers and the “red shirt” supporters of the government they have ousted. This is most likely in the rural heartlands, where anger at the perceived arrogance and contemptuousness of a Bangkok elite that the reds see as repeatedly stealing power from them runs deep.
The appointment of a new government and the timing of elections – which the opposition wants delayed – will be early tests of the junta’s political biases. Internationally, the generals risk provoking alarm in allies ranging from Washington to Beijing. The coup obliges the US to review its military relationship with a country to which it has been close since cold war Indochina conflicts. The junta also has a big job to reassure investors. – (Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2014)