THAI ELECTION APPEARS ON TRACK TO REVERSE COUP

[ In a contest that was seen as a referendum on Thailand’s recent turmoil, early  election returns showed the Pheu  Thai party, headed by Mr. Thaksin’s  youngest sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, 44, with a  commanding lead. Its target was an absolute majority, or half of the 500 seats.]

By Seth Mydans And Thomas Fuller

Early election returns showed the Pheu Thai party,
 headed by Mr. Thaksin’s  youngest sister,
Yingluck Shinawatra, with a commanding lead.

BANGKOK —  The party of the fugitive former Prime  Minister Thaksin Shinawatra appeared  headed for victory in a parliamentary  election on Sunday that could turn Thai  politics on its head and roll back the results of a coup that ousted Mr. Thaksin  five years ago.

 In a contest that was seen as a referendum on Thailand’s recent turmoil, early  election returns showed the Pheu  Thai party, headed by Mr. Thaksin’s  youngest sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, 44, with a  commanding lead. Its target was an absolute majority, or half of the 500 seats.

With 56 percent of the votes counted on Sunday night,  the state election commission said  that Pheu Thai was in the lead, with 251 seats, and  the ruling Democrat party had 167 seats.

Ms. Yingluck, 44, is a businesswoman  with no political experience, and was selected to head the party by her brother,  who called her his “clone.” She proved  to be a brilliant campaigner.

The vote is a vindication for Mr.  Thaksin, a populist champion of Thailand’s long marginalized rural poor who was elected prime minister twice, in 2001 and 2005, and removed  in a coup in September 2006.

  “I believe all sides have to respect the  decision of the people,” he said Sunday, speaking to a Thai television  station from Dubai, where he lives evading a conviction for abuse of power. “If  any country doesn’t respect the decisions of its people, there’s no way it is  going to find peace.”

He appeared to be referring indirectly to the riots that paralyzed part of Bangkok for two months last year, when the so-called “red shirt” protesters, most of whom are allied with Mr. Thaksin, staged antigovernment demonstrations. The vote had broader resonance as  well, part of a rebalancing of Thailand’s  hierarchical society that so far has  played out in the streets, challenging  the elite establishment and giving more  voice to the poor.

  “This is a slap in the face to the establishment for what they’ve done since  the military coup in 2006,” said Thitinan  Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute  of Security and International Studies at  Chulalongkorn University. “This is a  new Thailand that they must learn to  live with.”

  He added: “This whole election is all  about the awakened voices. These people discovered that they  can actually have access and be  connected to the system.”

  The party of the establishment — including royalists, old-money elite and high-ranking  members of the military — is the Democrat party led by Prime  Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, which crushed  the red-shirt protests in confrontations  that killed about 90 people in April and  May of last year.

 But allegiances in Thailand are fluid  and the election is likely to upset the  country’s hierarchy and power relationships.

  A major challenge for Pheu Thai is to  reach an accommodation with the politically powerful military, which ousted  Mr. Thaksin, supported the Democrats  and battled with the red shirts. In the  near term, its reaction to the election  could shape the outcome and rumors of a  possible coup circulated during the  campaign.

  Sondhi Boonyarataglin, the general  who led the 2006 coup, created his  own political party and won two seats,  including one for himself.

  Small parties, which were important  power brokers in the current governing coalition,  did poorly on Sunday with the exception  of Bhum Jai Thai, a party based in  northeastern Thailand that appeared to  take around 6 percent of seats in Parliament, enough to make it a significant  player.

When the leaders of the 2006 coup returned  power to the electorate in 2007, a party supported by Mr. Thaksin won an overwhelming victory, and the vote Sunday shows  that his political power continues.

  Mr. Thaksin won the loyalty of the  poor as the first prime minister to address their needs, wooing them with  populist programs including almost-free health care, debt moratoriums, support for farmers and cash handouts to  villages.

Members of the Pheu Thai party initially said they would back a political  amnesty, which would open the door for  Mr. Thaksin’s eventual return and create a potential flash point with the military and others who oppose him. But the  party later issued a statement saying  that it did not support amnesty, a politically sensitive notion.

  “In fact, yes, I really want to be home  — as of yesterday,” Mr. Thaksin said in the television interview on Sunday. “But everything has to  comply with proper conditions. I don’t  want to be a problem. But if I go back, I  have to be part of the solution, part of  the answer.”

  In the campaign, both parties focused  on Mr. Thaksin, the country’s most  dominating and divisive personality,  who has been the de facto leader of Pheu  Thai from his refuge in Dubai.

