Only a decade ago, Thailand was one of Asia’s strongest democracies. Today, that democracy has fallen off a cliff, a worrying trend, which despite the optimism of the Arab spring, is increasingly being seen elsewhere in the developing world too. Now, with the election of the Puea Thai party, led by Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand risks losing a last chance to put its wobbly democracy back on track.
Thailand’s democratic fall is relatively recent. Reformers took control after the failed military interventions of the early 1990s, passing a progressive constitution in 1997, and holding free elections.
“Thailand’s freedom, openness, strength, and relative prosperity make it a role model,” US assistant secretary of state James Kelly declared in 2002. Growing divides between the middle and upper classes and the poor, however, gradually polarised Thai society, leading to turmoil, and a bloody crackdown in Bangkok last year that killed at least 90 people.