BANGKOK – The upcoming July election has revealed yet another wrinkle in Thailand’s socio-economic fabric as urban middle-class voters who used to party all night but who have since settled into mature, responsible lifestyles find themselves painfully and reluctantly attracted to Purachai Piumsomboon.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he’s the best choice,” said Suchada Nantakarn, a 32-year-old finance administrator who lives in Bangkok. “I mean, look at the other choices.”
Purachai, whose name became synonymous with the “social order campaign” of 2003-2004 as Thaksin Shinawatra’s Interior Minister, is now running for MP as the leader of the Rak Santi Party and has made a broad appeal to voters to support him as a viable opposition candidate and a representative of reformist, clean politics.
Suchada, who formerly supported the Democrats but has found them to be “as corrupt as Thaksin but less economically competent,” fondly remembers the previous decade as a blur of nightclub-hopping and heavy recreational use of ecstasy.
“We called him Purachai the Puritan,” she says of the strict enforcement of the 2am closing time that began under Piumsomboon. “He pretty much killed the Ministry of Sound. We swore we’d never forgive him.”
Now married with a baby, Suchada has no nightlife to speak of aside from watching Korean soap operas and “couldn’t care less when the bars close,” since she’s in bed by 10:30pm every night. “The only drug I want is an occasional sleeping pill,” she added.
Suchada’s sentiments were echoed by Maneet Phaiboonlakorn, a 38-year-old small business owner who used to DJ in his 20s, and who claims to have even been arrested twice by police raiding the after-hours club where he used to spin.
“The Purachai Piss Police, we used to call them,” he said of the DSI squad that tested patrons for drugs using on-site urine testing. “I had to put up ฿30,000 in so-called bail when I came up positive for coke. Purachai was my enemy for life.”
Maneet’s hatred for Purachai and the Thai Rak Thai party was so extreme that he even joined PAD rallies in 2005 to call for Thaksin’s ouster. However, in the years following the 2006 coup he became disillusioned with the yellow-shirt movement and the army, and now sees Rak Santi as the best hedge against either Thaksin or the military.
“Purachai was thrown out of TRT for refusing Thaksin’s orders. That makes him a rebel, sort of…” Maneet added, his voice trailing off. “Oh, who am I kidding. I want stability, not rebellion. God, I feel old.”
Although polls suggest that Rak Santi may only pull in less than 4% of votes nationwide, it’s believed that the party might win enough seats to be part of coalition negotiations and that Purachai could be offered as a compromise candidate for prime minister since he has a history of refusing to play politics with both sides.
Purachai’s reputation as “Mr. Clean” consistently ranks him as one of the most trusted politicians in the country in polls, which may prove a premium with an electorate disgusted with the current political impasse.
Analysts believe that Purachai’s consistency will play well with a new generation of no-longer-young voters whose priorities and knowledge have changed.
“The fact is we, I mean, a lot of voters were pretty selfish – and ignorant — in 2004,” said Sansawat Unkpraneet, associate professor of political science at Thammasat. “The same people who might have been attracted to the candidacy of, say, Chuwit [Kamolvisit] during the 2004 Bangkok governor election just because he might re-open the bars, well, those people drink at home now.”
In Sansawat’s view, the 30-40 demographic is also more educated about Thailand’s political history, and less likely to buy into the royalist-conservative mythology of the Democrats or the populist-progressive mythology of Thaksin.
“When you’re sober, your conclusions are different,” he said. “And as a 37-year old myself, I can tell you that that’s depressing as hell.”
According to psychologist Jaruvan Mintalkrapoon, this feeling of depression is natural.
“It’s not unlike realizing that your parents were right to discipline you as a teenager,” she explained. “Which is one step short of becoming your parents, so you can see how people might react to it negatively. But it’s part of growing up – as a person, as a nation, and as a democracy.”
Despite this forward-looking approach, perhaps the hardest concession for Purachai’s new supporters to make still relates to the past.
“I guess he was… he was right to close the bars at 2am,” concluded Suchada. “There, I said it. Just kill me now.”