  A Pheu Thai slogan was “Thaksin  thinks and Pheu Thai does.”

 Mr. Abhisit tried to  demonize Mr. Thaksin, declaring in a final political rally that the election would  be “the best opportunity to remove the  poison of Thaksin from Thailand.”

  But the nation’s problems run deeper  and analysts say that it will take many  years for the nation’s conflicts to be resolved.

  “We must take the long view,” said Mr.  Thitinan, the Chulalongkorn international studies program director. “This is a not a two-year  or three-year exercise. We are talking  about two or three decades of political  maturation to come. It will be many  years before we can reconcile the old order and the new order.”

In the northern city of Chiang Mai, Mr. Thaksin’s home, voters who cast ballots at a polling station in a Buddhist temple, expressed a mixture of hope and cynicism about the election.

“There’s been a huge amount of conflict in Thailand when you compare it with foreign countries,” said Kwanrudee Saengnon, 26. “It’s been a so-called democracy, not a real democracy. This time I’d like the majority to decide the winner. I really want democracy to decide the outcome.”

Watchara Sroysangwal, a 30-year-old communications company employee, said he voted for a small political party. “I have no hope for Thailand’s future,” he said. “They can put new faces on the stage but it’s going to be the same groups of people ruling the country anyway.”

 Seth Mydans reported from Bangkok, Thailand and Thomas Fuller from Chiang  Mai, Thailand. Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting from Chiang Mai.
@ The New York Times
INDIA TRIES TO BOOST MANUFACTURING

[Today, only 8.7 million people in this country of a billion-plus are employed in manufacturing. But the government says new regulations being finalized this month could turn India into a China-like manufacturing powerhouse by allowing large factories to set up in special industrial zones where labor laws will be more relaxed.]

By Rama Lakshmi

NEW DELHI — After two decades of unprecedented economic growth, the Indian government wants to fix what many here see as an anomaly – the telecom and software industries have fueled the country’s rise, but manufacturing has never taken off.

Officials say that India will witness a massive field-to-factory migration of its young workforce in the next decade as education levels and aspirations soar, and that a failure to create low-end industrial jobs could result in social unrest.

Today, only 8.7 million people in this country of a billion-plus are employed in manufacturing. But the government says new regulations being finalized this month could turn India into a China-like manufacturing powerhouse by allowing large factories to set up in special industrial zones where labor laws will be more relaxed.

Officials say the zones will make it easier for companies to circumvent a web of more than 150 socialist-era labor laws that have prevented the growth of labor-intensive industries, such as textiles, footwear and toys.

“The new manufacturing policy is the unfinished agenda of India’s economic liberalization program, which began in 1991,” said R.P. Singh, secretary in the ministry of commerce and industry. “Some of the lingering issues, like labor laws, were considered too sensitive and controversial to touch.”

“While we delayed, China and other Asian economies which were almost at par with us 30 years ago, have raced ahead. But the writing on the wall is clear. If we don’t do it now, we will be left far behind,” he said.

Indian and international investors say the country’s protectionist labor rules are among the biggest obstacles to setting up and running a factory in India, and they complain about laws that require frequent inspections and monitoring of workers’ protections, such as a minimum wage, leave and working hours. They say union rules create bottlenecks that slow production.

“Some of our labor laws date back to the time when the British ruled India, and others are a product of the Soviet-style socialist era when the government was deeply suspicious of private capital,” said R.C. Bhargava, chairman of the largest-selling car company in India, Maruti Suzuki, owned by the Suzuki Corp. of Japan. “Business was seen as an exploiter of workers. So we treated labor with kid gloves.”

Labor rights advocates say that regular inspections are even more important as India’s economy booms, and that dismantling the labor laws could lead to exploitation and weaken unions.

“When the government says flexible labor laws for manufacturing hubs, what they really mean is the freedom not to implement labor laws of the land and very little government oversight,” said M.K. Pandhe, vice president of the Center of Indian Trade Unions. “With increased privatization in India, the need is to strengthen our labor laws, not weaken them.”

But even as investors and the government try to loosen laws, workers are pushing for more protections. The government says there were nearly 100 strikes in India last year.

“We want longer tea and lunch breaks. We want more off-days,” a 28-year-old assembly line worker said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the striking workers. “We want a second union that will ensure we get our rights.”

The company, which lost $9 million in revenue during the strike, said it would consider some of the strikers’ demands but would not recognize another union. But it took back the dismissed workers after senior government officials helped broker a deal to end the strike.


@ The Washington Post