<Articles>When Election Results Count: A Reflection on De-democratization in Thailand

Abstract

Thai politics has become chaotic since 2006. Court verdicts and military intervention have become more instrumental in the change of national leaders than national elections. This essay argues that Thailand's current political crisis derives from democratization. This essay approaches the crisis from a historical perspective. Elections made little difference for so long after their original introduction in 1932 since, for national leaders who assumed office by military coup, the key to acquiring and maintaining power was the armed forces and civilian bureaucracy, rather than national elections. However, democratization advanced slowly from the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1990s. In 1997, the electoral system became the focus of attention for the first time in the process of drafting a new constitution. Electoral reform was pivotal to democratization. Elections came to count and became indispensable for ordinary citizens. Anti-democratic forces, spearheaded by the People's Alliance for Democracy (yellow shirts), did not feel happy with this expanding democratization and resorted to a coup to stall the momentum for democratization. Against these anti-democratic forces, another political group, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (red shirts) emerged. These two forces struggled respectively against and for elections.