Thais had better prepare for political life without the Shinawatras. Without them on the surface, at least.
With legal dangers mounting, Hun Sen unstoppable and street pressure threatening to be enormous, their rocky, public hold over Thai politics will most likely be untenable in a matter of days.
The embattled Shinawatras are going one foot at a time shakily. And while admirers and critics disagree over whether they have themselves to blame, an agreement seems to be shaping up: It’s difficult to govern in this kind of situation.
The question is not whether they are finished. It’s how the country will cope with the great possibility of them being taken out of the equation. Or whether they can be taken out of the equation at all.
There’s a significant difference between being finished and staying in the equation.
The first means they will no longer call the shots.
Their sometimes-controversial Cabinet picks, the Digital Wallet, the Entertainment Complex, the alleged Bank of Thailand intervention, the awkward dealing with Cambodia and etc will be no more.
The latter means the Shinawatras will continue to factor in the shaping of future political alliances and/or future major political decisions somewhat.
Pheu Thai, despite the decreasing clout, remains a big party with a significant number in Parliament, and everyone knows which family controls the camp.
In other words, the Shinawatras may go below the surface but still be able to pull some strings.
A court verdict on Paetongtarn Shinawatra on her role in the Thai-Cambodian border affairs will be delivered shortly, and so will a court ruling on her father’s royal defamation case.
Alpine is still alive and will continue to hang over her no matter what.
Alleged abuse of state budgets is being investigated.
And nobody knows what else Cambodia’s Hun Sen is having up his sleeve.
There is also the potentially-explosive issue of Lim Kimya, a key Cambodian political figure slain in Thailand earlier this year.
Hun Sen might not want the matter to blow up because it could revive an “assassination” conspiracy theory that could badly affect him as well.
Lim was killed in Bangkok on January 7 in a shooting near the Bowonniwet Vihara Temple. The 74-year-old man was shot dead soon after he arrived in the Thai capital on a bus from Siem Reap, Cambodia, reportedly with his French wife and Cambodian uncle.
Hun Sen extremely did not like him. Both Lim’s colleagues and human rights activists claimed they smelled assassination.
Human Rights Watch’s Asia Director Elaine Pearson was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying that the “cold-blooded killing” sent a message to Cambodian political activists that “no one is safe, even if they have left Cambodia”.
A dig into, or politicisation of, his death could spiral into something that destroys both governments, whether they are innocent or not.
Dissidents disappearing or being murdered away from their homelands is nothing new.
Human rights activists even claim they believe there is an unwritten agreement among some Southeast Asian countries to allow each other's security forces to pursue “troublemakers” over the border, BBC reported.
But Lim’s death can affect the Paetongtarn government directly, and even if everyone leaves the issue at that, Thailand may still be staring at another political upheaval.
Recent developments have disturbed the fragile Blue-Red-Orange equilibrium too much.
The reluctant alliance between Pheu Thai and the conservatives can break any minute, particularly after the Bhumjaithai Party has jumped ship and Hun Sen has brought the issue of sovereignty to the fore.
Yet Pheu Thai and the People’s Party (formerly Move Forward) getting reunited is all but impossible.
The biggest telltale came just this week when even amnesty bills that could benefit Thaksin Shinawatra were rejected by the House of Representatives and supported only by the People’s Party.
The only government-forming formula left is also unfathomable. The People’s Party is unlikely to join hands with the conservatives for obvious reasons.
A House dissolution can bring everything back to Square One, unless the People’s Party pulls off an unprecedented landslide big enough to attempt a single-party rule.
“An outsider prime minister”? A recent opinion poll indicates resurging popularity of Prayut Chan-o-cha, but he, too, could bring everything back to Square One supposing the privy councilor would consider a political return at all.
He is in the list of potential candidates that glaringly omitted names from the Orange camp.
The NIDA poll also shows the respondents would prefer Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s resignation rather than a House dissolution.
A highly-contentious question has to do with an abrupt Paetongtarn job termination. In that case, can the House of Representatives be dissolved, or is forming a new government the only option?
A prime ministerial candidate can get a pledge for support conditional on an early House dissolution. But who can trust whom at this moment?
It could then be a new form of mess, and nobody can predict what it will look like. Even if a House dissolution can happen sooner or later, there is no guarantee Thailand’s political freak show will come to an end.
In politics, a “dead end” does not necessarily mean you cannot go any further. It may just require you to be more shameless to go through.
As they say, it will get much worse before it gets better.
By Tulsathit Taptim
