Electoral politics, while necessary, is like unhealthy football fandom. It turns people who otherwise would have loved one another and cared for one another against one another, all for the sake of those they don’t really know and who don’t even know their names.
That is essentially a prelude to February 8, intensifying relentlessly as the day gets nearer. And the inexplicable rivalry will increase still after this Sunday, no matter what the election winner says or does. Family ties will barely hang on, and friendship will barely survive. A daughter won’t care if the mother moves out, and an office worker will heave a sigh of relief if a colleague with a strong ideological opinion resigns, simply because of different beliefs that will never matter in the moment of truth.
Fan rivalry in football is largely irrational. If your team commits a hard tackle, it’s pure grit and never a foul. If a penalty is the outcome, the referee is being biased. A crazy post-match interview and the person who gives it will come across as blunt but honest.
On the other hand, if the opponent makes your player fall, it’s a foul every day of the week. A penalty and it will be “So what? A contact is a contact, no matter how slight.” An emotional post-match interview is bad spew of garbage.
That’s how things are going between overzealous Orange and Blue supporters. The same occurred when the Yellow confronted the Red years ago. Elections could not solve their conflicts, just sweeping them under the rug until there was no place left to hide the toxicity.
February 8 is no exception. Any kind of win will only further galvanise the losers. Both sides and their fans will keep practicing nepotism, in other words amplifying the wrongdoings when those of the opposite colour are responsible, while turning a blind eye when it involves people who share the ideology.
But unlike football, politics like this will determine your circles of friends, decides which party or reunion to attend, or factor in your decisions about coming home for a dinner.
“Reconciliation” was a popular word when Thailand was polarised by those supporting and opposing Thaksin Shinawatra. That they later blended together is not because they really wanted to reconcile with each other, but because they had a common interest in stopping the fast rise of a newly-emerged ideological camp.
It’s only an evolution of national divide, and February 8 will widen what is now a Blue against Orange rift instead of healing it. Politics is not the stage to talk sincerely about corruption or nepotism, which are the sources of Thailand’s main problems, because those involved needs corruption and nepotism to maintain or upend the status quo.
February 8 will get everyone excited for 24 hours or so and things will get back to volatile normal quickly. A Real Madrid big win will never turn Barcelona fans into Los Blancos supporters. They will just hate the rival team even more.
If or when parties with different ideologies join hands, it will be like Manchester United fans clapping Manchester City for a while after the latter beat Liverpool. Such a temporary get-together will never last because both Manchester teams are great rivals themselves.
But self-serving behaviours in sports can boost players’ positive energy, pushing them to try harder and be the best of what they do. Cutthroat politics cannot do that. It only makes the bad version of everyone come out.
The best Thai voters can hope for is that February 8 produces some kind of magic parliamentary numbers that keep every party cautious about its moves. Thailand’s politics has worsened to the point where even a fake alliance will do as long as the fragile peaceful equilibrium can last a few days longer.
With some luck, politicians post-election will pay attention to what really matters, like proper education and sensible foreign policies benefiting Thailand, not any particular group, in the long run. With some luck, hate speeches will decrease a little after this Sunday.
Bad news is that the worst-case scenario is likelier. The conservatives-Pheu Thai reluctant alliance after the 2023 general election ended the cannabis deregulation process, which should have been given more chances or a more thorough consideration, risked the state coffer with the Digital Wallet programme, and almost put into effect the controversial Entertainment Complex idea that arguably would not benefit the poor. Such a weird government partnership is possible again after the vote count.
Even if there is no pretentious alliance (possible if a party wins a massive landslide that renders any kind of partnership insignificant), the destructive politics will continue. The media, the influencers, the sharing of social media content and etc have shown that many things have gone past the point of no return in Thailand.
The saying that the country has wasted many years is true. But many who said so were part of the problem themselves. This kind of divisive politics prevents full cooperation between the citizenry and the government. The lost years are a direct result of qualified people on both sides failing to work effectively together and everyone focusing on fault-finding instead of constructive engagement.
There is a fictional story on the world’s best footballers playing for rival teams who finally come together when invading aliens challenge Planet Earth to a winner-takes-all football math. Can that kind of togetherness happen after February 8?
Football rivalry needing aliens to build some senses of unity is laughable if you think about it. But if it is politics, it will be beyond comical and pathetic, no matter how they tried to romanticize such a cooperation in the movie Independence Day.
That film’s name can be profound, though, whether it was intended or not. The whole point is not “independence” gained from the aliens, but freedom at long last from humans’ own destructive nature of taking side senselessly.
