BANGKOK – With the highly-anticipated July 3 general election completed smoothly with international endorsements of it being free and fair, exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha expressed deep satisfaction that the illusion of ideological conflict had been successfully achieved.
With Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party achieving a Parliamentary majority of 262 seats, and both the losing Democrat Party and the military expressing consensus agreement to respect the poll outcome, the business of dividing the nation’s wealth between a small group of secretive, corrupt elites can now continue with the added sheen of democracy.
Both Thaksin and Prayuth said that they were looking forward to working together to maintain the status quo in Thailand, and praised each other’s pragmatism.
“Obviously Thaksin wasn’t always our friend,” said Prayuth. “We were fine with his corruption as PM, but when he tried to take our power away we had to oust him. He got the message. He’s a smart man.”
Thaksin, for his part, was very complimentary towards the army’s learning curve as well. “It only took one major act of civil-war brinkmanship to show them that they couldn’t overturn elections,” he said, referring to the red-shirted occupation of Rajprasong in 2010. “Once they agreed to the election thing, we were totally on good terms.”
Both parties described their most recent meeting in Dubai as remarkably co-operative and the power-sharing negotiations as “easy.”
Additionally, Prayuth praised Thaksin for his innovative thinking.
“We used to think that having the poor majority unified into one party was dangerous,” he recalled. “But Thaksin taught us how manipulating the poor into thinking they had a voice in government actually made it easier to control them.”
Thaksin insisted that the “innovation” was merely a refinement of existing methods.
“The army has been using the king the same way for 50 years,” he insisted. “I just updated the system so that it can be used indefinitely.”
But Prayuth insisted Thakin’s ideas were genuinely brilliant.
“It never occurred to us that bitterly contested elections might be good for hiding our stranglehold on power in Thailand,” he said. “But Thaksin showed us how a divided population, bickering over false ideological battles, actually distracted them from seeing the real structural problems in society.”
Prayuth specifically cited Thaksin’s idea of having a Democrat rally in Rajprasong to incite additional hatred among the red supporters, as well as ensuring a Democrat victory in Bangkok districts.
“He said we needed the Democrats to hold Bangkok so that the urban middle class didn’t lose hope in their war on the ‘prai’ – otherwise they might wake up and realize their own powerlessness,” the general said. “I never would have thought of that.”
According to the army chief, it was also Thaksin’s idea for Prayuth to give a televised interview in which he made thinly veiled attacks on Pheu Thai.
“By showing the army as meddling, and then have that meddling backfire, it makes people think the army isn’t in charge, see?” explained Thaksin. “People are so stupid.”
With the international press, academics, and many influential Thai moderates now fully believing that Thailand has made a step towards democracy, Thaksin and the military can look forward to a smooth division of power with only minor, cosmetic concessions towards accountability and transparency.
“I’ll have to raise minimum wage, and maybe build some roads upcountry,” admitted Thaksin. “And guaranteeing wholesale rice prices will be a pain. But that should be easy enough to skim since I now control insider trading on the SET.”
Prayuth said he was looking forward to returning to overseeing the main businesses of the military, collecting illegal tariffs on border trade, managing kickbacks on military contracts, and profiting from the illicit drug trade, while the population remained focused on manufactured conflicts fed via the Thai press.
“We’ve got Preah Vihear, Thaksin’s amnesty, the upcoming trials of UDD leaders, new Democrat leadership, and of course a newly-invigorated PAD coming up,” he said. “Already Facebook and Twitter are buzzing with all kinds of childish anger by Thais who think there’s a war going on for Thailand’s soul,” he added with a laugh.
The two men agreed to a tentative schedule of secret meetings every 90 days, as well as a basic outline of territory, and a media plan for maintaining the illusion of conflict.
“It’s going to be a great year,” said Thaksin. “For both of us.”
