Weak democracies

World leaders called on Thailand’s military generals yesterday to restore democracy in the troubled nation.

The generals, led by army chief Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, responded by clamping down on press freedom, and announcing that free elections would be called only after one year.

After weakening for a day, the Thai baht stabilized yesterday. The Thais seemed eager to show the world that it was business as usual, with schools and offices reopening yesterday and fewer soldiers seen in the streets of Bangkok.

The silence of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, beloved by his subjects, tended to validate Sondhi’s claim that his coup enjoyed royal support. Ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had earlier sued a newspaper over a report that he was behind a plot to eliminate King Bhumibol, the world’s longest serving monarch. The perceived support of the King, who is seen as the true power in Thailand though he wields power only during times of crisis, helped calm jitters.

Rumors that Thailand’s competent central bank governor would soon be appointed prime minister also helped restore stability.

Foreign governments nevertheless warned their citizens against non-essential travel to Thailand. After all, when tanks and guns are used to enforce the legitimacy of a government, you never know when violence might erupt.

And after all, in a region where democracy is seen to be taking root, coups are supposed to be a thing of the past. Coup d’etat is simply not the democratic way to effect regime change.

Western democracies were appalled — and possibly confused – by the coup in Thailand, one of the best performing economies in Southeast Asia. As one Western diplomat told me: What did the Thais think they were doing?

The unrest in Thailand once again raises questions about the suitability of Western-style democracy to Asian societies. Several Thais told journalists that they welcomed the coup and expected the situation to normalize soon.

We didn’t hear concerns from Thais about how the coup might weaken democratic institutions. Perhaps the Thais are like Filipinos, who think an institution is a place where people suffering from dementia (and their ranks are growing, according to health experts) are confined.

Perhaps proponents of the so-called Asian formula for national progress are right, that Asians are simply not wired for Western-style democracy.

We’re more like Latin Americans, wanting to enjoy the benefits of democracy – free elections, rights in an open society – but unable or unwilling to exercise rights with responsibility and do the heavy lifting necessary to strengthen democratic institutions, promote transparency and accountability and deliver good government.

For several Asian governments, as long as they do what is necessary to attract investment and sell their products to the world, democracy can go hang.

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I admired too soon, hailing Thailand for doing better than our country since the Asian financial crisis, which incidentally started when Bangkok decided to float the baht on July 2, 1997.

Of course there are Filipinos who now admire Thailand even more for throwing out the corruption-tainted Thaksin in a bloodless coup. (And good riddance – didn’t he accuse our athletes of cheating?) The joke the other day was that the Thais are so good at everything they do that even their coups succeed.

The Thais have coups, we have coup attempts. No one can tell if the repercussions of the coup in Thailand will spill over into the region.

For us, the long-term repercussions of coup attempts have been no joking matter.

As we have learned the painful way, regime change through a coup or even a military-backed popular uprising injects an element of uncertainty that can be ruinous to a developing country.

Until last February, certain groups were still trying to recreate people power in our country, seducing the military to stage a coup and help install a new government headed by… who knows who might have emerged victorious in an opposition free-for-all? The thinking was that if it had been done in the past, it could be done again.

We saw the folly in this line of thinking as far back as the post-EDSA 1 administration, when every effort of Corazon Aquino to put the country on the path to economic recovery was derailed by coup attempt after coup attempt.

The most disastrous of those attempts was the military takeover of Makati’s commercial district and at least one five-star hotel in Metro Manila.

Today Danny Lim, the leader of that Makati takeover in 1989, is under investigation on charges that he tried to oust President Arroyo last February. Lim’s superior officer during the 1989 putsch, Gregorio Honasan, is once again on the run after a court ordered his arrest in connection with the mutiny in Makati in July 2004.

Old habits die hard, but we know that already. When will this dawn on the Thais?

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The Thais are probably banking on the fact that they have survived scores of coups in the past three decades, and the world will simply shrug off the latest in the series.

This time, however, the world might remember that Thailand sprinted ahead in the Asian economic race (and way ahead of us) during a long period without a coup.

For all the sins imputed on Thaksin, Thailand’s unprecedented boom and its dramatic recovery from the financial crisis occurred during his watch. Just a little over a year ago, the billionaire businessman-turned-politician was re-elected by a landslide in free elections that saw the largest voter turnout ever in his country.

He came to power when his party, Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thais), swept the elections in January 2001 – considered the freest and cleanest in the country’s history.

Combining infrastructure development with microcredit, support for small and medium enterprises, subsidized health care and other basic services, "Thaksinomics" alleviated poverty particularly in the countryside. Thailand also succeeded in changing its image as Asia’s AIDS central to a haven for medical tourism.

Even Thaksin’s heavy-handed approach to security problems met little resistance from Thais. In a crackdown on methamphetamine trafficking over three years ago, 2,700 people were killed in just seven weeks.

And despite allegations of corruption and large-scale tax evasion leveled against him, Thailand’s rating in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index actually improved under Thaksin’s watch.

Unfortunately, he considered himself exempt from the corruption cleanup. There were also concerns that his brutal crackdown on Islamic extremists in southern Thailand would worsen the terrorist problem. And he dared fight the King.

Now Thaksin’s fate is as uncertain as the prospects for democracy in Thailand. And the Thais don’t seem to care.