BANGKOK – Demonstrating his considerable political power despite being a convict-in-exile, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra appears to have strongly influenced the results of the first elimination round of Academy Fantasia 6 through a call-in to influential Thai teenagers one night before the close of voting.
It is believed that Thaksin expressed specific preferences for V4, Newty, and V11, Tabby, two female contestants who were trailing in the vote totals prior to the Saturday night live broadcast. A late surge of votes put both of those contestants near the top, while previous vote-leader V7, Krit, sank to the bottom.
Despite a pop-dance performance that his coaches called “electrifying,” Krit was eliminated at the end of the evening, to the shock of many of his supporters in the audience. A representative of Krit told NTN that he planned to appeal to the Election Commission, citing the possibility of vote manipulation.
However, TRUE Visions, the broadcaster and producer of AF, insisted in a prepared statement that the voting was in accordance with the AF rules and that there was no evidence of fraud. “While the surge of votes came largely from SMS texts received from phone numbers in the North-East area of the country, there is no indication that they were not valid votes,” read the statement in part. “There is no rule against third-party campaigning on behalf of AF contestants.”
Political analysts were quick to point out that Thaksin remained a major player in Thai reality-TV, despite the efforts of his enemies to reduce his influence. “Thais are still largely fed up with the existing Academy Fantasia power structure,” said Kajit Jittasevi, a professor at Thammasat’s Faculty of Political Science. “The abuse of power by TRUE Visions in bringing back eliminated contestants starting in AF2, allegations of vote-buying by the families of rich contestants, and the fact that the winner is often a good-looking boy rather than the best singer, have all contributed to cynicism among the common Thai teenager.”
It is believed that Thaksin’s involvement in AF began as early as AF1, when he used his control of the AIS network to support V6, Aof, only to see him lose to the eventual winner V2, Vit. “That was a life-changing experience for Thaksin,” said Kajit. “Aof was clearly the better singer, but Vit won because TRUE made more of his poor background and supposedly undercounted Aof’s AIS votes. Thaksin learned from that experience, and has probably had a hand in picking every Academy Fantasia winner since.”
The situation came to a head in September 2006, when Thaksin supported V8, Boy, over V12, Tui. In what was rumored to be a response to mass-voting by AIS computers for Boy, TRUE brought Tui’s mother, a working-class single woman, to the performance event on her birthday for a sentimental reunion with her son. The result was a surge of votes for Tui that Thaksin countered by attempting to offer Boy’s songs as a free ringtone to AIS subscribers. TRUE forcibly eliminated Boy the following week by refusing to count AIS votes, resulting in an extra-legal reality-TV “coup.”
Despite the initial popularity of their actions, TRUE soon lost public support with the disastrous AF4, with 20 contestants instead of 12, a number of non-elimination rounds, and a “surprise” reversal of a “fake” elimination of V1, Nat, who was then told he was actually the top vote-getter and could return to the show with two other “eliminated” contestants of his choice. These and other clear violations of the AF charter resulted in voter boycotts and set the stage for Thaksin’s return to power by proxy.
“Thais no longer trust that TV producers know what’s best for them,” said Kajit. “They’re starting to question the most sacred institutions in society, such as whether Settha “Toi” Sirachaya should even be host anymore. These ideas were unimaginable a few years ago.”
Neither Tabby nor Newty were available for comment, but appeared to be sleeping soundly when viewed on TRUE Visions channel 20.
