BANGKOK – An anonymous man who is highly admired across the kingdom has made a political comeback in an effort to win more power than the named politicians who participated in the December 23 election.
The highly regarded man who is wai’d by all took a political break for the past year, but has quietly asserted his esteemed influence once again.
People Power Party leader Samak Sundaravej upset the political establishment when he called the very well respected man a “dirty invisible hand” who was trying to thwart the party from forming a government after winning a higher-than-expected 233 seats in the election.
“The PPP should not be speaking about this man who we all respect and love in such a disrespectful way by calling him the ‘dirty invisible hand,’” said Suthep Thuagsuban, secretary-general of the Democrat Party. “It’s an insult to use ‘dirty’ to describe this figure, whoever he may be.”
Former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai added: “Samak should say who the dirty hand is and what he has done. I think dirty hands existed but they were the hands that bought votes.”
Anonymous people have typically done well in Thai politics. Typically they cannot be criticized—or identified—but they still exert a huge amount of influence.
In 2006, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra claimed that an anonymous “charismatic individual” was trying to overthrow him. The coup occurred a few months later, cementing the influence of anonymous people in the Thai political sphere.
“If you are an identified Thai politician, the last thing you want to do is to get into a fight with a figure that is nearly infallible whose name cannot be revealed,” said a Thai academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity in the hopes that it would increase his stature in society.
Anonymous politicians are thought to be much smarter than named politicians because they can avoid any type of scrutiny. The local press loves the extremely adored older men and will defend them at all costs against attacks by politicians who can be referred to by their real names.
Typically a politician can only become anonymous after at least a 20-year career. Once he or she receives nameless status, they basically have immunity to do or say whatever they please as society respects them very much.
“Anonymous politicians are not corrupt, while named politicians like Thaksin are really bad,” said James Klein, representative of the Asia Foundation in Thailand. “The people whose names cannot be mentioned are very decent and have the country’s best interests at heart.”
The powerful figure who is universally admired declined to give an on-the-record interview for this article. But, he did mention off-the-record that “the country should be run by really moral people who are not evil, otherwise it will plunge into the fiery depths of hell.”
