Last week I was given the opportunity to spend over an hour questioning Thailand’s Finance Minister, Korn Chatikavanij MP at the Thai Parliament.

This is part one of three of the resulting interview and it covers a range of subjects such as his British citizenship, the legitimacy of the current Democrat-led Thai government and his previous sympathy for the PAD (parts two and three will cover other issues such as the economy, inflation, welfare, military spending and FM Korn’s own future).

Of the present PAD protests FM Korn states they lack both “legitimacy” and “public support” and are likely to “wither”. This is quite a jump from his position in 2008 when FM Korn was quite explicit in his support for the issues raised by the Yellow Shirted PAD. Should we then assume, given the Finance Minister’s comments, that he views the Preah Vihear issue as illegitimate?

FM Korn also commented on both his and PM Abhisit’s British nationality stating that he “never felt it necessary” to revoke his British citizenship but has never exercised his rights as a UK national either. He went on to stress that the neither he or PM Abhisit “has cause to hide” their British citizenship.

Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij. Pic: AP.

On questions of democratic legitimacy FM Korn explicitly expressed his opposition to appointees in the Lower House of the Thai Parliament, something he’d previously been quoted as being sympathetic towards. FM Korn also expressed a strong desire to introduce a greater sense of accountability into Thai politics but that “we still have a long way to go.”

Originally my discussion with FM Korn was meant to appear on the Siam Voices blog and I would like to thank my colleagues there, Saksith Saiyasombut, Panuwat Panduprasert and Pokpong Lawansiri, for their input on the questions.

Minister, you were born in the UK the same year as Prime Minister Abhisit, thereby automatically accruing British citizenship. There is presently some questions over the Prime Minister’s nationality – have you renounced your British citizenship?

There is some technical difference actually. First of all the answer is no, I haven’t exercised my rights as a citizen, I don’t have a British passport and travel on a Thai passport into the UK. Frankly, I have never even been aware there is such a thing as revocation of citizenship and never felt it necessary to do so. The fact that I was born there [in UK] is something that neither the Prime Minister or I have had cause or reason to hide. There is no need to do so. In fact the PM is a proud Geordie. I was born in Chelsea but ended up supporting Leeds United, for all my sins! However, for both myself and the Prime Minister this question is a non-issue.

But it is a question that has been raised. My view when I heard this question of his British citizenship first being raised was that I thought the Prime Minister hadn’t even considered this. Yet, according to British law at the time both yourself and the PM were born there, you became a British citizen regardless of whether you held a British passport or not.

To be honest I think the revocation process might be something that is relatively new. I don’t think it was something that was available when we were in England, twenty odd years ago. I hadn’t checked when the revocation option first became available and I am not sure it was even possible for a citizen from birth to be able to do that.

Minister, I wondered if we could just reflect on your UK education a little bit. As you are probably aware there is no history of courts deciding the make up of parliaments in Britain. It is, quite rightly, the electorate that have the primary role in forming the British Parliament. I should also add that even in the last few weeks former UK MPs have received prison sentences for crimes of corruption committed while serving in Parliament yet there is no question whatsoever of political parties being dissolved. Given your UK education do you think there is anything Thailand can learn from the incredibly stable British system of parliamentary democracy and accountability?

Our systems have some similarities. We have parliamentary democracy with the monarchy as the symbolic head. In fact this is a point that we were surprised we had to explain to British journalists, in some instances, when the issue of legitimacy was raised – given that we are not the biggest party in the parliament and that are leading a coalition government. In truth, in Thailand, the people do not directly vote for the Prime Minister, they vote for MPs and the MPs then vote in parliament for the Prime Minister. Such is the parliamentary system. And the majority of MPs voted for Abhisit to be Prime Minister just over two years ago. So there is nothing illegitimate about it. People from countries with a presidential system may find it a little bit quirky but in the parliamentary system it is perfectly normal and it has happened before in Thailand as well.
In terms of accountability it is matter of tradition and we don’t fare so well in certain areas. Even within Asia we see politicians volunteering to take responsibility in cases whereby wrong doings where not actually illegal wrong doings but were issues which caused the public to feel that some misdeed or inappropriate actions or decisions had been taken. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Thailand. In fact, it is the reverse. You can even be convicted by the primary court yet still feel you have every right to hang onto your seat up until the day you are actually thrown into jail. I’d like to see more accountability and we’ve tried to introduce that level of accountability into the system. The Prime Minister has asked two Democrat cabinet ministers to resign from the position on the accusation of inappropriate action even when it was far from proven – in both cases the allegation was dropped. So the Prime Minister has been trying to introduce that sense of accountability but we still have a long way to go.

Just to go back to the question of legitimacy. While I completely agree that a minority party can form a government, where your legitimacy argument tends to fall down is that the dissolving of parties clearly effects the democratic legitimacy of any parliament.

