Thai Political Crisis Worsens; Protesters Block Registration of Candidates in 28 Constituencies

Thai Political Crisis Worsens

Protesters Block Registration of Candidates in 28 Constituencies

JAMES HOOKWAY and WILAWAN WATCHARASAKWET

Updated Jan. 1, 2014 10:30 a.m. ET

BANGKOK—Antigovernment protesters across Southeast Asia took to the streets to mark the new year, with Thailand lurching further toward full-blown crisis after election officials said demonstrators are close to achieving their goal of preventing fresh polls from going ahead.Meanwhile, in Malaysia, thousands of demonstrators rallied in the center of Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday evening to protest Prime Minister Najib Razak‘s plans to roll back government spending and subsidies. The protesters dispersed peacefully.

And in Cambodia this week, striking garment workers rallied in Phnom Penh to press for higher minimum wages in an increasingly politicized show of dissent against the country’s long-serving leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In Thailand, the Election Commission’s declaration on Wednesday that protesters had blocked the registration of candidates in 28 constituencies throws into doubt elections set for Feb. 2, cementing the growing sense of crisis in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.

For eight weeks, mostly middle-class protesters have taken to the streets in a bid to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra‘s populist government, saying she is a puppet of her older brother, former leader Thaksin Shinawatra. Late Tuesday, protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister, urged his followers assembled in Bangkok’s old quarter to step up their efforts to block the vote by barricading streets across the capital this month to force Ms. Yingluck to step aside and allow an unelected council to run the country.

Ms. Yingluck’s plans to hold an election to capitalize on the popularity of her pro-poor subsidies and spending plans already appear to be foundering, however. For several days, demonstrators have blockaded candidate-registration centers in southern Thailand, a hotbed of support for the protest movement, potentially delaying the reopening of parliament or even voiding the Feb. 2 vote if fewer than 95% of seats in the lower house are filled.

By Wednesday’s registration deadline of 4:30 p.m., candidates were registered in only 94% of the 500 seats in the lower house.

“This is the most critical election process we’ve ever seen,” said Puchong Nutrawong, secretary-general of the Election Commission. He said the independent agency would meet Monday to see whether it might be possible to extend the registration period, but warned that doing so could leave the election results open to legal challenges.

The main opposition Democrat Party earlier boycotted the vote. The five election commissioners also have recommended calling off the ballot, potentially creating a power vacuum in this country of 67 million people. Last week, army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha added to the tension by refusing to rule out resorting to a military coup like the one that ousted Mr. Thaksin in 2006.

It is an awkward time for Southeast Asia’s often fractious politics to come to the fore. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to begin paring its stimulus spending is strengthening the dollar and encouraging investors to cast a more critical gaze on emerging markets as the wash of easy money that buoyed them in recent years begins to recede.

Politics will take on a more important role in other parts of Asia in the coming months, too, especially in Indonesia, which will hold a presidential election this year.

But it is the standoff in Thailand that throws the uncertainty across much of the region into stark relief.

Bangkok’s benchmark Stock Exchange of Thailand Index has fallen 8.5% since the protests began two months ago, while the Thai baht has fallen to a three-year low versus the dollar. The country’s Finance Ministry recently lowered its economic growth forecast for 2014 to 4% from 5.1% and officials have said growth could slow further if the crisis worsens.

The conflict between the Shinawatra clan and Thailand’s traditional establishment dates back more than a decade to the election of Mr. Thaksin. A self-made telecommunications tycoon, he transformed Thai politics with a series of populist spending policies, such as providing low-cost credit and virtually free health care. He became the country’s first civilian leader to be re-elected.

But Mr. Thaksin’s growing power and his family’s expanding business interests rankled with hierarchies in the military and civil service. After the 2006 coup, he fled to Dubai to avoid imprisonment on a corruption conviction that he says was politically motivated.

Years of conflict between pro- and anti-Thaksin groups followed, claiming the lives of more than 90 people. Since the latest series of protests began in early November, at least seven people have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces or rival groups of demonstrators.

Some political analysts, such as Pavin Chachavalpongpun at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, say the country is now facing a kind of slow-motion coup.

He argues that institutions such as the Election Commission, which last month urged the government to call off the Feb. 2 vote, and the staunchly royalist armed forces are dragging their feet in showing any support for Ms. Yingluck’s administration or the elections.

“The mob couldn’t have come this far without their support,” he said.