Judgment in the process against Thailand Ex-Premier before

0
501

2014 Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra had been overthrown. Since then, the military power of the former head of government, now the process is governed in the country.

With Friday’s expected verdict against Ex-Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra another Chapter in the year long political power struggle in Thailand. Of 2014 by the constitutional court from office urged the Prime Minister is accused of criminal neglect of their official duties. This is a controversial rice-subsidy program that the government of the Prime Minister had set up according to your choice in 2011. Thailand was the largest rice exporter in the world. The government bought from the farmers the rice at double the market price, and stored the rice and was hoping to push the world market price. However, Thailand speculates. India, which had for many years exported hardly any rice, came in the same year back on the market, and also Vietnam increased production, causing prices to decline rapidly. Yinglucks government burned in this way, according to the current military government about eight billion dollars.

Critics accuse Yinglucks government, in this context, populism. The Prime Minister had ignored the laws of the market, in order to make the ordinary electorate of their Pheu Thai party gifts. You have harmed the country as a whole. Yingluck defended the subsidies in the context of the current proceedings in August 2016. The farmers would have to receive a certain degree of planning security, and it had gone to pay you at least the statutory minimum wage. “This was not a new policy. It was for 30 years,” said Yingluck at the time.

Wolfram Schaffar, political scientist from the University of Vienna and experts of the country, indicates that there are comparable agricultural subsidies in the world. “It was an absolute standard program. And the way I see it, that the Opposition plays the artificially high.”

Not a fair process

To date, the Ex-the Prime Minister rejects all the allegations and pleaded innocent. She was the victim of subtle political machinations. In the case of a conviction of up to ten years imprisonment and lifetime exclusion from the policy of Thailand to threaten her. Against the judgment on Friday, Yingluck may appeal within 30 days of the appeal.

Schaffar emphasized in an interview with Deutsche Welle: “We can’t talk in Thailand of the fairness of the proceedings. The judiciary is not independent and it shows on all levels of the legal system.” It would therefore be wrong to do so, as it was in the case of Yinglucks to a legal procedure.

Thailand’s polarized politics

The process throws a revealing light on the way in Thailand at least since the 2001 policy is made. At the time, Thaksin Shinawatra, the older brother Yinglucks, became Prime Minister. He revived the economy and put at the same time the most comprehensive state welfare program of the Thai history. The idea of the rice-subsidy programme is also attributed to Thaksin. With his policy, which was populist and authoritarian, was Thaksin very successful. The upstart was, thus, of the previously ruling Elite from the bureaucracy, the military, and the king’s house is dangerous. In particular, the Royal house, which had acquired by its social commitment, the Affection of the population, feared for his influence. In 2006, while Thaksin was at the UN summit in New York, staged a coup by the military. Thaksin has since lived in exile. His party Thai Rak Thai was banned in 2007.

In 2014, the military took over in Thailand, the control

In the following years of political unrest flared up again and again. In the violent clashes between the army and supporters of the so-called red-shirt movement, which supported Thaksin, came in 2010, nearly 100 people have been killed. The Attempts of the Establishment, the Shinawatras permanently of the Power to keep, failed. In 2011, Yingluck won at the top of the Pheu Thai party, which had been founded as a successor party, the Thai Rak Thai party with a clear majority in the General elections. To victory, among other things, the prospect of a rice-subsidy program had contributed. The Shinawatra Clan was back after a five years break.

As the government, Yinglucks 2013 brought an Amnesty for demonstrators, the protests of 2010 and a possible Amnesty for Thaksin in the game, called on the political opponents, the shirts, the so-called Yellow, on the Plan. They gathered hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets of Bangkok. Finally, the constitutional court forced Yingluck to resign. As the situation calmed, staged a coup two weeks later, the military under the leadership of Prayuth Chan-Ocha.

Neutralization of the Shinawatra clan

Since then, the military government to build the political System in Thailand step-by-step. The aim is to secure the influence of the traditional elites from the bureaucracy, the military, and the king’s house. It is also necessary to neutralize the Shinawatra Clan and their party, not to lie down like a Weeble and commencement with a new name to the elections, and that’s final.

On the second anniversary of the coup were isolated cases of protests

In August 2016, and a military-drafted Constitution approved by Referendum by the people. The Constitution provides, among other things, a reduction in the number of elected senators in the Thai upper house. This means that from the next elections, which is likely to be re-Yinglucks party, Pheu Thai, the victory automatically lead to a majority in the upper house, in which many of the senators are directly appointed by the military. The new Constitution strengthens institutions such as the constitutional court or the Anti-corruption authority. What seems to convey at first glance, the separation of powers, it means at a closer look, the opposite. Institutions such as the constitutional court serve in Thailand, less of the defence of the Constitution, rather than the enforcement of the interests of the elites. So Yingluck, 2014, it was overthrown by the Thai constitutional court, even before the military took Power. Schaffar summarizes it this way: “the goal is to weaken the elements of direct democracy and the influence of veto instances to expand. It’s about the majority decisions of the voters under control. The Parliament is surrounded by institutions, whose members are from the Elite recruits, to whose decisions override.”

The population voted in the Referendum for the Constitution, has mainly two reasons. The military government, the press, and freedom of expression severely curtailed. A debate in society about how to live in the future, this is only to a very limited extent possible. On the other hand a rejection of the Constitution would mean only a further delay in the political process. The military government would have a re-written Constitution, which would have again been put to a vote. The normalization of the political business, albeit under authoritarian sign, would be merely postponed, but not avoided. New elections has asked the military regime for 2018. However, the date has been postponed in the past years already several times.

Yingluck as a Martyr

Around 3000 followers Yinglucks expected the military government to a judgment. Barricades and more than 1000 police officers to ensure that it comes to violence. The Ex-the Prime Minister called on their supporters via Facebook to come to Bangkok in order to avoid “unpredictable problems”. A Shinawatra-supporters and red-shirt activist said to Reuters, that it will give in the event of a condemnation of the protest action. Trakool Mechai, a former political scientist from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, believes that it comes to large-scale protests. The military have the reins firmly in Hand, he explained to Reuters.

However, it can be according to the Politiologen Schaffar, that Yingluck is not a Symbol, Yes, of a Martyr, especially since the current Regime to back off, obviously, before the persecution of a family.