Pressure mounting

For Thai Prime Minister-elect Yingluck Shinawatra the honeymoon glow of victory in the July 3 polls seems to be fading as her Pheu Thai Party will be confronted with a series of difficulties. The party won 265 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives. A five or six party coalition government commanding some 300 seats in the house is expected to be created by August.

The 44-year-old businesswoman and virtual newcomer to Thailand’s volatile political landscape now has to appoint her cabinet ministers and apply populist economic policies without unbridling Thailand’s economy. One of her campaign promises was to raise the minimum wage to 300 baht (10 US dollars) a day. She also pledged to raise starting pay for graduates to 15,000 baht a month and to create a deal for rice farmers that would guarantee them 15,000 baht per ton – almost double the current market rate. Farmers are also to be offered a 70,000 baht credit for the purchase of fertilizers and other necessities.

'Politics of aspiration'

Naruemon Thabchumpon, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University, said the populist policies represented the "politics of aspiration." Laborers are already anticipating the new pay scale to be met soon after the government is installed, Naruemon said. However, experts doubt whether she will be able to make good on her campaign promises.

Thai industry and business representatives have criticized the wage increases without attached productivity gains due to fears of rising inflation. They also worry the subsidies will harm vital Thai exports.

Thaksin Shinawatra's influence

Analysts are also concerned over the influence that Yingluck’s older brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, will have in the government. Since the former prime minister was overthrown in a military coup in 2006, he has fought a bitter series of battles in a bid to recoup his lost political prestige. Yet he remains influential and close to his sister’s politics, describing Yingluck as his political "clone," as the Pheu Thai campaign slogan "Thakin thinks Pheu Thai acts" made clear.

The grass roots Red Shirt movement (led by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, or UDD) is also poised to be another challenge for Yingluck even though several Red Shirt leaders under the Pheu Thai party list are to be elected to parliament. The English-language newspaper The Nation warned in a column that "Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck Shinawatra and the Red Shirts are three variables that can make or break the Pheu Thai-led government." It also said the incoming government should "watch out for any missteps. Its vulnerability is not threat from the opposition but the risk of scoring a goal."

Sustaining support

Surat Horachaikul, deputy dean of Chulalongkorn University's political science faculty, says Yingluck will need to act completely independently if she is to survive. "To be a leader of a country you must have guts to decide on your own. You cannot just rely on phoning or calling someone," Surat says. The grass roots Red Shirt movement, which has been growing, could pose a threat to Pheu Thai, Surat believes, if Yingluck fails to link the different factions supporting her with Thaksin.

These concerns come as current UDD leader, Thida Thavornseth, is also under pressure to step aside. Thida took up the post last December but hardliners who had fled Thailand after the May 2010 crackdown have now returned. Thida, in an interview, says those trying to force her out are "from the Pheu (Thai) Party, not from the street." She accuses the group, which had challenged her at a meeting last week to step down, of involvement in violent activity during the 2010 protests.

Different directions

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist and columnist, believes "we could see the Red Shirts going in a differing direction" if Pheu Thai overlooks any of the shirt movement’s demands, including justice for Red Shirt protestors who died last year. "If they do not form a political party then they will continue to organize from the grassroots, from the bottom up in disparate ways and could become anti-establishment – a full blooded anti-establishment social movement."

Thitinan believes such a social movement is not healthy for the system in the long term. "If they are alienated and excluded from the system then they will have to resort to their own means – and those means would point to a different kind of Thailand," he warns.

Author: Ron Corben
Editor: Sarah Berning