The 19th September 2006 coup, which overthrew the government of Thaksin Shinawat and destroyed Thai democracy along with the 1997 Constitution, has not only prolonged and intensified the Thai political crisis, it has also exposed the true nature of Thai Liberalism. Liberalism, both in its political and economic forms, has tried to claim the mantle of Democracy, even more so since the end of the Cold War. Yet the 19th September coup in Thailand was carried out in order to support the free-market and it was supported by a wide array of liberal academics and politicians. This helps to expose the true, undemocratic nature of Liberalism.

Today the country, and the Peoples' Movement, are split down the middle between those who have lined up to support the military junta and those who oppose it. The immediate debate right now is centred around the military's new Constitution which is being put to a referendum on 19 August. The military are so worried that they will lose the vote that they have tried to ban anyone from campaigning against this reactionary Constitution. They have also increased censorship of the media and enacted a number of authoritarian measures, including suppression of street protests.

Ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawat founded the Thai Rak Thai party after the economic crisis of 1997. The party is unique in recent Thai political history in that it actually spent considerable time developing policies. Ever since the collapse of the Maoist Communist Party of Thailand, Thai politics has been monopolised by political parties of the capitalist class. Previously they did not bother to come up with any policies, relying instead on vote buying and big name politicians. Thai Rak Thai  held meetings with different social groups and came up with real policies at the time of their first election victory in 2001. Thai Rak Thai is a "Populist" party of the bosses which offered pro-poor policies and village level Keynesian economic stimuli by pumping state money into local projects. The aim was to create social peace after the 1997 economic crisis so that the government could increase Thailand's economic competitiveness. At the same the party pursued neo-liberal policies such as privatisation and the support for free trade agreements (F.T.A.s). This mixed economic model was what Thai Rak Thai called a "dual track" policy.

The poor, who form the vast majority of the Thai electorate, voted enthusiastically for the two flagship policies of the party. These were a universal health care scheme (the first ever in Thailand) and a 1 million baht fund, loaned to each village to encourage small businesses. Thai Rak Thai won a second term of office with an overall majority in parliament in 2005. It is easy to see why. The main opposition party, the Democrats, spent the whole four years attacking the health care system and other social benefits. They said that it contravened "fiscal discipline" and well known liberal academics who are now supporters of the junta, echoed Margaret Thatcher in talking of "a climate of dependency".  Previously the Democrat government, which came to power immediately after the economic crisis, had used taxes paid by the poor to prop up the financial system. The banks were in crisis due to wild speculation by the rich which resulted in non-performing loans. Today, the military-backed draft Constitution contains the neo-liberal phrase "fiscal discipline" on 3 separate occasions, but not when it mentions the need to increase military spending.

There was of course a very nasty side to the Thaksin government, despite its Populism. During their first term of office they waged a so-called "war on drugs" in which over 3000 people were shot without ever coming to trial. Even worse, in the three southern-most provinces they waged a campaign of violence against the Muslim Malay population, the incident at Takbai where 90 young men were murdered by security forces, being one terrible example. Despite hollow claims by the military junta to be seeking a peaceful solution to the south, the violence is now much worse after the coup.

Whatever one might think about the Thaksin government, there is no question that it was supported by a clear majority of the electorate in 2005 and again in 2006. What is more, there is no evidence that there was any significant cheating in those elections which would have changed the outcome. Yet "electoral fraud" was one justification for the military take over. This excuse was also used in order to disband Thai Rak Thai a few months ago, in order to pave the way for fixed elections without the party. This caused much anger among the party's supporters, resulting in street demonstrations.

The major forces behind the 19th September coup were anti-democratic groups in the military and civilian elite, disgruntled business leaders, sections of the middle classes and neo-liberal intellectuals and politicians. The coup was also supported by the Monarchy. It would come as little surprise to many that both the Monarchy and important sections of the military and bureaucratic elite have little regard for democracy. But since the previous coup of 1991 and the mass movement which overthrew the military one year later, in 1992, the military and bureaucratic elites are not exclusively committed to dictatorship either. The new post-Cold War strategy of the Thai ruling class means that if the democratic process provides a means to power, status and enrichment, they are happy to choose this path too. There is therefore an underlying contradiction between support for democracy and dictatorship within the elites, which also extends into the ranks of the middle classes. Contrary to mainstream claims, the push for democratisation has always been spearheaded by the social movements or the Peoples' Movement, rather than the middle classes.

