Party In Bangkok

Thai Election May Test Economic Resilience That Lured Dow, Ford

The economic resilience that saw companies from Ford Motor Co. (F) to Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) invest in Thailand even amid its worst political violence in two decades may be tested next month as polls indicate a win for the party removed from power twice in the past five years.

Pheu Thai, backed by exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , led the ruling Democrats by 13 percentage points in a poll released June 18 by the National Institute of Development and Administration. The army, which deposed Thaksin in 2006, has warned voters to avoid picking the “same thing” as previous times; disputes over the last election led to airport seizures, arson attacks and protests that killed more than 100 people.

Clashes between rural and urban voters in the country of 67 million people didn’t stop successive governments embracing trade and foreign investment or deter tourist arrivals, which jumped to a record in 2010. The economy last year grew the fastest since at least 1995, and Thai stocks were among the world’s 10 best performers.

“Our companies have endured coups over the last few decades and survived,” Hugh Young , who helps manage $70 billion in Asian equities at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd., said by e-mail. “We’re just watching and hoping for the best” from the July 3 vote, he said.

The ability of the world’s top exporter of rice and rubber to also attract manufacturers that account for 40 percent of gross domestic product makes the economy more vulnerable to global setbacks than domestic troubles. Thai GDP fell 2.3 percent in 2009 amid a global recession, then jumped 7.8 percent last year. The government’s planning agency sees growth between 3.5 percent and 4.5 percent this year as global demand slows.

Exports rose to an 18-year high in June 2010, a month after the military set up live firing zones in Bangkok to end a two- month protest that killed 91 people.

Dow Chemical, the largest U.S. chemical maker, has been operating in Thailand for 45 years and its venture with local partner Siam Cement Pcl “is one of our best in the world,” country manager Molly Zhang said. Midland, Michigan-based Dow plans to open a plant later this year that’s part of a $3 billion investment, she said.

“We have been growing through Thailand’s recent history and remain optimistic about the economic and business opportunities moving forward,” Zhang wrote in an e-mail.

The Economist: Yingluck too hot for the generals | Asian Correspondent

A month or so on, however, and the decision is looking like a stroke of genius. Ms Yingluck has taken the campaign by storm, generating enough buzz and excitement to build a handy lead in the polls over the incumbent Democrat Party…

So how has Ms Yingluck managed it? To shine a little daylight on the magic, I joined her and her very large team for a day on the campaign trail in Thailand’s deep (and largely Muslim) south. This is not natural Pheu Thai country—their heartland is in the rural north of the country—but she was mobbed nonetheless, even if only by her own supporters. Warming to this theme, the egocentric Mr Thaksin was rash enough at the start to describe Ms Yingluck as nothing more than his “clone”. It’s clear, however, that Ms Yingluck is rather more than the family android—and brings to the campaign her own qualities and attributes.

For a start, she is not quite the political ingénue that she seems. Although at 44 years old she has never held public office, she points out that she comes from an intensely political family; her father was an MP for Chiang Mai, their hometown in the north-west, and her brother was prime minister. She studied political science in Thailand and public administration at an American university. Politics, her friends claim, is in the blood.

BP :  In some ways, it is interesting how Puea Thai have framed the Yingluck narrative. As she has not been a politician, she does not have the baggage, but as is clear from the WikiLeaks cable she has clearly been playing a more key role behind-the-scenes than what we knew – she would not have gone to meet the Ambassador on multiple occasions if there were not plans for her in the future. This is not to suggest she is some political genius, it is more of a question of expectations.

The last Thaksin relative, or more accurately brother-in-law, Somchai W was uninspiring and lacked charisma. Not much was known about Yingluck, but from BP’s own view and some views of others, not much was expected. BP thought she would be relatively competent, but that she would say the “wrong thing” and hence she would be called out because she was politically inexperienced. So far, she has been stage-managed, but her messaging is relentless and this has reduced the chances for her to say something stupid. It was Thaksin who put her in the bad position by calling her his clone because as The Economist notes her personality is quite different from Thaksin.

Europa World Year Book

Far East and Australasia 2003

Report of the second session of the Working Party on Small-Scale Fisheries, Bangkok, Thailand, 18-21 November 2003

LIFE

Political change in Thailand, democracy and participation