New Mandala

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• 1 Bystander // Oct 25, 2006 at 9:02 am

  All right. So, when I grew up in provincial Thailand, we have maids from outlying villages who live with us, take care of the kids, do various household chores. Come election days, we let them take a leave to go home to get paid by the various candidates. The way it works is that the community leaders such as the village headman will work for a certain party (aka Hua Ka Nan). He knows everyone in the village, so he will persuade people to vote for whoever he represent, and there will be some cash as a gift. I think that the way the villagers vote is not so much about the money as it is about their relationship with Hua Ka Nan, you know, the debt of gratitude. Of course, the money helps grease the wheel.

  The MP candidate outsource their vote buying to the Hua Kanan, who’s supposed to deliver certain number of votes. If the Hua Kanan doesn’t hold up their ends of the bargain, there’s a serious repercussion, like death, for example. So, the villagers know this, and if the Hua Kanan (local teachers, village headman, prominent villagers) are well loved, the villagers will oblige and cast their votes the way they’re told.

  In safe district, I was told that people will hang out in front of polling station, offering up their votes for the highest bidders. Late in the days, the price will go tumbling down, like 50 bath or less per votes.

  That’s how it is in my part of Thailand. Election is not hotly contested in my province though. We keep sending the incumbent back to the parliament. Things will be different in other localities.

• 2 Andrew Walker // Oct 25, 2006 at 9:31 am

  Great, thanks. Just one question – with national votes now counted at electorate level how does anyone know how many votes the hua khanaen did (or did not) deliver?

• 3 patiwat // Oct 25, 2006 at 3:28 pm

  Andrew, in the 2001, 2005, and April 2006 elections there was no way of knowing how effective village canvassers were at vote buying for any particular party. This was the whole point – to make vote buying more expensive and thus reduce vote buying.

  It was one of the many innovations of the 1997 Constitution, and made it impossible to analyze village/district-level voting results, since the results were counted at a centralized location. As Section 6 of the Constitution noted, “ในแต่ละเขตเลือกตั้ง ให้ดำเนินการนับคะแนนทุกหน่วยเลือกตั้ง รวมกัน และประกาศผลการนับคะแนนโดยเปิดเผย ทั้งนี้ ณ สถานที่แห่งใดแห่งหนึ่ง แต่เพียงแห่งเดียว ในเขตเลือกตั้งนั้น”

  With this as well as other reforms (like the mandatory voting, the party list system, the EC, and using single-member electoral districts rather than multi-member districts), the 2001 elections became known as the cleanest in Thai history. Thailand’s military trashed more than the Thaksin government – they trashed the finest institutions of democracy that Thailand ever had.

• 4 Bystander // Oct 25, 2006 at 3:43 pm

  Well, my anecdotes are from the time when I lived there, which is before the 1997 constitution came into effect. In more recent times, it is still very doable to track down the ballot boxes. A friend of mine in fact jus did that in the annulled elections. She followed the ballot box transport convoy from her polling station to the district office where the vote was tallied. TI think it’s required by law that the box be opened one by one, and the vote counter have to show every ballot for all to see, and call the vote hence. If you have people keeping watch around the clock, it’s fairly straightforward to keep track of your return on investment.

• 5 Bangkok Southerner // Oct 25, 2006 at 4:19 pm

  I’ve lived in urban and suburban locations for much of my adult life. Low/mid income townhouses and condos and apartments (rent 3-6k/month) in Ramkhamhaeng, Pakkred (in Nonthaburi province), Charansanitwong (in Thonburi), and Victory Monument. I’m not a true Bangkokian – I moved to Bangkok in 1992 from the South.

  My family and most close family friends were Santi Asoke-Phalang Dharma supporters during the 1990s. After the PDP folded, we were left with only silly idiots to vote for – my family has since ticked “No Vote,” except in April 2006 when I voted TRT. The reason I abstained was because I heavily discounted party platforms – if the parties couldn’t select smart respectable people as their candidates, it didn’t matter how nice their central campaigns were. And for the second half of the 1990’s, no party had really substantial central campaigns. I voted TRT in April 2006 because I was sick and tired at the royalist anti-constitutional elitism of the PAD and felt that the TRT’s populism – even if it was flawed – needed a vote of confidence. Sondhi’s polarization tactics worked, but it pushed me to the Thaksin side, rather than the anti-Thaksin side.

  The family remaining in the South lived in the markets (talaad) rather than the plantations. They usually supported the incumbent party, if and only if the incumbent kept rubber prices high. If rubber prices were low, they would vote for whatever party was the most outspoken opposition party. The votes or political views of the Southern relatives had no effect on the Bangkok branch of the family, even though the Bangkok branch technically owns part of the family’s modest rubber plantations.

  Nobody in my immediate family (including the Southern relatives) has ever been approached, let alone been given money, to sell their vote. No neighbor I’ve ever known has ever been approached either. It’s a damn shame – I’ve always wanted to take the money and then report them for vote buying; really screw them. I’ve heard a lot about vote-buying, but all of it has been hearsay.

