³Thailand Update: A Democratic Coup?²
MAI Reports from Asia seminar
Wednesday 11 October 2006, 1.00 pm S822, Level 8 South, Building 11 (Menzies), Monash University Clayton campus
³Thailand Update: A Democratic Coup?²
Ms Virginie Andre, Phd candidate and Researcher, Global Terrorism Research Unit, School of Politics and Social Inquiry, Monash University.
While the 19 September bloodless military coup was highly criticized by the international community, the Thai people welcomed the new pathiwat (or revolution). According to an opinion poll conducted in the aftermath of the coup by the Suan Dusit Rajahbat University, 84% of Thai society supported the putsch and 75% believed it would improve politics. As a student of Chulalongkorn University¹s said, ³it may have been an authoritarian, unconstitutional and undemocratic move, but Thailand will emerge stronger out of this and its democratic institutions will strengthen in the long run² (Inter Press Service News Agency, Sep.20, 2006).
The coup followed a year long political crisis involving former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his opponents led by the People¹s Alliance for Democracy, and occurred less than a month before elections were scheduled to be held later this month. The putsch has brought Thai democracy back 15 years to when the last military coup was overthrown in a bloody street confrontation in May 1992. The country has returned to a vicious cycle of constitution-election-government-corruption-coup, where military coup has been the traditional mean of political change for almost sixty years. The repoliticization of the military raises important questions about the democratic and political future of Thailand, as well as the implications for the conflict resolution in the three Southern border provinces of the country.
Ms Virginie Andre will give an overview of the factors that have led to the overthrown of the Thaksin government by the Thai military as well as provide key notions to better understand the new political dynamic of the country.
RSVP with "Thailand seminar" in the subject heading of the email to Dr Tony Donaldson, tony.donaldson@adm.monash.edu.au
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