Caesar’s dead. Long live Caesar.
I’ve been watching the HBO series Rome religiously through my Netflix subscription. Last weekend, the patrician senators murdered Caesar on the senate floor. (Wouldn’t that sort of thing make C-SPAN more interesting?)
Thankfully, the show’s producers chose to ignore the “Et tu, Brute?” line that I was waiting to cringe over. In true HBO form, the Roman ruler simply spat up blood and wheezed for breath instead of chatting with his murderers.
But before the senate bloodbath, Caesar had accomplished what was arguably the greatest military coup in Western history. He marched into Rome with his personal army and bullied the senate into declaring him emperor.
This is what I’ve always thought a military coup should look like. It should have pomp, gravitas and a whole lot of unabashed greed and bloodthirsty grandstanding. It should be a big deal, in other words, and if at all possible, it should have the clamoring support of the country’s lower classes to go along with it.
But in Thailand, the military ignores my rules for a good coup and waltzes in whenever it sniffs weakness in the ruling government.
Political turmoil is the status quo in Thailand. And the military is used against the country’s own populace more than it’s ever been used to repel outside forces. As the U.S. State Department put it, after hamstringing the country’s monarchy in 1932, “changes of government were effected primarily by means of a long series of mostly bloodless coups,” which occurred for another 50 years.
And the advent of a constitutional government and democratic elections, as opposed to the oligarchic bickering the country favored before 1988, hasn’t deterred Thailand’s generals from their bad habit of taking over the country in the least.
The last time the generals smelled blood in the water was September 2006, when military leaders had to “save” the Thai people from the rumored corruption of billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
But the Thai military always has trouble holding onto the country once it has taken control. Like Caesar, the military generals in Thailand claim they’re coup-ing for the public good. And it’s difficult to maintain that façade when you’re kicking parliament out the door and tossing perfectly good constitutions through the window.
Besides, the generals don’t seem to like the power once they have it. Running a country cuts into their badminton games.
Keeping a strangle hold around the media and stomping out all of those flares of protest take a whole lot of effort, and unlike Caesar, Thai military leaders aren’t known for their managerial skills. The military governments in Thailand tend to blush under international scrutiny and dissolve with theoretically free elections after a year or two.
This time around, the military has “encouraged” one of the country’s constitutional courts to issue a conviction against two of former of Prime Minister Thaksin’s top officials. The court also cleared the opposition party of wrongdoing in Thaksin’s impromptu elections last year. Clearing up last year’s election debacle paves the way for new national elections and the possibility of an end to military rule in the country.
In the months since the coup, Thailand’s stocks have been the worst performers in all of Southeast Asia. In December, the country’s stocks tumbled 14.8%, signaling lack of faith in the “interim” military government, when the country’s national bank announced tight capital controls to keep the baht (Thai currency) from rising.
But two weeks ago, the self-appointed prime minister and former army commander-in-chief Surayud Chulanont said he would authorize a new general election for December 16 or 22. It seems the boys are getting tired of playing statesmen and want to go back to the barracks.
The news is great for Thailand’s ailing stock exchange, and it has started a feeding frenzy as deal-savvy investors snap up companies on the cheap and wait for them to rise on the announcement that Surayud has set a definite election date.
We’ll see how long the next democratic wave lasts in the country and how long the stock exchange can grow on its own merits without military interference.
Thankfully, the show’s producers chose to ignore the “Et tu, Brute?” line that I was waiting to cringe over. In true HBO form, the Roman ruler simply spat up blood and wheezed for breath instead of chatting with his murderers.
But before the senate bloodbath, Caesar had accomplished what was arguably the greatest military coup in Western history. He marched into Rome with his personal army and bullied the senate into declaring him emperor.
This is what I’ve always thought a military coup should look like. It should have pomp, gravitas and a whole lot of unabashed greed and bloodthirsty grandstanding. It should be a big deal, in other words, and if at all possible, it should have the clamoring support of the country’s lower classes to go along with it.
But in Thailand, the military ignores my rules for a good coup and waltzes in whenever it sniffs weakness in the ruling government.
Political turmoil is the status quo in Thailand. And the military is used against the country’s own populace more than it’s ever been used to repel outside forces. As the U.S. State Department put it, after hamstringing the country’s monarchy in 1932, “changes of government were effected primarily by means of a long series of mostly bloodless coups,” which occurred for another 50 years.
And the advent of a constitutional government and democratic elections, as opposed to the oligarchic bickering the country favored before 1988, hasn’t deterred Thailand’s generals from their bad habit of taking over the country in the least.
The last time the generals smelled blood in the water was September 2006, when military leaders had to “save” the Thai people from the rumored corruption of billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
But the Thai military always has trouble holding onto the country once it has taken control. Like Caesar, the military generals in Thailand claim they’re coup-ing for the public good. And it’s difficult to maintain that façade when you’re kicking parliament out the door and tossing perfectly good constitutions through the window.
Besides, the generals don’t seem to like the power once they have it. Running a country cuts into their badminton games.
Keeping a strangle hold around the media and stomping out all of those flares of protest take a whole lot of effort, and unlike Caesar, Thai military leaders aren’t known for their managerial skills. The military governments in Thailand tend to blush under international scrutiny and dissolve with theoretically free elections after a year or two.
This time around, the military has “encouraged” one of the country’s constitutional courts to issue a conviction against two of former of Prime Minister Thaksin’s top officials. The court also cleared the opposition party of wrongdoing in Thaksin’s impromptu elections last year. Clearing up last year’s election debacle paves the way for new national elections and the possibility of an end to military rule in the country.
In the months since the coup, Thailand’s stocks have been the worst performers in all of Southeast Asia. In December, the country’s stocks tumbled 14.8%, signaling lack of faith in the “interim” military government, when the country’s national bank announced tight capital controls to keep the baht (Thai currency) from rising.
But two weeks ago, the self-appointed prime minister and former army commander-in-chief Surayud Chulanont said he would authorize a new general election for December 16 or 22. It seems the boys are getting tired of playing statesmen and want to go back to the barracks.
The news is great for Thailand’s ailing stock exchange, and it has started a feeding frenzy as deal-savvy investors snap up companies on the cheap and wait for them to rise on the announcement that Surayud has set a definite election date.
We’ll see how long the next democratic wave lasts in the country and how long the stock exchange can grow on its own merits without military interference.
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