• 6 chris white // Oct 29, 2006 at 3:04 pm

  Hi – here are a couple of observations from my sketchbook about the January 2001 elections from a village in northeast Thailand.

  In the weeks before caravans would drive by from dawn to dusk blaring out morlum gorn and political messages/slogans in Lao and young men would jump out and cover every vantage point in the village with posters. A few days before Election Day things, to much relief, seemed to go quiet – I’m not sure if this is because of regulations banning electioneering in the days before voting or if it was just because the caravans just run out of ‘steam’.

  Then I experienced, what was for me at least, an extortionary sight. (This next bit is straight from the sketchbook) “On the village tracks and rural roads of the district the dull dust covered motorcycles, bicycles, small tractor drawn carts, tiny busses, and pick-up trucks normally seen was joined by flocks Bangkok taxis, a mode of transport quite unusual in the northeast. That week it was all but impossible to leave Bangkok. Every outbound seat on public transport was booked out with most people enduring the 8 to 16 hour trip standing shoulder to shoulder in the isles of trains and busses. The taxis were arriving not because business was so bad in Bangkok that they needed to ply their trade in northeast. They, also, were jammed packed full with their driver owners, their family, relatives and friends returning ‘home’ to their villages. The bright greens, yellows, blues, pinks and purples of the taxis, moving through the flat, brown post harvest landscape added a festive air counter point to the serious business going on in the local temples and village halls, that of the general election.”

  Election Day. Most people arrived from Bangkok during the small hours of the morning and a festive atmosphere took off around the village – that of multiple family reunions. Every 5th or 6th house had ‘tables’ set up in their yards and food and drink (mainly beer, commercially produced rice ‘whiskey’ and a potent, sweet milk, coloured ‘wine’ made from sticky rice) was being consumed at such a rate that it felt like there was going to be no tomorrow. Little kids were quietly sitting on laps and clinging to parents who they hadn’t seen for months. Older kids were running around kicking up the dust and playing with the new toys that were being handed out. Being a stranger I was being called from table to table and introduced to the new arrivals and asked to partake in the feast. I tried, reasonably successfully, to resist drinking too much by saying that my partner forbid me to drink but as she couldn’t see a little sip wouldn’t hurt. I didn’t hear any political talk on my ‘rounds’ just the type of talk you hear between brother and sister, cousin and cousin, patent and child reacquainting themselves. By about midday things began to quieten down – most people were finding their way to somewhere quite and cool to sleep off the excesses of the morning.

  Meanwhile, voting was being conducted in the sala at the wat. The sala, in this village, is a wooden structure that is raised of the ground a meter or so. It has too entrances accessed by a small flight of stairs, one facing east the other facing west. The eastern entrance was blocked off. At the front of the western entrance was a notice bord where there was a small (A4), official looking, poster of each candidate that contained a small statement and a passport size photo of the candidate in ‘uniform’. At the top of the stairs was a table for the ‘officials’ (I was quite familiar with these men, the village ‘leader’, a village ‘councillor’, a village ‘police man’ and another man who was known locally known in the village as a ‘person that help’ – I’m not sure if this is an officially recognised position or not.) About 6 meters behind this table, in the middle of the sala, were 4 (from memory) voting ‘booths’ that gave a voter enough privacy that they could vote in secrecy but were open and public enough that ensure that no one could interfere with a voter without been seen.

  I sat on the step outside the sala and chatted with these ‘officials’ for an hour or so. We spoke about many things including politics. There was some gentle banter and joking with me about the merit of various candidates. Even amongst this small group of men there was support for three of the candidates from different political parties. However, whenever a voter approached (voters would generally arrive singularly or in small groups) the banter stoped and silence took over. The ‘officials’ went into absolute professional mode. The voter approached the table was asked for their ID card (even though they knew exactly who the person was – poor old grandmother YO arrived without her ID card and was prevented from voting. After she chided the ‘officials’ to no avail her grandson was sent back to the house to retrieve her card. Once the card was produced she was allowed to vote.) The ID card was checked against a list and marked off. Ballot papers were given to the voters and they would proceed to the booths and chose their candidate (even though there was space for 4 people to vote at a time most people hung back until all 4 booths were empty before moving forward.) The voters would fold their ballot papers and proceed to place them in the ballot box. Once this was done then their ID card was returned.

  Later in the afternoon, as dusk began to fall, people were beginning to pack up and leave for the long journey back to Bangkok. The thing I remember most about this part were teary goodbyes from small children as parents and relatives piled into cars and busses with their bags of locally grown rice.

  Whoops – I just realised how long this post is – I’d better finish here.

• 7 New Mandala » Reminder - make your contribution on local electoral culture // Nov 4, 2006 at 1:41 pm

  [...] Just a reminder that the invitation still stands for contributions by New Mandala readers on local electoral culture. As I previously posted I am planning to compile contributions into a single document that, I hope, will provide valuable insights into the diversity of electoral practice in Thailand. There have been some great contributions so far, but some more would be very welcome. [...]

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