Mekong Today - September 2007

Is anyone listening, and what will they hear?

by Dr. Peter Vail

Faculty of Political Science

Ubon Rathathani University

One of the recurring themes driving many of the articles printed in this newsletter concerns local voices and local empowerment in the Mekong Subregion. Are local voices valued in decision-making by those who create policy? Are they included as part of impact assessments for projects that will impinge on local ways of life? Are people free to express themselves, using languages and discourses meaningful to them?

Thailand will soon have an election after a year of military rule. Come December, the people will have the opportunity to make their voices heard. The election looks to be a familiar three way struggle between the military, the urban middle classes, and the rural classes, each which has its own interests and agenda in the Thai polity.
 
In discussing the election with my neighbors – all rural agriculturalists and wage laborers – one thing became clear: they resent beinglooked down upon, they resentbeing treated as second class citizens, and they resent hearing themselves being called ‘stupid’ in the mass media by main stream politicians. My neighbors will support the PPP in the election, they say, not because they are so enamoured with the party, but because of their ‘boredom’ rerceive so clearly disrespect them.

It seems likely that the PPP will win the most seats in the upcoming election, perhaps even an outright majority. This will be substantially the result of rural voices expressing themselves at the ballot boxes. But how exactly will this likely victory be interpreted? As a rejection of the military coup? As the ongoing influence of Thaksin’s money and power? As a reiteration of rural support for Thaksin’s political machine?

Sadly, I think it likely that the various interpretations of the election outcome will continue the depictions of rural people as stupid. If Thaksin’s money and power are credited with the victory, it will because of his ingenuity in gaining (or buying) rural people’s blind trust in their neo-populist patron.

If overall rural support is cited, accusations of vote buying will not be far behind. This is not to deny that vote buying will take place – surely it will and not only by PPP candidates. But it will be used to color rural people as easily bought off, as dupes, as misunderstanding the spirit of true democracy.

My guess is, at the end of election day when villagers are asking each other how much they got, their voices will not be that of ignorant peasants reveling in free handouts; rather their voices will express cynicism, a pragmatic critique of a political system that so often denigrates them. Will anyone hear the sarcasm in their voice?