This paper documents significant events that occurred during the 22 March election, the May crisis, and the 13 September election. It also examines the political significance of those events in the context of Thailand's political development — or underdevelopment.

The latest general election in September was part of the chain of political events since the military coup against the civilian government of Prime Minister Chatitchai Choonhavan in February 1991. The coup led by General Suchinda Kraprayoon, the then Chief of the Army, set the stage for the 22 March election, which led to the military “May crackdown” on the demonstrators, the dissolution of the House of Representatives, and eventually the September election, the country's nineteenth since 1932, when parliamentary democracy was first adopted.

The September election did bring about a democratic government. But that was only a part of the whole political picture of Thailand. The democratic government of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai is one side of the coin, in which the military remains in control of the other half. Indeed, the struggle for dominance between the military and a democratically established civilian rule is still the most important feature in contemporary Thai politics.

The military was the most powerful political force during the 1950s and 1960s. With the adoption of Western-style economic development in 1961 by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, and with the large-scale introduction of Americanization to the Thai educational and bureaucratic systems — which saw a great number of students going to the United States — the country gradually produced other forces in the society, notably the intellectuals and, to a limited extent, the modern business class. These new forces which began to be more visible in the 1970s are democratically oriented.

The weakening of the military institution and the strengthening of the intellectuals converged in the dramatic event of 14 October 1973 when a student-led uprising was launched against military rule.

The issue of who was to be the prime minister was very crucial in the September election. Even though the public expected the premiership to be filled by one of the leaders from the pro-democracy camp, the major contenders for the post — particularly Chavalit, Chamlong, and Chuan — had different personality traits and policy agenda. In spite of their common stand against having a non-elected prime minister, competition among them was intense.

Defying all polls — a newly introduced phenomenon in Thai elections — the Democrat Party grabbed the most number of seats in Parliament, 79 in the September election. The Democrats themselves never expected their party to score such a victory, which made the party the core with which to form the new government. Earlier on in the campaign, polls showed that the Chart Pattana Party of Chatichai Choonhavan was leading, but later the Palang Dharma of Chamlong Srimuang was seen to be moving ahead. During the ten days of the campaign there were unexpected turn of events and factors which put the Democrats in front.

First of all, as the campaign was drawing to an end, there were doubts about the credibility of the leaders of some parties, whether they were fit to head a government. When Chatichai was leading in the polls people doubted his suitability for the top job because of his pending case of corruption, which the military-appointed committee lodged against him after the 1991 coup. A Chatichai political come-back would also bring about a political dilemma which could lead to political instability. As it turned out, the more Chatichai projected himself as the next prime minister the more it became his political liability. His statement that he was ready to become prime minister would immediately be taken up by political rivals contending that he lacked the credibility to lead the country. Chatichai was eventually forced to declare that he would not accept the premiership even if his party had won the most number of seats.

For a start, I share Dr Pelkmans' general scepticism on what more we could constructively say on this matter. I have for long felt that ASEAN's preoccupation with institutional reform since the early 1980s stems largely from an overspill of frustration over what some member countries felt to be a lack of real progress in ASEAN economic co-operation. The basic reason for this lack of progress was not institutional inadequacy (or bad programmes) but a lack of “political will”. (And, by that, I hasten to add, we are not casting aspersions on the character or resolve of ASEAN leaders — merely saying in a short hand way that objective circumstances, political and economic, were not yet ripe.) As Dr Pelkmans concludes from the EC experience, “institutions can and should facilitate but they cannot replace political will … [while) even a crippled setup like the EPC (European Political Committee) can be effective if only there is political will”.

This, of course, is not saying that institutions are irrelevant. There must obviously be some compatibility between organizational objectives and institutional means. Good programmes may come to grief without proper implementational mechanisms. But the instrumental importance of institutions in international co-operation could be exaggerated.

However, I may hasten to add that, like Dr Pelkmans, I am an economist, not an institutional expert. Lacking specialist credentials I will keep my comments general.