And we don’t agree with the dissolving of parties. We never agreed with that from the start. I and many others, including the Prime Minister, are on public record stating that we disagree with the constitutional clause that allows for dissolution. There was a suggestion by the political reform committee for us to amend the constitution to that effect. We didn’t do it simply because at that time the Democrat Party was on trial and faced possible dissolution. To have changed the clause at this point would’ve been seen as self-serving. But when the opportunity arises we will seek public opinion as to whether they agree with us that political parties shouldn’t be dissolved. I think party executives, similarly to members of the board in a corporation, should be held accountable for executive decisions that are illegal. But party members, millions of party members, who, I guess, could be compared with shareholders in a corporation, shouldn’t be made to suffer the loss of an institution they have supported simply because of the act of one or two individuals who happen to be running the party at that particular time.

Minister, I now wanted to ask you about your previous support for the PAD. In 2008 you came out as being quite sympathetic to the PAD, this is despite them being described at the time by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission as fascist. You even went as far to say that you understood the PAD’s law breaking from the perspective of strategy and that you were sympathetic to the notion of appointees in the Lower House.

The Lower House? Don’t you mean the Upper House?

Please correct me if this is wrong but I have here the quote accredited to you at the time -  “…should the Lower House also be partly selected and, if not, should its powers be curbed? I can tell you as an elected MP that it is humbling to have to acknowledge that the questions have validity. In my opinion, if we are to seek to amend the Constitution, these are the issues we should be focusing on…” [This quote originally appeared in the Bangkok Post, 23 September 2008 in a piece written by FM Korn. It has since disappeared from their website. However a copy is available here].

Can I please take a look at the quote? [I pass the document to Minister Korn who begins reading it]. I don’t really understand how you can appoint members to the Lower House.

I am just basing my question on what you are quoted as saying.

What I am really referring to is the Upper House and that is something I still believe in that if you have a fully elected Upper House and a fully elected Lower House you just end up with the same kind of people – the kind who win elections. And, frankly, that is a breed of people and our experience here is that it just makes things worse. What happens is that dynasties and families win elections. You end up with members of the same families in both Upper and Lower Houses from each province. It makes the system of check and balance, with the Upper House as the check and balance to decisions made in the Lower House difficult. Anything to alter to the DNA of the Upper House, so that it is not just a perfect replica of the Lower House should be considered and I maintain that position.

So no appointees in the Lower House?

No. The derivation of the members of the Lower House also comes from two modes of election – constituency and party list. I support that. In fact I support an increase in the balance of party list MPs. Right now we have just made amendments that 1/5th of the Lower House as a whole is drawn from the party list and I am happy to argue that it should be more but that the majority should always be drawn from constituency MPs. And I speak from the perspective that I have always been a constituency MP and proud of it.

To return to the question of the PAD and given their attacks on your party at present, do you regret the support you gave them in 2008?

Just for the record I should make it clear I never participated in any of their rallies and made a point of not doing so, even when, on many occasions, I was asked if I wanted to do it. At that time, of course, the major complaint of the people who participated in the Yellow Shirt movement was against the corruption of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin which I was fully sympathetic with. I was a key member of the team that proved Dr Thaksin’s illegal transactions and hiding of assets against the constitution and against election laws. These were issues that were taken up by the PAD. So, from the issues perspective, of course, I had every reason to be sympathetic with what it was they were fighting for. But I always said, also, that I chose the parliamentary route. If I felt that I could no longer be effective as a parliamentarian and that I could achieve my aims better by participating in street politics then I should first of all resign from my parliamentary position. And the reason why I never directly participated in the protests was because I have always believed that I, and many others, could achieve more via the parliamentary process.

Reflecting on your sympathy towards the PAD’s lawbreaking do you think that should be extended to other groups?

Of course it has been extended to other groups, in extremis. Frankly speaking any law that was broken by the PAD was superceded by some way by the Red Shirts, lets be fair. I regret the trend that the strategy of the Yellow Shirts seemed to have initiated. It is a pity. But I have been asked this question a lot recently and in the last few weeks I have negotiated with quite a few so-called “mobs” – and I hate that word because it has a negative connotation. So lets call them groups of protesters who basically feel that their case hasn’t been properly heard and so organise a protest march into Bangkok in order to alert the government to their plight and their problems. On many occasions these issues are perfectly legitimate and should be addressed. But there is something undemocratic about it because, of course,  everyone has issues and if everybody feels that they should organise protests in the centre of Bangkok to have their issues resolved then you have chaos. But, on the other hand, the reality is that many of these protesters have been frustrated by the red tape or maybe lack of concern by local or government officials for so long that they have no alternative but to take the matter onto the streets. And it works, because it gets our attention. So, philosophically, I can only feel sympathetic with the fact that this route of action is taken. Of course, almost every time someone is breaking some law and that’s why I think it is difficult to take a black and white view of these things. If you took a zero tolerance policy on illegal ways of protesting then you could be doing society harm in the bigger picture. But how to get the right balance and how to ensure that people don’t take advantage of your leniency is the challenge. And more recently political mobs have definitely overreached on the expectation that the government is more likely to be lenient than not. The fact that the PAD movement, currently, has very few supporters underlies “the sense of legitimacy” of their current course which is not something that the public appears willing to support.  So is does come down to the issue. When the Red Shirts raised the issues of double standards in the legal system and economic inequality, those were issues that the general public felt were legitimate. They had a base of support that allowed them to succeed to a degree. When the Yellow Shirts focused on Thaksin’s corruption that had sufficient legitimacy for them to be supported in the way it was at that time. Right now they don’t, so they wither.