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COVER:
CHUAN INTERVIEW:
SILVER LINING:
VIEW FROM WASHINGTON:
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ASIA | March 30, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 12 |
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As odd it may sound, the economic crisis hands to Chuan political stability, at least for now. Although opposition parties staged a feeble attempt at censuring his government last week, nobody seems eager to take the reins during the current economic difficulties. Things could get worse, as demand for exports fails to materialize, unemployment rises and the countryside is forced to absorb its out-of-work urban cousins. Whoever is in charge will be stuck with the blame for that. So for now, Chuan is firmly at the helm. "This coalition came together by the demand of the public," says Abhisit, "and the coalition partners are giving Chuan the mandate to act." From the first hours of his new administration, Chuan the Slow Mover showed he had learned to pick up the pace. At his first press conference, he sat in the crisp white military uniform of Thai parliamentarians, flanked by the two men he picked to engineer a financial rebound: Tarrin Nimmanhaeminda, the Finance Minister, and Supachai Panitchpakdi, a Deputy Prime Minister. They wore business suits. The message seemed clear from the start. "Chuan was going to take more of a back-seat driver's role this time," says Baker. He assembled a youthful, educated, internationalist team of advisers who appear confident and capable, both to Thais and to foreigners. The usual bunch of back-room wheeler-dealers are there, too, but they've been kept in the back room. Chuan has even taken subtle steps to make himself appear more authoritative, standing behind a podium and keeping reporters away from him during press conferences, whereas predecessors let them swarm around. The business-like demeanor of Chuan's team complements his natural style. Out of fashion are the gangster-type politicians of the boom years, who danced the nights away at discos and used their power to amass small fortunes. In the current lean times, a more agreeable image is the politician-as-monk, and Chuan cultivates it well. His gentle oratory style can lean to preachiness. But as Samak Sundravej, who heads a rival party, concedes: "He can get away with it because he is a good guy. It isn't hypocritical." Chuan's life-style is as abstemious as a monk's. He has a common-law wife and a son, although he doesn't live with them. For more than 20 years, he has occupied the same simple house that belongs to an old law school classmate, located on a noisy, cluttered side street beneath one of Bangkok's new expressways. Beyond the fence of a tiny garden in front of the house, the chatter and sounds of grease sizzling on a wok can be heard from a modest restaurant next door. He isn't a big-spender. "When he goes to weddings or birthday parties, he is likely to give them something simple, like fruit or a Buddha image," says Foreign Minister Surin. In financial disclosures made last year, Chuan listed a net worth of $138,000, compared with the more than $48 million reported by the wealthiest member of his cabinet.
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