The real meaning of Thailand’s constitutional referendum - no sense a free and fair referendum. The military junta banned any campaigning

The result of the Thailand’s recent referendum appeared to show an easy win to the ‘yes’ camp. 61 per cent of voters approved the draft constitution while 39 per cent voted ‘no’. 58 per cent also approved a second question, inserted at the last minute, on whether a non-elected prime minister could be appointed by a joint sitting of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Yet the result of the referendum is less conclusive than it would appear.

The turnout was 59 per cent, less than the 80 per cent the military had hoped for, and below the average turnout for the last six general elections, which pro-Thaksin political parties have consistently won. But it was slightly higher than the turnout for the 2007 referendum (58 per cent). And the ‘yes’ vote increased by 2 per cent, while the ‘no’ vote decreased by almost 4 per cent.

While no evidence of electoral fraud has been uncovered, this was in no sense a free and fair referendum. The military junta banned any campaigning. The ‘Vote No’ camp never had a chance to put their case to the people. Scores of people who defied the ban were arrested, charged and some imprisoned. Because of the ban many voters did not know what was actually in the constitution. Meanwhile the regime made it clear through its control of the mass media and its influence over the bureaucracy that it expected the constitution to be passed.

Under such favourable circumstances the 36 per cent of eligible voters who supported the draft constitution is hardly a ringing endorsement of the constitution or its military junta backers.

Yet it is not an insubstantial figure either. So how can we explain the strength of an apparently antidemocratic vote?

It is important to acknowledge that, unlike during the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, the Thai military today does not rule in its own right. It has a substantial social base of support. It is backed to varying degrees by middle and upper-class Thais, the powerful bureaucracy, the judiciary, university administrations and faculty, and large Sino–Thai corporations. For historical reasons, it also has significant support in the upper and middle region of southern Thailand.

The Thai military’s real role today is as the armed vanguard of what the political scientist Fred Riggs famously coined ‘the bureaucratic polity’ that has dominated the Thai state since the 1950s. Members of the bureaucratic polity have historically seen themselves as serving the king, not as ‘civil servants’. Indeed the Thai word for bureaucrat, kha ratchakan, literally means, ‘the king’s servant’.

The bureaucratic polity ensures that the lion’s share of state revenue is spent on Bangkok. The best schools, universities, hospitals, as well as job opportunities are all found there. Democratisation of Thai politics threatens this. It is no wonder that the Bangkok middle and upper classes are so opposed to it.

These antidemocratic tendencies also have religious and cultural roots.

The prominent place of the kha ratchakan in Thai society receives a subtle religious justification through the ancient Buddhist doctrine of ‘merit’ (bun). The poor are poor because of their lesser merit — that is, accumulation of good deeds in past and present lives. Morally, they are inferior to the wealthy.

The conception that the poor have low merit slips easily into the middle class’s biggest gripe about democratic politics: the scourge of corruption. Politicians, because they represent these low merit/corrupt people, cannot escape the stain of corruption. Majoritarian democracy — rule by ‘the people’ — is problematic in Buddhist terms, since it means rule by people of low merit. By contrast, since the military and bureaucrats serve the king, the most meritorious being in the kingdom, they rank highly in the moral hierarchy. Of course, not all Thais are fervent Buddhists, but these ideas are still influential.

The need for government by ‘good people’ has been the rallying cry of the conservative elite since the crisis began in 2006. The preamble to the draft constitution explicitly states that it is designed to prevent people of ‘no morals’ from taking power in the country.

There is also an ethnic dimension to this Bangkok–provincial political cleavage. As historian Chris Baker has pointed out, the predominantly Sino–Thai middle class has ‘almost no affinity with rural Thailand’. For many Sino–Thai, the countryside is ‘unknown and hence fearsome’. This fear intensified in April–May 2010, when over 100,000 Red Shirt protesters, many from the northeast and north, marched into Bangkok with the aim of pressuring the elite-installed government to resign. The protests were bloodily suppressed by the military with up to 100 killed and thousands injured. One of the military leaders in charge of the crackdown, General Prayut Chan-ocha, led the 2014 coup and is now prime minister.

This is Thailand’s 20th constitution in 84 years. Each constitution has an average life of just over four years. The frequency with which constitutions have been torn up following military coups has degraded their significance. Rather than setting in stone for perpetuity the basic legal framework for a nation, constitutions are almost always merely the attempt by the coup group and their backers to legally extend the authority they have won through force of arms.

But the debate over this particular constitution comes at a unique moment in Thailand’s modern political development. After 70 years on the throne, the reign of King Bhumibol is coming to an end. Since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932, two competing conceptions of political legitimacy have been at war with each other. One holds that legitimate power lies with the monarch and is administered by his royal officials and defended by the military; the other, that it derives from the people and is exercised by their elected political representatives. This conflict has never been resolved.

Can the political domination of the bureaucratic polity survive the succession? Will the legitimacy that the monarchy confers on it and its military protectors continue under the new king? The level of repression since the 2014 coup, the draft constitution’s attempt to legally hobble any elected government and shore up bureaucratic power, and the lengths to which the regime has gone to force the referendum through, all suggest that the regime and its backers are far from certain.

Given all this, it is unlikely that this constitution will last much longer than its predecessors.

Dr Patrick Jory is a Senior Lecturer in Southeast Asian History at the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland.