Thai PM Shinawatra survives censure motion

Thailand Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 38, won a censure debate by 319 votes to 162 on Wednesday after a two-day debate on Monday and Tuesday. The opposition accused her of inexperience in tackling the challenges facing the country, and also of taking advice from former prime minister and her father Thaksin Shinawatra. They opposition also said that the prime minister avoided giving answers to the media, and she also ended giving wrong answers.

After the vote, Shinawatra, speaking to reporters, said that she would learn from the votes polled against her as well as for her. She also said that there would be no cabinet reshuffle though her coalition partners were pressurising her through her father to make changes in her team. She told reporters that she takes advice from her father but nothing more. During the debate she denied charges that she was but a puppet in the hands of her father.

The Shinawatras have been controversial. Thaksin, the tycoon, is popular among the poor people, and his time as prime minister of the country saw the country thrive. His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was overthrown in a coup in 2014. During the censure debate, opposition leader Rangsiman Rome of People’s Party, accused the prime minister of trying to protect her father and to ensure that he did not have to spend even a day in prison. Shinawatra responded by saying that the royal pardon for her father came much before she became prime minister.

The conservatives and the military elite in the country resent the popularity of the Shinawatras but they are unable to keep them out of power. If the army had its way it would want the conservatives to rule the country but given the violent fluctuations in the economy, the army has learnt the hard way that it is difficult to manage Thailand with its poor people and the rocky economy.

But the army has been insistent that the monarchy should remain inviolable and they have refused to accept that criticising the king does not amount to sedition. So, the populist Shinawatras are allowed to be in office as long as they satisfy the conditions laid down by the army and the monarchists.

Thailand remains an important country in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) because of its geographical location. It has been the tourist hub of the region even as destinations in Malaysia, and now in Vietnam, have become popular. And the Thais in general have proved that they have a mind of their own. Even the army and the monarchists would not want to push the people over the edge as it were.

So, it is a truce, an uneasy one at that, between the populists represented by the Shinawatras, and the conservatives led by the army and the monarchists. Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, has been the centre of global economic importance. Economic boom in Bangkok has usually meant that things are well in the ASEAN, and if there is economic trouble in Bangkok, it is a sign that ASEAN is in trouble as well. The 1997 Asian economic crisis started in Bangkok with the fall in baht, and spread to other countries in the region. So, Bangkok is the economic barometer of the region.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra is not yet a political leader on her own terms like her father Thaksin was in some ways. She will be buffeted on all sides by political currents. And if the economy does well, then she can hope to be in power for a longer time. She is now the prime minister because of her surname. She has to establish her own credentials as the leader.