MARC SAXER| THAILAND CAUGHT IN THE VERTIGO OF CHANGE Accordingly, the big parties went out of their ways to court these parties as potential coalition partners or win over small factions to join them together. There were some allegations that these efforts by the Democrats were encouraged by the»powers that be«. On the other side of the aisle, drug raids carried out by soldiers in»red« strongholds led to a war of words between the Royal Thai Army and Phuea Thai. Despite repeated vows to remain neutral and accept any election result, it is not too hard to guess what the personal choice of the army leadership would be. In contrast to these quarrels, the silence of civil society on policy issues is deafening. Thai politics have little to do with ideology and even less with programmes. By and large, there are very few diffe­rences between the policy platforms, even of those par­ties that oppose each other fiercely. Parties are formed, merge with each other, and disintegrate quickly. Candi­dates switch sides in the blink of an eye. This confusion subsides when one looks beyond the generic party la­bels and focusses on the political actors behind them. Many candidates can look back on a long career, some even served in high-level government positions. These grandees preside over a network of supporters who are prepared to follow any moves by their patrons. It is these patrons who make new deals and arrangements in the run-up to every election to secure maximum benefits for their followers and themselves after the election. Accordingly, Transport Minister Sohpon Zarum’s can­didly remarked that smaller parties were ready to form a coalition with any side, as long as they could stay in government. Hence, smaller parties will find ways to benefit from their position to tip the scale. However, beyond the internal party bargaining, the playing field is not even: in order to form a government, Phuea Thai must win the elections by a large margin in order to gain the legitimacy necessary to deter its opponents from in­tervening. Whoever forms the next government, the»money poli­tics« and the cynical bargaining over power and resour­ces that discredit Thailand’s political system will surely continue. Still, the fierce struggle after the elections over the pole position for the main race should be seen as some kind of political competition. Voters can decide who will get the best cards for the grand poker game over who will form the next government. Yet other, un­constitutional forces have already taken their seats at this table. 3. The Political Conflict: Thailand Struggles Over Its Political and Social Hierarchy This already indicates that political developments in the Kingdom of Thailand will not only depend on the results of this election. Rather, the elections constitute another turning point in the political conflict that has kept the country paralysed for years. To fully comprehend the political conflict, one should not be misled by the»red« and»yellow« labels. In par­ticular, the Western media reading of the colour-coded conflict suggests an ideological or class-based cleavage between fixed societal camps that does not exist in re­ality. This crude reduction of the actual situation – for example, the multi-billionaire Thaksin and his republican lumpen proletariat on the one side, and the royalist up­per and middle class on the other – makes it difficult to properly understand the prolonged and multi-faceted conflict. In fact, many Thais – be they demonstrators on the streets or political actors within the institutions – move comfortably back and forth between the two sides. Still, the conflict polarises relations even between families and close friends, and runs counter to ideologies and social strata. Yet both»red« and»yellow« coalitions bring together actors with divergent interests and di­verse values. The Traditional Social Contract Deteriorates A brief retrospect helps in understanding the current si­tuation. With rapid socio-economic development in the 1980s, Thailand used to be cited as a role model for other developing and emerging countries. In 1997, civil society succeeded in passing a democratic constitution that decidedly repelled the political role of the military. Yet, the Asian crisis upset many high-flying hopes. Banks and companies went bust by the dozens; unemployment and poverty exploded. National business elites, already on the verge of extinction, found themselves sidelined by neoliberal reform policies pushed by the Chuan Leek­pai government under the supervision of the IMF. Asses­sing their situation, big business leaders agreed that tak­ing over the state was essentially the only possibility for them to survive. 2 This was by no means an ideological 2. Kevin Hewison, Neo-liberalism and Domestic Capital: The Political Out­comes of the Economic Crisis in Thailand, The Journal of Development Studies 41(Feb.) 2005: 310 330. 3