Dr Pelkmans has emphasized that as regional groupings, ASEAN and the EC exhibit vast systemic differences. These stem from two major sources.

First, as is well known, while the EC's primary programme was economic (i.e. the European Economic Community or EEC), this was founded on the very strong and broad based political support of a war-weary Europe. The EC can therefore start big, with highly ambitious (but realistic) economic objectives embodied in a comprehensive supranational legal frame with supranational institutions to pursue its implementation.

Myanmar's economy continues to remain essentially agricultural although the process of industrialization had begun in the early 1950s. Agriculture contributes 35 to 45 per cent of GDP (in value added) and provides employment for 60 to 70 per cent of the labour force. Agricultural products still dominate in Myanmar's exports, accounting for about 44 per cent of total imports in 1985/86. The figure was the same for the year 1939/40, that is, the structure of exports remained the same as about half a century ago. With the government's efforts at diversification, in the last few years some new items such as animal and marine products have become increasingly more visible, but not manufactured goods. Rice and rice products and forest products are expected to continue to dominate in Myanmar's exports even in the foreseeable future.

In 1990/91 export earnings constituted only 2.6 per cent of GDP and financed about 85.5 per cent of total imports. During the post-war years of the early 1950s, exports accounted for 50 per cent of GDP, and in the early 1960s about 20 per cent (Hill 1986, p. 30). This is a drastic fall in exports for the Myanmar economy. Table 3.1 sets out data on Myanmar's exports and GDP during the last three FYPs.

The share of exports in GDP grew very slowly, from 4.8 per cent in 1974/75 to 8.4 per cent in 1980/81 (see Table 3.1 and Figure 3.1). After the peak in 1980/81, exports slowly declined to 2.6 per cent in 1990/91, although the average annual growth rates of both GDP and exports were 3.6 per cent and 26.0 per cent, respectively. In short, the share of exports in GDP decreased from 50 per cent in the early 1950s to about 3 per cent within forty years. Although this decline in the level of exports in the Myanmar economy has become more pronounced in the last few decades, it does not thus imply that exports are not important to the economy.

The March election had, among other things, led to a political polarization in Thailand, which culminated in the May crisis and the resignation of General Suchinda. Attempts by various political leaders to form a new government to replace Suchinda failed. So the House was dissolved and a new election held to break the political deadlock. During the March election, political parties were divided into two distinctive groups: the pro-military, the “satans”; and the pro-democracy, the “angels”. Indeed, the political polarization could be traced back to the time when the 1991 Constitution was adopted. There were two opposing camps then: one belonged to the pro-democracy parties which had campaigned for an elected prime minister, and the other comprised pro-military parties which were prepared to accept a non-elected military officer as prime minister.

It is also important to note here that even before the March election, the four pro-military parties — Samakkhi Tham, Chart Thai, Social Action, and Prachakorn Thai — had agreed to form a coalition if they together won a majority. They had also agreed to support a “middle person” or a non-elected person to become prime minister, which meant General Suchinda. They had estimated that they could easily win at least 200 seats, based on the electability track records of their candidates. (However, the defeat of Prachakorn Thai — it won only 7 seats nation-wide as opposed to 31 in the previous election of 1988 — had upset their hopes of having a comfortable working majority. As a result, the total number of seats for the pro-military alliance came up to 191. A fifth party — Rassadorn [Citizens] — was brought in, increasing the total to 195 seats [see Appendix Table 3].)

By the same token, as early as when the 1991 Constitution included a clause which allowed a non-elected person to assume the premiership, the four anti-military parties — the Democrat, New Aspiration, Palang Dharma, and Solidarity — and other activist groups launched a campaign against the clause.

The economy of Myanmar in the second half of the 1980s was in a very grim state. The growth rate of its gross domestic product (GDP) declined steadily from 5.5 per cent in the first half of the 1980s to –4.0 per cent in 1987/88. This is a result of the decline in the momentum of growth in the agricultural sector as well as the fall in production and productivity in State Economic Enterprises (SEEs). This slow GDP growth together with a shortage of foreign exchange forced Myanmar to apply to the United Nations for the least developed country (LLDC) status in December 1986, a status it was granted in December 1987. As an LLDC, Myanmar was entitled to concessional foreign aid and a rescheduling of its external debt payments. The growth rate declined further to –11.4 per cent in 1988/89 mostly due to political upheavals in the country.

The factors contributing to the decline in all production sectors are shortages in foreign exchange, raw materials, spare parts for machinery, and fuel oil. Fuel shortages severely affected not only production but also transportation and the distribution of goods, which gave rise to shortages in commodity goods, and this in turn led to a considerable increase in commodity prices. The shortage of foreign exchange may be attributed to a steady decline in exports. According to U Aye Ko, Party General Secretary of the now abolished Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), the only ruling party in Myanmar until 18 September 1988, when the present military regime took over power:

While Japan's growing political activism has not been matched by any commensurate desire to play a larger regional security role, circumstances are bringing Japanese leaders face-to-face with a need either to revalidate or redefine the country's security posture. Basic issues for Japan include how to adjust to the collapse of Communism in the former U.S.S.R. and the related end of the Cold War, and the likelihood of a substantial reduction in the U.S. military role in the region. Additionally, in the face of a rapid erosion of the lines between civilian and military technology and heightened “technonationalism” in both the United States and Japan, the government must decide where to strike the balance between autonomy and co-operation with the United States in the production of major weapons systems. In dealing with these issues, Japanese policymakers will have to consider both domestic and international opposition to any indication of revived militarism.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the launching of Operation Desert Storm by the U.S.-led multinational forces greatly hastened this process, and provoked a major political crisis whose effects have not yet played themselves out. Amidst the tumult surrounding the Gulf crisis, there can be discerned a symbolic but significant gain for those who would bring Japan into the ranks of “normal” countries and legitimize the participation of its self-defence forces in internationally sanctioned peace-keeping activities.

Looking around Japan's perimeter, Tokyo's policymakers see a rapidly changing security situation. The Soviet threat is widely perceived as ended, kept alive in the public's mind principally by the continuing dispute over Moscow's retention of the Northern Territories, four northern islands seized from Japan at the end of World War II. Many judge that a settlement or shelving of this dispute — now seen as more likely as a consequence of the prostrate state of the Russian economy and central authority — would greatly enhance Japanese security.

This volume of collected writings on ASEAN is in honour of Professor Kernial Singh Sandhu, Director of ISEAS for 20 years since 1972. His sudden death on 2 December 1992 was truly a great loss to all of us. A few days before his demise, Professor Sandhu, Dr M. Sadli and I attended an IDRC conference, which Kernial helped organize, in New Delhi and Bombay to look at how India can learn from the success stories of the Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs) and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He is remembered as a person with incredible energy and enthusiasm, bringing together technocrats, government officials, and scholars to promote and foster regional consciousness, an outlook captured aptly in the phrase “Southeast Asian studies for Southeast Asians”. He is a key figure in linking the Asian intellectual community with their counterparts all over the world.

Professor Sandhu devoted his professional life to working tirelessly to propel greater ASEAN co-operation. His dream was to see active regional co-operation and economic integration in ASEAN. Through annual ASEAN Roundtables, he gathered together officials, scholars and business people to examine the problems and prospects for ASEAN co-operation. His efforts were not in vain; in January 1992, ASEAN countries agreed to form an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). The papers in this volume were presented at the ASEAN Roundtable “25 Years of ASEAN — AFTA: The Way Ahead” that was held in Singapore, 3–5 September 1992. This volume — unlike past volumes where the concern was on what ASEAN should do to achieve greater economic cooperation — is most appropriate and timely for it deals with how ASEAN should proceed to achieve the goals of AFTA in 15 years.

Professor Sandhu led the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) for 20 years and was the first Asian director of the institute since its inception in 1968.