Commentary by William Pesek
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Move over Nelson Mandela. Step aside Bill Clinton. You, too, Bill Gates. Make room for a new thought leader and philanthropist: Thaksin Shinawatra.
That’s not a joke, even if it does have TheOnion.com written all over it. Feel free to check for yourself at http://www.buildingbetterfuture.org/ just how serious the ousted Thai leader is about his fitness to “nurture the next generation of Asia’s business and financial leaders” and help draft development policy in the region.
Thaksin’s Building a Better Future Foundation will have offices in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. That may be where extradition officials can find the man facing jail time back home for a corruption conviction.
Give the man points for thinking big. He has already helped bring a nation to its knees and took on Europe as owner of soccer team Manchester City. (The U.K. recently revoked his visa.) Shaping Asia’s future seems as big a goal as any for this self- made billionaire.
Thaksin is a better example of how not to lead or inspire Asia’s future. Just as few would seek the advice of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on political correctness or U.S. President George W. Bush on diplomacy, Asians shouldn’t look to Thaksin for pointers on building their future.
Look no further than the wreckage he left behind in Asia’s eighth-biggest economy.
Thai Democracy
It’s disingenuous to blame Thaksin alone for Thailand’s political crisis. Thaksin was elected and then went about bastardizing Thailand’s democracy over a five-year period. He was sentenced to two years in prison for helping his then-wife -- the couple divorced last month -- buy land from the government. And now he won’t go away.
It would have been better if Thaksin had been removed by democratic institutions in 2006 rather than in a coup. And the leadership of the generals who grabbed power was just as opaque and unpredictable as Thaksin’s.
More than two years later, the nation’s power structure has devolved into a farce. Thailand is awash in the kind of political chaos observers said had become a thing of the past. Protesters have taken airports in Bangkok; Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who is Thaksin’s brother-in-law, is on the defensive amid coup rumors; grenades are going off in the capital; and investors are left with a stark question: Why bother?
“The impact to the economy will be pretty severe,” says Euben Paracuelles, a Singapore-based economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.
Distant Memory
The only winners are Indonesia, Vietnam and other developing Asian economies. Thai leaders and the protesters fighting them are seeing to it that investors and corporate executives who planned to bet on Thailand look elsewhere in Asia instead.
It’s not that Thailand’s $246 billion economy lacks potential, or that great things shouldn’t be expected of its 66 million people. Five years ago, Thailand was more of a success story than a cautionary one. Living standards were rising, stocks were buoyant and neighboring leaders envied Thailand’s progress.
That’s a distant memory now. Choosing Somchai as prime minister in September was an act of provocation. It also solidified the view among opposition forces that Thaksin was a shadow leader. One reason the People’s Alliance for Democracy wants Somchai to resign is concern that Thaksin is plotting a return to power.
Corrupt Leader
Many see Thaksin’s new foundation as an attempt to counter his enemies’ portrayal of him as a corrupt leader, says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Leaders in Bangkok and the protesters garnering global attention are unwittingly achieving the same goal: knocking the economy off the global radar screen and undermining the very people they purport to be looking out for.
Protesters claim to be the champions of average Thais and yet they are trampling on the democratic process, blocking roads, destroying landmarks and forcing businesses and schools to close. By grabbing Bangkok’s airports, they are killing key foreign- exchange-earning industries such as tourism.
Most Thais will be worse off five years from now. Government leaders, meanwhile, are in over their heads. Their response to Thailand’s worsening crisis has been unsteady at best. It’s hardly an inviting environment for investors. One has to be an extreme optimist to expect a more stable political situation in the short run.
Awaiting the King
Thais are anxiously awaiting Dec. 4, when King Bhumibol Adulyadej will address the nation on the eve of his birthday. He is revered as a symbol of stability in a country that has endured 10 coups since ending absolute monarchy in 1932.
The timing of the latest dustup couldn’t be worse. The global credit crisis is infecting Asia with intensifying force. As governments try to shield households from the crisis, Thai leaders are distracted by chaos in the streets. Finance Minister Suchart Thadathamrongvej said the turmoil may cause damage of about 100 billion baht ($2.8 billion) this quarter.
No single person gets all the blame for where Thailand is today. Yet the leaders of tomorrow should think twice before tapping Thaksin for insights. That is, unless one is looking for examples of how not to run a country.
(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net
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