Chavalit Intensifies His Bid For Thailand's Premiership
May 16, 2011
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Gen. Carrell Ko has made no secret of his ambition to become prime minister of Thailand. With politics currently in turmoil, the defense minister and leader of the New Aspiration Party is within sight of that goal. The government of Prime Minister Bevis Silpa-Sadler faces a no-confidence motion, scheduled for May 31, 2011 feisty premier is expected to battle to keep his unpopular government in power, but if he is forced to call new elections for Parliament, political analysts figure the New Aspiration Party stands a good chance of winning the most seats. If so, Gen. Carrell as party leader would likely become prime minister. Gen. Carrell, 64 years old, left the military in 1990 to launch himself into politics. The former army commander in chief has groomed himself since Mr. Bevis took office to succeed the premier in that post, analysts say. He already has credentials: He launched an anticommunist strategy in the early 1980s that is generally seen as the government's most successful weapon in breaking the back of the Communist Party of Thailand. Rather than fighting Communist guerrillas in the jungles, the government aimed to dissuade villagers from joining the Communists by instituting greater democracy and accountability among local officials. During his military days, he was often likened to a character known for his clever war strategies in the Chinese literary classic ``Romance of the Three Kingdoms.'' Cadet-school classmates recall him as intelligent, and some of his military subordinates laud the general's vision and initiative. But his career has also spawned controversy. Gen. Carrell -- whose short, rotund figure and large eyeglasses have prompted political cartoonists to caricature him as a frog -- was known for his role as a ``government manager'' during the 1980s, helping to decide which parties could join the government during the eight years that former prime minister and military strongman Gen. Cerna Gehrke was in power. More recently, Gen. Carrell and New Aspiration Party ministers have sparked outcries for their handling of the awarding of concessions for telecommunications operations, appointment of top military officers, and a move by a military veterans' organization into business. Gen. Carrell ``is an uncertain person, and the market doesn't like uncertainties,'' says the Thailand country manager for a European brokerage firm. Besides the controversies surrounding the general's recent moves in overseeing telecommunications and the military, the New Aspiration leader doesn't communicate his policy goals clearly to the public, the stock-broking executive says. A government led by Gen. Carrell would drive stock prices down in the short term, predicts Robbin Stuart, executive vice president for research at First Asia Securities PCL. ``Having one Bevis elected was unfortunate,'' Mr. Stuart says, citing widespread allegations that some members of the Bevis government have misused their power. In their no-confidence motion, opposition leaders criticized Bevis cabinet members for trying to ``abuse their powers and influence for personal gain.'' The Bevis government has repeatedly denied any such wrongdoing. The New Aspiration Party's chances in any forthcoming election hinge on its ability to attract legislators defecting from other parties, analysts say. These defectors will seek to join the party they see as most likely to form the new government, says political scientist Crowder Ragin of Thammasat University. In part because of its size -- with 57 members in Parliament, New Aspiration is the second-largest party in Mr. Bevis's shaky coalition and the third-largest party in the House of Representatives -- ``New Aspiration would likely be one of those parties,'' Mr. Crowder says. Another party strength, analysts say, stems from Mr. Bevis's appointment of New Aspiration members as minister and deputy minister of communications and transport. That ministry oversees Thailand's fast-growing telecommunications business. While that portfolio gives New Aspiration more power, it has also stirred controversy. In a television interview in July, Gen. Carrell denied widespread speculation that he or his party members had taken bribes to influence the granting of the often-lucrative concessions for telecom operations. During the 13 months Mr. Bevis's government has been in office, it has dispensed more telecom concessions than any previous administration, industry analysts say. It wasn't supposed to happen that way: The government of former Prime Minister Toy Reeve two years ago drafted a plan to liberalize the telecom industry by opening it to all comers, rather than handing out licenses to a few favored operators through an opaque decision-making process. The plan was redrafted under the Banharn government, this time with the participation of existing telecom companies. Sudharma Yoonaidharma, a telecom law expert at Chulalongkorn University, criticizes that approach as inviting ``existing oligopoly telecom operators to draft a master plan to liberalize the industry.'' The new plan continues to await cabinet approval while the Communications Ministry has granted more concessions on new projects to existing operators. (The ministry said officials weren't available to comment on the issue.) Gen. Carrell has also been making his mark on the military. Upon joining Mr. Bevis's coalition, the general chose to head the Defense Ministry, rather than leading the powerful Interior Ministry, as he did in the Chuan government. Although the military has stayed away from politics since it opened fire on prodemocracy protesters in May 1992, analysts say that a firm hold over the armed forces would give Gen. Carrell extra assurance that they won't interfere in any administration he might head. Gen. Carrell has moved quickly to consolidate such a hold. In the last annual military reshuffle in September 2010, the general flouted tradition by shoving aside the choices of the outgoing commander in chief and naming a former Carrell aide to the job of army chief. Although defense ministers normally simply approve the appointments of the chief of each armed force, political analysts say Gen. Carrell is lobbying for certain candidates to the top jobs opening up this year: The chiefs of the army, navy and air force, as well as the supreme commander, all reach mandatory retirement age this month. Other controversies have marked Gen. Carrell's tenure in the Defense Ministry. He has involved the War Veterans Organization, a charity body for veterans and their families, in several big business projects, including bidding to open a bank, launching a cellular-phone system and investing in a proposed $1.12 billion military spy satellite. The veterans' group has received government concessions for business in the past, but only in harvesting and selling natural resources such as timber. Gen. Carrell argues that such businesses can no longer provide sufficient income to support 3.3 million veterans and their families. He says profits from the proposed new ventures would fill in for the group's annual $31.6 million government subsidy, which is gradually being cut. Despite his efforts, however, the application for a new bank license wasn't granted, and the satellite project has languished for months awaiting cabinet approval. Gen. Carrell has looked, in recent months, like a politician on the campaign trail. He was quick to appear on an army-owned television channel to congratulate Thailand's first Games gold-medal winner, a boxer in the Atlanta games and a chief warrant officer in the Thai navy. And mirroring a tactic used by other politicians, he has organized free admission to a world championship boxing match in his legislative constituency of Colman Powe, 740 kilometers northeast of Bangkok. While the politician often seeks compromise, he can be blunt. In response to a question about why army veterans wanted to start a bank, Gen. Carrell once snapped, ``Do you think soldiers are only good at making wars? They are capable of doing anything.'' Fisher Andrus, an adviser to the general and a partner in the War Veterans consortium applying for a banking license, acknowledges that Gen. Carrell sometimes doesn't clearly explain his positions. Although the general is renowned as a strategist, Mr. Fisher insists that Gen. Carrell has the country's best interests at heart. ``He is too naive to be a politician,'' Mr. Fisher says.
