Thaksin's Real Challenge

No

one doubted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's party would win the country's general election on Feb. 6. The only question was by how much. The answer: by a landslide. Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party won a staggering 70% of the popular vote, securing 375-plus seats of the 500-seat parliament, and will be the first single-party government in Thailand's history. Voters overwhelmingly rejected opposition pleas to hand them enough seats to keep a check on a leader they claim to be an autocrat. Thaksin told reporters, "The result was not a big surprise."

The south of Thailand, though, provided surprises galore. In the troubled region, where a violent Islamic insurgency flared last year, claiming more than 500 lives, Thaksin did poorly. TRT failed to win any of the 11 seats up for grabs in the predominantly Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. While the region is a traditional opposition Democrat Party stronghold, TRT fielded a strong list of candidates, many of them incumbents with ties to the local areas. Some had recently defected from the Democrats. During the campaign, Thaksin said peace in the south was one of his government's "top priorities."

Muslims in the south have bristled under martial law imposed by the government following an attack on an army base there early last year. The relationship between the local communities and the government further soured after the deaths of 84 protesters, 78 of them while in military custody, following a demonstration outside a police station in Narathiwat in October. Islamic leaders in the south claimed last week that Thaksin had paid the price politically and denounced the Prime Minister's plan to set up an élite infantry strike force that will contribute an extra 8,000 troops to the region (in addition to the estimated 20,000 soldiers already there). "The expectation was that Thai Rak Thai would win some seats," says Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "But instead the voters have sent a very strong message to the government that they are not happy with the security situation."

Unrepentant, Thaksin told local reporters last week that he would win all 11 seats next time around. "We will adjust nothing," he said, in comments reported in the Bangkok Post. "What we have done is right. More than half the country trust and believe in us, but not the south. However, we will continue doing our best and, one day, southerners will learn that we always mean well and do good things for them." Rebels made their own political statement just four days after the voting. Insurgents detonated a 5-kg bomb at a military parade attended by Narathiwat Governor Pracha Taerat. Taerat escaped unharmed, although six others were injured. The attack was part of a string of bombings and killings that rocked the south last week. "The insurgents are trying to discredit the authorities," said Siva Saengmanee, a senior security official in the region. For whatever reason, the Prime Minster toned down the rhetoric. On Friday, Thaksin said he would consider "changes" to government policies in the region if "it is for the better." Until he can bring peace to the south, Thaksin's remarkable political career will remain incomplete.