Thailand’s Disloyal Opposition; The Democrats pursue power by making the country ungovernable

December 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Thailand’s Disloyal Opposition

The Democrats pursue power by making the country ungovernable.

Is Thailand heading for civil war? The question may seem overly dramatic, but the decision of the opposition Democrat Party to boycott the Feb. 2 general election makes resolution of the struggle between the royalist Democrats and supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra nearly impossible. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban vowed Sunday to hound Ms. Yingluck until she dies or steps down, and he ordered his supporters to block registration of candidates.Faced with almost certain defeat at the polls, the Democrats have decided to pursue power by making the country ungovernable. Such behavior is the definition of a disloyal opposition, and the protesters use the word “insurrection” to define their movement. While they pay lip service to reforming the democratic system, at other times they demand that the monarchy install a new leader and that democracy give way to rule by the elite.

Thailand has been down this road before, most recently after a military coup in 2006 put the Democrats in power. The army forced through a new constitution designed to hobble the supporters of Ms. Yingluck’s brother, exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. This effort failed and made the situation worse. Voters in the countryside only hardened their opposition to the Democrats, and Mr. Thaksin’s supporters went on winning elections.

Mr. Suthep’s main charge against Ms. Yingluck and her brother is that they worsened Thailand’s endemic corruption. There is little evidence to support this, and the Democrats are no strangers to corruption allegations. Mr. Suthep resigned from parliament in 1995 after being accused of using a land reform to funnel assets to allies, an episode that brought down the government. (Mr. Suthep denied the allegations.) Last year the National Anti-Corruption Commission accused him of interfering in the Culture Ministry while he was deputy prime minister.

So far the pro-Thaksin rural population has remained relatively quiet, but they are seething with anger. They are capable of mobilizing far bigger protests to defend their elected representatives should that become necessary. Meanwhile, the once solidly pro-royalist military seems increasingly divided. That may be why the generals have kept to the sidelines this time, but if violence does break out it increases the risk of civil war.

The Democrats’ claims to represent the will of the people, but their leaders are bent on returning to power with or without the support of a majority. With such an opposition, Thailand’s democracy will continue to suffer.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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