‘New Politics’ is no panacea
Written by changthai11 on Friday, September 19th, 2008
EDITORIAL
‘New Politics’ is no panacea
Although our half-baked democracy leaves much to be desired, the “New Politics” proposed by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) is no panacea for our political mess.
It is true our parliamentary democracy has been reduced to a ballot box ritual, in which the winners take all through power abuse and corruption. It is true that the current political system is not responsive to rapid social changes and demands for people’s participation. It is also true that our politicians’ blatant greed and moral bankruptcy have triggered deep disillusionment and moral outrage so fierce and pervasive among the populace.
The PAD movement is building on this deep yearning for clean and transparent politics. Yet, the PAD’s efforts to impose its readymade political formula as advocated by core leaders - without public consent or consensus - risks putting the PAD in the same camp as dictators.
Sondhi Limthongkul, the media tycoon and arch rival of Thaksin Shinawatra, unveiled the PAD’s vision of New Politics in July, as a measure to counter money politics. With the pro-Thaksin government increasingly shaky with infighting, the PAD is shifting to higher gear to push for an ad hoc “national government” based on its New Politics formula. To be fair, the PAD has made clear from the start that its 70:30 quota for selected and elected members of Parliament is only a rough model that needs to be worked out through public debate in order to reach a consensus.
The argument is that the marriage of money politics and mafia-led patron-client system has resulted in widespread vote buying, leading to a monopoly of national politics by competing money barons and their cronies. In this political dead-end, politics is not about solving public woes but about pocketing from cabinet posts, national budgets and mega-projects.
The PAD insists that this political monopoly must be broken by ensuring that Parliament is represented by all sectors and professional groups, so their voices and needs are heeded at the national level. Hence the quota system for elected and appointed MPs.
While the PAD’s proposal reflects public frustration with the current political system and the need for another round of political reform, it does not mean that the change proposed by the PAD will do the trick. Political appointees are nothing new. Parliament during the military regimes were full of them. We see its modern version in the Senate and the National, Economic and Social Advisory Council. Despite certain selection processes, the majority of appointees still comes from the bureaucracy and big business. With vested interests in central control, they are resistant to political decentralisation, which hinders political reform. It is this resistance which has made impotent the community rights to manage local resources, as enshrined in the 1997 “people’s charter”.
Apart from the problematic quota system, the New Politics proposal poses questions about the PAD’s insistence on allowing only “good” people to govern the country. Who gets to define what good means, and in whose interests?The political divisiveness now is so deep and pervasive that any effective political solution must arise from public consensus, not from a partisan group. It must come from the ground up, not the top down.
We cannot carry on with money politics. But money politics is the result of unequal access to public resources and services. Any political solution that sustains central control and fails to address the structural inequalities will fail to produce a democracy.
