The Bhumjaithai Party (BJT) is facing a crisis of public confidence. Controversies such as alleged Senate election rigging, in which party members are among those on the suspect list, and cheating in local government recruitment examinations have brought the positive momentum of the Anutin II administration to an abrupt halt.
The stream of negative news is exhausting public trust and corroding the image of BJT, which came first in the February election and secured a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives. People are growing tired of corruption scandals. Many observers joke that four months of Bhumjaithai rule have felt like four years.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's haste in declaring the exam-rigging investigation "closed" has not helped turn the situation around. From a tactical standpoint, the government appears to have calculated that cutting the investigation short was the safer bet, preferable to allowing the probe to run far enough to lead to the arrest of low- and middle-ranking officials as well as a senior figure who was a former director of the Department of Local Administration (DLA). In the end, 5,924 candidates were disqualified.
For observers and the public, this brief investigation does not show that the Anutin administration is sincere about rectifying the problem. The hurried probe looked less like a rigorous investigative process and more like a government trying to protect its own.
What the Anutin government is projecting as a proactive approach -- instructing agencies such as the DLA and police to wrap up their case files and press criminal charges quickly -- served a clear political purpose: allowing the man at the top to be seen as having "handled the problem". In practice, quickly filing charges created a legal firewall, making it far harder for the opposition to drag any politician into the case. The goal was to prevent public and opposition-led investigations from expanding into a "time bomb".
By rushing to close the exam-rigging investigation and confining the fallout to lower-level officials and individual candidates, the probe never reached the "big fish" -- the masterminds who allegedly orchestrated the scheme.
Deputy Interior Minister Worasit Liangprasit was quoted last week as saying that some influential political families, or ban yai, were involved in local government exam fraud, with evidence forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). The Anutin government's hectic probe will only close the door on those who want to see the "big fish" implicated and caught.
Meanwhile, Interior Ministry measures, including the disqualification of 5,924 candidates and the drawing up of a fresh roster, have been criticised as a band-aid solution that addresses the symptoms rather than the disease.
Watchdog groups and academics are calling for the investigation to follow the money trail and identify who gave the orders from above. Without the "big fish" being caught, the cycle of corruption cannot be broken. The Senate vote-buying scandal follows a similar script. The public wants to know how many people behind the "hua" -- the alleged rigging -- will be held accountable and how many improperly elected senators will ultimately be unseated.
Mr Anutin insists that neither his government nor the Bhumjaithai Party has any connection to the affair. The government has adopted a stonewalling policy in dealing with questions about the alleged Senate election rigging.
Mr Anutin says he has barred party members from involving themselves in the matter, calling it outside the party's purview, and has vowed legal action against anyone who links his name or his party to the scandal -- dismissing the affair as a political attempt to blow a minor issue out of proportion to discredit the government.
Mr Anutin explained his reticence on some aspects of the case by saying he did not want to compromise the legal process, preferring to let the relevant authorities pursue those responsible through the courts. He also vowed to sue -- without settlement -- anyone who implicated him or his party and caused damage as a result.
Political pundits believe the Senate vote-buying case will end with only scores of senators being implicated. One reading of the political tea leaves predicts that the election commissioners -- some of whom were selected with the involvement of the Upper House -- will forward no more than about 30 senators for prosecution, choosing those with the weakest ties to the nexus of power to preserve a majority loyal to the "blue" faction. Such an outcome would leave the blue faction with more than 100 votes in the Upper House -- a sizeable bloc capable of determining the fate of legislation and influencing key Senate decisions.
Perhaps the biggest question concerns the sharply different conclusions reached by two EC-appointed investigative panels. The Election Commission's 26th subcommittee, appointed to investigate the alleged vote-buying scheme, concluded that 138 senators had been elected improperly. However, another probe, carried out by the 36th subcommittee, dismissed the allegations. The findings of the EC's 26th subcommittee lent weight to allegations surrounding why the Senate majority votes in near-total lockstep.
All eyes are now on the EC -- whether it will choose to prosecute a select few or decline to send any senator's case to the Supreme Court's Election Division, as recommended by its 36th subcommittee. Should the commission choose to prosecute no one, it would risk facing complaints alleging dereliction of duty under Section 157 of the Criminal Code, brought by civil society groups and the opposition alike.
