Thailand Goes Back to the Future

Back in the early cretaceous period, some 120 million years ago, a ferocious, flesh-eating creature roamed Thailand. It had four-inch teeth, measured 21 feet from snout to tail and ate other dinosaurs. When they discovered its bones in 1996 in a jungle riverbed, scientists called it Siamotyrannus isanensis, after the country's old name, Siam, and the impoverished northeastern Thai region where the bones lay, Isaan.

With campaigning underway for a Dec. 23 general election, and Isaan a key battleground, dinosaurs again roam the region — political ones this time. Lumbering onto a campaign stage in this sleepy town is veteran politician Samak Sundaravej, 72, the right-wing firebrand who leads the People Power Party (PPP). The PPP is an ill-disguised facsimile of Thai Rak Thai (TRT), the party outlawed after the Thai military overthrew its leader, the multi-billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, in September 2006. The TRT's Bangkok headquarters is now occupied by the PPP, and the two parties' logos are almost identical. So are their policies, such as cheap health care and easy loans, and for this, PPP leader Samak makes no apology. "This party has inherited the policies Thaksin created," he tells his audience at Kut Chum. "Give us a chance to continue them."

Here's another thing: the PPP's policies are strikingly similar to those of its archrival, the Democrat Party. "You'll notice that all the parties are populist these days," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. Those populist TRT policies won Thaksin two terms in office and raised the expectations of an entire electorate. "Thai Rak Thai has profoundly changed Thailand," says Thitinan. "People have discovered that they've been neglected. They want better lives. They have hopes and dreams." What he calls "the ghost of TRT" hovers over the polling booths.

So does the specter of a resurgent Thai military. Thailand's generals seized power 15 months ago after long-running street protests in Bangkok calling for Thaksin's resignation for alleged corruption and abuse of power. Junta-appointed investigators then froze his assets and filed a raft of corruption charges against him and his family — charges that he denies. But Thaksin's popularity in rural areas such as Isaan remains undented, and with his loyalists in the PPP tipped to win more seats than any other party, his political clout is still a force to be reckoned with, even from self-imposed exile in England. "This election is a proxy war between Thaksin and the coupmakers," says Chris Baker, co-author of Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand.

So what will the military do if the PPP wins big and — as Samak has vowed — brings Thaksin home? Army chief General Anupong Paochinda has dismissed the idea of a postelection coup as "stupid." Not just stupid, but perhaps unnecessary. A new security bill has been tabled before the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly, which replaced the suspended parliament. If passed in its current form, the bill could grant the generals powers to deny basic civil rights. "The military see themselves as custodians of Thailand's political future," says Thitinan. "The security act is evidence of their intention to stay in politics for the long haul." This and other junta-proposed laws would "violate the people's rights," declared former senator Jon Ungphakorn, who led a hundreds-strong storming of the Assembly on Dec. 12 to demand its closure (proceedings were temporarily halted). With no single party likely to secure a majority (about 4,000 candidates from dozens of parties are vying for the 480 parliamentary places), Thailand's first postcoup government might look much like those of the pre-Thaksin past: a shaky coalition with another sharp-toothed monster, the Thai military, breathing down its neck.