What all the pro-coup groups have in common is contempt and hatred for the poor. Therefore, this is a class issue. Social justice and democracy cannot be separated from one another and this is the root cause of the contradiction between democracy and dictatorship among the elites. For the elites and middle classes, "too much democracy" in the last decade gave "too much" power to the poor electorate and encouraged the government to "over-spend" on welfare in order to gain mass support. The elites who were shut out of Thaksin's circle of friends became jealous of his political power but they could not defeat him in elections.

For the liberal intellectuals who support the coup, Thailand is divided between the "enlightened" middle and upper classes who "understand democracy" and the "ignorant" rural and urban poor who sell their votes and are "trapped in a patron-client system". In fact, the reverse is the case. It is the poor who are more likely today to understand that democracy brings with it trade union rights, more social justice, income distribution and governments which listen to the poor.

There is a mistaken view that the junta is somehow opposed to "modern capitalism". This is because they claim to use the King's "Small is Beautiful" or "Sufficiency" economic philosophy and attack the previous government for being "run by capitalists". In fact, the new military appointed cabinet was stuffed full of neo-liberals. After the coup the Budget Bureau cut the budget for Thai Rak Thai's universal health care scheme by 23% while increasing military spending by 30%. The Foreign and Commerce Ministers are supporters of un-popular Free Trade Agreements. The junta therefore rammed through the F.T.A. with Japan with no public consultation. Further moves to privatise electricity and the railways were announced, fuel subsidies cut, and a bill for university privatisation ("autonomy") was forwarded to the military-appointed parliament. The autocrats of the junta ensured that they would not go hungry by paying themselves fat cat salaries, no doubt funded out of savings made by cutting the pro-poor policies of the previous government.

While feathering their own nests, the pro-junta elite claimed to be following the King's philosophy of "Sufficiency" and the importance of "not being greedy". The message was meant for the poor, not the junta's supporters. Apparently everyone must be content with their own level of Sufficiency. For the Palace, "Sufficiency" means owning a string of palaces and large capitalist conglomerates such as the Siam Commercial Bank. For the military junta it means receiving multiple fat cat salaries and for poor farmers it means scratching a living without modern investment in agriculture.

One huge problem with Thai politics is that there is no mass political party of the trade unions or small farmer movements which can challenge populist parties of big business or the undemocratic elites. This means that the Peoples Movement has been split into 3 factions: those who support the reactionaries behind the coup, those who want to oppose the coup by building an alliance with Thai Rak Thai and those who want to build an independent class movement.

What is interesting about the 19th September coup is that it had to rely on support from important sections of the Peoples' Movement. Without the "welcome" from the Peoples Alliance for Democracy, the anti-Thaksin mass movement, which built an alliance with reactionary Monarchists, the coup-makers might never have had the confidence to seize power. Thailand has changed since the years of military rule in the 1970s. The Peoples' Movement is a key deciding factor in shaping political outcomes. Therefore the political orientation of this movement is a crucial factor in the democratisation process.

The Peoples' Movement was not dormant in its criticism of the government throughout the Thaksin period. The largest anti-government movement mounted by the working class against the Thaksin government was the action against electricity privatisation by 200,000 workers in 2004. It helped to delay privatisation plans and energised the labour movement. There was also a huge rally against the Thai-U.S. F.T.A. in Chiang Mai. In addition to this, smaller protest movements against various government policies took place on a regular basis. There is no question about the potential power of the Peoples' Movement. However, the unfortunate situation is that the politics of the movement is an obstacle to its use of that potential power in mobilising as an independent class force. In recent years the movement has been influenced by mainstream political and neo-liberal ideas and various sections of the movement have continually sought alliances with factions of the ruling class.

In order to understand why the Thai Peoples' Movement has been open to influence from right-wing liberal politics, you have to go back to the collapse of the Communist Party of Thailand (C.P.T.) in the early 1980s. All during the two decades of the 1960s and 1970s the C.P.T., with its Stalinist-Maoist politics, was the dominant influence on the Peoples' Movement. Like their sisters and brothers around the world, Thai activists reacted to the collapse of Communism both in terms of its failure and its authoritarian nature. The negative legacy of the C.P.T. means that there is a dominance of Autonomism, Post-Modernism and Third Way Reformism among the Thai Peoples' Movement. Autonomism rejects party organisation and challenging state power. Both it and Post-Modernism also reject political theories, which in the past were seen as "dictated from above" by the authoritarian C.P.T. Third Way Reformism is a capitulation to neo-liberalism among those who once believed in reforming capitalism along Social Democratic lines. The reasoning is that after the collapse of "Communism", there was "no longer any alternative to the free market".

