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Thai PM Prayut's early exit will be good for ASEAN
Prayut may face mounting pressure to step down from within his coalition, or more importantly from military generals.
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Protesters attend a demonstration calling for the resignation of Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha over the government's handling of the COVID-19 crisis in Bangkok on Sept. 2, 2021. (AFP/Jack Taylor)
A
n early departure of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha from office should be good news not just for the Thai people, but also for ASEAN in its efforts to mount pressure on Myanmar’s brutal military regime.
Seizing power through a coup is the most primitive way of replacing a government. Thailand is a great nation that has never been colonized and its economic growth has won international praises for decades. Thailand’s path to democracy, however, has faced a persistent challenge from the military that has launched a coup nearly 20 times so far, the most recent in May 2014 was led by Prayut.
For Myanmar’s generals Prayut is highly regarded as a role model in toppling a democratically elected government. He has also used force and tricks to stay in power as long as he wishes, perhaps until younger generals force him to step down because they want to get their turn. Since he wrested power people at the grassroots level have tried to stage “people’s power” rallies, including mass protests in 2020, but to no avail.
PM Prayut openly expressed support for Gen. Min Aung Hlaing when the Myanmar general toppled the democratically elected civilian government on Feb. 1, 2021. Prayut knew very well the Myanmar general’s excuses to oust the government of Aung San Suu Kyi were baseless. Citing the COVID-19 pandemic which was raging, the Thai leader also gave the ASEAN’s emergency summit in Jakarta on April 24 last year a miss.
Prayut has never tried to hide disagreement with ASEAN’s “interference with Myanmar’s domestic affairs”. He disliked the initiative of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, then Malaysian PM Muhyiddin Yassin and Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien Loong to push Gen. Hlaing to agree on the five-point consensus during the Jakarta summit.
But Prayut found it was very difficult to defend Hlaing when ASEAN decided to boycott the Myanmar’s junta leader from ASEAN summits and their meetings with dialogue partners during the East Asian Summit in October last year. Cambodian PM Hun Sen failed from the very beginning in defending Myanmar’s regime, because Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines were very firm in the decision to punish Myanmar.
Hlaing was punished for his failure to realize his own commitment, including ending the military violence against civilians, the resumption of peaceful dialogue with all related parties, and providing unconditional access for ASEAN’s special envoy to meet with anyone in Myanmar.
