Taking On Thailand's Prime Minister

Wednesday, Apr. 4, 2001 Klanarong Chantik could pass for a strongman any day. Paunchy and stern, with a pencil-thin mustache and gold-rimmed sunglasses, Klanarong looks like a man capable of launching a coup d'etat. Maybe he is. On Tuesday, he tried to take down a Prime Minister. But he didn't use guns or force. He used the law.

In a teakwood room inside an old Bangkok palace, Klanarong, a member of Thailand's National Counter Corruption Commission, stood before the 14 justices of the Constitutional Court and leveled corruption charges against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The Prime Minister is accused of concealing millions of dollars in assets to manipulate share prices and avoid paying taxes.

Using the law to unseat a Prime Minister is a revolutionary concept in Thailand. Few countries have ever put a sitting Prime Minister on trial. But Thailand, which just a decade ago was still a place where power changed hands through the barrel of a gun, is engaged in a difficult, sometimes stumbling struggle to establish a truly representative democracy where the rule of law prevails.

Thaksin, however, didn't show up in court on Tuesday. The defendant was taping a speech to be aired on national television later that evening to rally support for his efforts to revive the nation's crumbling economy. Saying he would turn up only when it was necessary to testify, he dispatched five of his best lawyers to represent him. It's doubtful they can help: the evidence against the Prime Minister is apparently solid.

"This trial will go on for at least a year, maybe a year-and-a-half," says Chris Baker, co-author of several books on Thailand including "Thailand's Crisis," an account of the economic collapse. Baker and others believe that Thaksin will have his lawyers drag the case out for as long as possible so that he will have more time in office to implement his policies.

It's not just the lawyers, though, who want to extend this case. The judges are also in no rush to deliver a verdict, Baker says. That's because Thaksin is even more popular now than when he was elected last January in the largest landslide in Thailand's history.

Since taking office, Thaksin has displayed an action-oriented style of governing not seen before in this country. He has chaired nationally televised brainstorming and policy sessions on everything from setting up a national asset management company to resuscitating the stock market to solving the drug problem. The problems haven't been solved -- and in the end the meetings may be just good public relations -- but "so far, the people like what they see," says Senator Meechai Viravaidya.

Thaksin also got a boost when a Thai Airways jet he was about to board last month blew up. Police labeled it an assassination attempt, and Thaksin reaped a windfall of sympathy. Investigators from the United States said recently there was no evidence of a bomb, and the explosion was probably an accident, but Thaksin is still riding the bounce in popularity from the incident. In his speech to the nation on the economy, the Prime Minister said: "My government knows what the problems are. I know how to solve them. But I need time."

The 14 judges are faced with the most difficult of dilemmas. Do they follow the evidence, the law, and their consciences and convict the Prime Minister, banning him from politics for five years? The public would undoubtedly unleash its fury upon them; they could end up being the most hated men in Thailand. Or do the judges search around for some technicality that can be used to let Thaksin off the hook, without passing judgment on his guilt or innocence? Should they do so, they risk destroying the credibility of the court, the corruption commission and possibly deal a deathblow to Thai political reform.

"I have confidence our judges will look at the evidence and do the right thing, although it may take some time before they do it," says Senator Chirmsak Pinthong, a campaigner for political reform. "But I can't think of any judges in this country that have ever faced this kind of pressure before."