Confused in Thailand

Over the past 40 years, the private sector has ignored politics and continued doing business in spite of the frequent changes. The economy managed to grow by more than 5 per cent on average per year. But now, businessmen have to take political factors into consideration because the political crisis of the past three years has eaten into business confidence.

The political crisis is largely a result of allegations over massive corruption. Even though the country's economy grew partly because of big government projects, the allegations concern conflicts of interest in these deals.

Dusit Nontanakorn, vice chairman of the Board of Trade, said: "Now we have to ask ourselves if we want high growth plus massive corruption or moderate growth with an acceptable level of corruption. We should see what kind of politics we want, and whether it's the kind that we don't have to trade off growth for corruption."

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra implemented a liberal economic policy, which made him popular with international investors. Thus, when Thaksin was ousted from power, the international community didn't fully understand what had happened in Thailand. International confidence sank further when recently former PM Samak Sundaravej, who came from a general election, was also forced to leave office. Both Thaksin and Samak regularly repeated that they were elected via democratic means.

Tawatchai Yongkittikul, secretary-general of the Thai Bankers' Association, said: "I wish the media could help explain the situation in Thailand to foreigners, as to why there were movements against these elected governments."

The business sector looks at these recent anti-government movements as a public effort to make its voice heard. Thailand's democratic development didn't begin until 1932. At that time, the move to turn the country towards constitutional democracy was forced by the elite. The real democratic movement started in the 1970s. Thai politics, however, went astray due to allegations over corruption, vote-buying and intervention in the judicial institutions. The recent protests, on the bright side, show that Thai politics has matured towards another level of transition. But foreigners tend to justify democracy only through general elections.

Munenori Yamada, president of the Japan External Trade Organisation in Thailand, admitted that foreigners didn't fully grasp the picture of what has happened in Thailand. Japanese investors suspended their investment in new projects during the military-installed government, hoping to reinvest in Thailand after the election. But when the Samak government came, the political crisis didn't end.

"We tried to understand the political conflict here. But unlike protests elsewhere in the world, there's no clear theme on what is the cause of the discontent. For instance, in the US, people protest about whether they want a centralised government. But here, there's no clear explanation [in terms of making foreigners understand] of why protesters have turned against the government. So Japanese investors are perplexed by the situation," said Yamada.