Thailand's election
Too hot for the generals
Jun 15th 2011, 7:04 by R.C. | BANGKOK
WHEN it was announced at the beginning of May that Thailand's main opposition party, Pheu Thai, had picked the young, unknown and politically inexperienced sister of Thaksin Shinawatra to be its candidate for prime minister, some deemed it a silly, even bizarre, idea—not least some within Pheu Thai itself.
A month or so on, however, and the decision is looking like a stroke of genius. Ms Yingluck has taken the campaign by storm, generating enough buzz and excitement to build a handy lead in the polls over the incumbent Democrat Party, led by the prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. There is still something over two weeks to go until election day on July 3rd, but if she keeps up her present pace it's difficult to imagine the Democrat Party ever clawing its way back across the gap.
So how has Ms Yingluck managed it? To shine a little daylight on the magic, I joined her and her very large team for a day on the campaign trail in Thailand's deep (and largely Muslim) south. This is not natural Pheu Thai country—their heartland is in the rural north of the country—but she was mobbed nonetheless, even if only by her own supporters.
Of course, being the younger sister of Mr Thaksin gives her instant name recognition. The former prime minister, ousted in a coup in 2006 and now living in a self-imposed exile in Dubai, is the unofficial leader of the party; he picked his sister to lead the campaign because he could count on her loyalty. Ms Yingluck thus has a ready-made bond with the Pheu Thai base, including many of the "red shirts". They still adore Mr Thaksin and see this whole election campaign as nothing less than a final push to get their hero back to Thailand. Warming to this theme, the egocentric Mr Thaksin was rash enough at the start to describe Ms Yingluck as nothing more than his "clone". It's clear, however, that Ms Yingluck is rather more than the family android—and brings to the campaign her own qualities and attributes.
For a start, she is not quite the political ingénue that she seems. Although at 44 years old she has never held public office, she points out that she comes from an intensely political family; her father was an MP for Chiang Mai, their hometown in the north-west, and her brother was prime minister. She studied political science in Thailand and public administration at an American university. Politics, her friends claim, is in the blood.
Moreover, though might be relatively new to the game herself, she has surrounded herself with a very experienced team of older men who have been running her brother's various campaigns for years. Thus her very appealing freshness, youth and easy-going nature are finely balanced against a hard-nosed, slick and pragmatic campaign that organises every step she takes, every camera angle and every handshake. Not a word or a smile is wasted. As the first woman to run for prime minister in Thailand she also seems to be mobilising women to vote for the party. Her youthfulness appeals to the Facebook generation.
In sum, the naturalness and easy manner that Thais appreciate in Ms Yingluck is authentic—but the fact that it comes over so well is the result of a lot of sweat and forethought. I have covered many campaigns now both in rich and in developing countries, and Ms Yingluck's campaign is among the best choreographed and organised that I've seen. And, of course, it helps enormously that she is pretty ("hot" in Thai political-science jargon) and has a big smile—which is just the sort of thing that newspaper editors look for to brighten up their front page every morning.
The Democrat Party grumbles that it's just a circus, that in reality she is merely a lightweight and wholly unqualified to run the country. Which, of course, might well be true—but it misses the point entirely. She is the perfect early 21st-century political candidate, a beautiful fit for the modern mass media: telegenic, charismatic and very easy for voters to relate to. Her stump speech is short and to the point, just endlessly hammering home a few key populist economic policies that everyone can remember (free tablet PCs for school kids, rise in minimum wage, etc), and then it's back to loving the camera.
The Democrats, led by Oxford-educated technocrats, argue that their own economic message is, by contrast, deep and meaningful. Maybe, but they have failed to encapsulate it in slogans or phrases that people can pick up on. In truth, they have been completely wrong-footed by Ms Yingluck. At party headquarters all their managers hope for is that the Yingluck whirlwind will blow itself out ("the novelty will wear off"), after which they can then subject her half-baked policies to the scrutiny that they deserve. But by that time, I suspect, the election itself will be virtually upon us. In other words, they are out of time.
Even the army, her elder brother's main foe, now seems to be taking the prospect of a Yingluck government seriously. Rattled by her success perhaps, the army chief General Chan-ocha appeared on TV on June 14th to urge people to vote for "good people" come July 3rd. The army of course organised the coup against Mr Thaksin in 2006 and are widely considered to have had a hand in putting together the present Democrat-led government; the general was interpreted by some as warning the electorate against voting Pheu Thai. Ms Yingluck has promised to be conciliatory towards the army and her brother's other "establishment" opponents, if she is elected—but by any measure this seemed to be a considerable provocation.
Winning the election will be one thing, it seems, while actually being allowed to form a government could be quite another. For the moment however it is Ms Yingluck enjoying the "big mo", as the Americans call it. Someday soon she might even prove too hot for the generals to handle.
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