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A Hope for Thailand
The unexpected announcement by King Bhu jnlbol Adulyadej recalling a former respected prime minister. Anand Panyarachun. to form a caretaker government in Thailand offers a new hope for the country which is yet to recover from •the aftermath of the blood bath of earlier this month The move does not help in healing the wound caused bv the massacre of pro-democracy protesters by the army led by Gen Suchinda Kraprayoon as such However. It may — indeed, should — start a process that puts the country on the road to democracy that no longer operates under the shadow of an army rule
A former ambassador to the United States, a well-respected administrator and a businessman. Anand had served as an interim prime minister, again appointed by the King, after a military coup had ousted an elected government in 1991 His short-lived government was seen by most Thais as the cleanest and. tn some ways, the most efft cient one in the country in recent decades How ever, being a non-partisan technocrat, with no political base of his own. he stayed out of the last election and went into retirement
The plan announced by Anand has been welcomed dv a cross section of people in Thailand The parliament will be dissolved anytime and then within 90 days, a fresh election will be held under an amended constitution. One of the most crucial changes made in the constitution makes it mandatory for the prime minister to be an elected member of the lower house — which Suchinda and many of his predecessors were not — and thus be answerable to the legislature tn real sense of the term Other changes made tn the constitution reduce the powers of the nominated upper house, the Senate, which, in the past, had been used by the military to impose its will on the lower house
The changes, not to mention the appointment erf Anand, augur well for Thailand However, much remains to be done for the country lo recover its losses — social, political and economic — caused by recent events As the new Prime Minister has put it. one of the immediate tasks of the caretaker government is to regain the confidence of foreign entrepreneurs In the continued stability In Thailand While one wishes every success to the administration on this score, many multinational companies may well reserve their Judgement until a new general election is held ana a new government takes office Again, no one should be surprised if pressure is Drought upon Anand to enter politics and run in the election. However, whether the party this well-regarded technocrat may Join, if he at all takes the plunge into active politics, will capture enough seats in the lower house to make Anand the new prime minister is a different matter. Another way-out may be to choose Anand, after he has been elected to the lower house, as a consensus candidate for the post of the prime minister
With someone like Anand Panyarachun running the next government for a few years, political parties will have time to reorganise themselves as genuine popular organisations, with well-defined programmes, making the fullest use of the newly-emerging yearnings for democracy among the people. Thus, they will be well-equipped to face any further assault on the country’s democratic institutions by the army, the danger of which can never be ruled out. The appointment of Anand certainly offers a new hope to Thailand. However, in the ultimate analysis, the real challenge facing the country must be faced by the political parties.