The vacuum of non-politics created under these circumstances, allows liberalism to dominate the movement and forces many people into alliance with sections of the ruling class. The overall result is a movement which is de-politicised and concentrates on single-issue problem solving.
 
Never the less, this is not the whole picture. The recent Thai Social Forum in October 2006 and increased talk of the need for clear political alternatives to Thai Rak Thai and the conservative elites backing the coup, shows that the situation may be changing. Important sections of the movement now campaign for a welfare state based on progressive taxation, gender and community rights and many other general political positions. There are important groupings who are trying to stay independent of either the junta or the previous governing party and they have come out against the military's constitution.

Since the coup, the violence in the South has multiplied. This is a serious crisis of Thai society in which the Peoples' Movement must take a stand. This can only be done by opposing the ultra nationalism of the state. The crisis stems from a lack of respect, systematic state violence and a democratic deficit in the area, all created by governments over the last 200 years. Liberalism has no room for local autonomy and does not seriously reduce the coercive power of the Nation State. Successive Thai governments have sought to use military means in dealing with the unrest in the South. The opposition to the Thai State in these provinces takes many forms. There is a spectrum of local opinion ranging from separatism to demands for justice.
Back in the 1970s a clear separatist movement existed, cooperating in its struggle against the Thai State with the Communist Parties of Thailand and Malaysia. The Barisan Revolusi Nasiona (B.R.N.) was established in 1963 and the Pattani United Liberation Organisation (PULO) was founded in 1968. Yet PULO are not in a position to control much of what is happening on the ground today since they are mainly middle-aged activists in exile. In 1984 the B.R.N. had split into three. One organisation which originated from the B.R.N., is the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Koordinasi (B.R.N.-C). By 2005 the militant Runda Kumpulan Kecil (R.K.K.) was becoming more prominent in the insurgency. The 2004 Takbai massacre carried out by the Thaksin government is the main reason. It is believed to be made up of B.R.N.-C people who trained in Indonesia. There seem to be many organizations operating today with some coordination between them.
Today the resistance is not just about planting bombs and shooting state officials. Communities act in a united way to protect themselves from the security forces who constantly abduct and kill people. Women and children block the roads and stop soldiers or police from entering villagers and there was a recent mass demonstration by students and villagers against state violence.

Since the coup, the junta has been encouraging so-called "local Buddhists" to protest against Muslim villagers who block the roads. They have also been arming local Buddhists. These moves are playing with fire. The Thai State risks creating a bloody communal war between Muslims and Buddhists. Peace can only come about by withdrawing troops and police from the area and starting political discussions involving the whole of Southern Civil Society, without any pre-conditions about maintaining the present state structures or borders of Thailand.

The fact that the 19th September coup leaders declared that their coup had "Royal backing" right from the start has risked plunging the Monarchy into crisis. Large numbers of Thais actually believe that the King planned and ordered the coup through his representatives in the Privy Council. The attitude of the 16 million poor people who voted for Thaksin towards this "Royal-backed" coup is unknown. 
 
The Monarchy over the last 150 years has shown itself to be remarkably adaptable to all circumstances and able to gain in stature by making alliances with all sorts of groups, whether they are military dictatorships or elected governments. The image of the "traditional Absolute Monarch, loved by all" is an invented myth. In fact the Absolute Monarchy only existed for a short period in history between 1870 and 1932. After the 1932 revolution the Royalists quickly abandoned any hope of returning to Absolutism, choosing instead to support an increased role of the Monarchy under the Constitution. Despite the image of an all-powerful Monarchy, it is in fact weak. Yet it is an institution which is used to further the power of the elites because no criticism of the Monarchy is allowed. The Monarchy may have been pulled into supporting the coup by powerful elements in the military.

Yet there have also been significant moves to turn the Monarchy into a more Western style institution which can appear neutral in order to protect the status quo. There is thus a serious contradiction between the need for the Thai Monarch to be a modern institution, above politics and its direct involvement in coups and politics. This can only be a source of instability.

The 19th September coup was a coup in favour of the free-market and elite power. The democratic space has been seriously narrowed and the so-called "reform process" is taking a backward step. Inequality and lack of social justice are increasing under an extreme neo-liberal regime. Continuing state violence in the South risks creating a communal war between Buddhists and Muslims and the junta have laid the basis for the future instability of the Monarchy. It is the social movements or the Peoples' Movement in Civil Society which can expand the democratic space, while at the same time creating social justice. But the Peoples' Movement can only do this if it shakes off old ideas and creates its own independent political organisations with their own political theories. Thailand is crying out for a mass political party of workers, students and poor farmers.