Upcoming Polls Will Leave Thai Politics as Tumultuous as Ever (Time.com)

Sonthi Boonyaratglin must have armor-plated gonads. How else to explain it? Five years ago, as an army general, he led a military coup that overthrew Thailand's then Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. Now retired and running in the country's July 3 parliamentary election, he presents the coup as a brave and selfless act. "I'm glad we did it," says Sonthi, who commands his Matubhum Party from a spartan Bangkok office. "If we hadn't, Thailand might no longer be a democracy."

Sonthi's presence - a coup general running as democracy's savior - in this critical election shows just how dysfunctional Thailand's politics have become. Thais hope to elect a government with the authority to end years of political unrest, which culminated in May last year with the deaths of at least 90 people during the antigovernment Red Shirt protests in Bangkok. But peace seems unlikely. Once a democratic trailblazer in an authoritarian region, Thailand has become a political basket case. (See pictures of the Red Shirt protests.)

The party tipped to win the election is Pheu Thai (For Thais), the latest reincarnation of an electoral juggernaut that first swept Thaksin to power a decade ago. The billionaire runs the party from a mansion in Dubai, where he fled to evade a two-year jail sentence for corruption. Its nominal leader is 43-year-old businesswoman Yingluck Shinawatra - Thaksin's younger sister. If elected, she would be Thailand's first female Prime Minister and, presumably, her brother's loyal proxy. "Yingluck is my clone," he said recently.

Pheu Thai's main rival is the incumbent Democrat Party, led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who presided over last year's bloody military crackdown on the Red Shirts. Abhisit's coalition government was cobbled together with military support two years ago after the ruling pro-Thaksin party was dissolved because of vote fraud. Many Thais feel that the Democrats are elitist, beholden to the military-backed royalist establishment and aloof from the problems of the people.

The third force is the rich and resurgent Thai military. Since the coup, defense spending has more than doubled to $5.5 billion. The military has staged 18 coups or attempted coups since 1932. A 19th is possible if Pheu Thai wins power and goes after the generals who ousted Thaksin. Generals have recently lined up to deny the constant rumors of an impending coup. Thais have good reason to doubt them. "There definitely won't be a coup," said Sonthi in 2006, even as he was plotting one. (See "A Year After Protests, Thai Elections Set.")

Coup or no coup, postelection Thailand may prove unstable whoever ends up in power. A Pheu Thai government could reignite street protests by anti-Thaksin groups like the ultraroyalist Yellow Shirts, who occupied the Prime Minister's Office and Bangkok's two international airports in 2008. Another military-backed Democrat government could again spark demos by Pheu Thai's close allies, the Red Shirts, who last year had armed militants in their ranks.

All this raises an important question: Who cares? The Thai economy seems armor-plated too. Last year, despite Thailand's worst political violence in almost two decades, the economy grew faster than it has for 15 years. The country also welcomed record numbers of tourists. Foreign investors seem unfazed by bloodshed: Ford Motor Co. has invested $1.3 billion in Thailand in the past three years.

Yet politics still matters. Years of street protests show that Thais from all walks of life have strong political views to express. Reconciling them requires greater openness and debate, but the country seems to be moving in the opposite direction. This is not only the fault of the military, which always has a hard job distinguishing between dissent and disloyalty. Politicians aren't helping either. Thaksin intimidated opponents, cowed the media and dismantled institutions that might check his authoritarianism. No party led by him can be serious about political reconciliation. (See pictures of the aftermath of the Thai protests.)

The Democrats don't appear serious either. Their government's record for stifling free expression - it has blocked some 540,000 Web pages in the past 14 months, estimates Freedom Against Censorship Thailand - is worse than Thaksin's. And they still back the military's far-fetched claim that soldiers didn't kill or even injure a single Red Shirt during last year's bloody crackdown.

Thais want a bigger say, and more transparency, in how their country is run. What they're getting is massive censorship, a dangerously resurgent military and an election that will likely be followed by the usual backroom carve-up of money and political influence. This is not just a failure of leadership. It is a recipe for further violence. The stability Thais crave is as elusive as ever.

Watch a video from inside the Red Shirt camps.

See TIME's Pictures of the Week.

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Nigeria's new parliament sworn in after April polls (AFP)

ABUJA (AFP) – Nigerian lawmakers elected in watershed polls in April were formally sworn in to parliament Monday facing the key task of enacting legislation on long-delayed oil sector reforms.

The 109 senators were the first to take the oath, followed by 360 members of the House of Representatives.

"This, indeed, is a new dawn ... for our great country," said senate president David Mark, who retained the post, becoming the first to hold the position for two successive terms.

A deputy chief whip in the last parliament, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal a northerner, was elected speaker of the house of representative, beating his rival, Mulikat Adeola-Akande, from southwest Nigeria.

The National Assembly has the responsibility for ?very critical legislation that will propel Nigeria to the world's 20 most advanced economies," Mark told the senators.

Topping the agenda of the new 469-member National Assembly will be passing legislation to overhaul Nigeria's vital oil industry.

Uncertainty over the sweeping legislation, which has been years in the making, has chilled investments in new projects in Nigeria, one of the world's largest oil producers, with energy firms unclear on what the new rules will be.

The overhaul is aimed at allowing Nigeria's government to collect more revenue from lucrative offshore projects as well as restructuring the state oil company, widely seen as corruption-ridden.

Government officials had pledged the law would be passed before the end of the last parliament.

Mark said this session of the National Assembly "has to be truly transformational in all ramifications. Our budgeting system needs a radical change."

?Nigerians complain that their democracy is too expensive," Mark said.

"We as representatives of the people must initiate legislation that will reduce the cost of governance at all levels thereby freeing resources to attend to the basic needs of the people,A? he said.

Despite the country's oil wealth, the majority of Nigerians live in poverty with basic services such as electricity and drinking water in erratic supply.

Nigerian lawmakers are meanwhile considered some of the highly paid in Africa.

The swearing-in of the new parliament took place as the outgoing speaker of the House of Representatives and powerful politician, Dimeji Bankole, was under arrest on allegations of corruption linked to house funds.

The anti-graft police arrested Bankole late Sunday fearing he was planning to flee the country ahead of questioning over alleged misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars of parliament funds.

Bankole lost his parliamentary seat in the April elections.

The polls were seen as a test of whether the Africa's most populous country was capable of holding credible elections.

While judged as the fairest election since the end of military rule in 1999, the country was hit by deadly post-vote riots which left 800 dead in the mainly Muslim north.

The election also exposed a regional and religious divide in the country of more than 150 million people.

One of the first tasks of the upper house will likely be to vet cabinet nominees expected to be submitted by President Goodluck Jonathan this week.

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Down in the Polls, Obama Makes Dash for Cash

-- Rose Ann DeMoro, who heads the 65,000-member California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle mocking President Obama’s solicitations of California’s well-heeled donors.

President Obama is looking to rake in more than $4 million from wealthy donors in a West Coast campaign swing as the embattled incumbent looks to deepen his cash reserves.

Obama’s campaign team is counting on massive early fundraising to re-establish the president as a strong bet for re-election despite a spate of struggles.

Bruising battles with Republicans over federal spending, unpopular foreign policy positions in Libya and Afghanistan and continued economic instability have left Obama in a weakened position with voters. His poll numbers have been rapidly retreating from a post-election revival. Obama’s job approval in the Real Clear Politics average is back down to its mid 40s range from the health care doldrums of 2010 and still sliding.

Today and tomorrow Obama will be the headliner at six fundraisers, including one for 60 donors who will pay $35,800 apiece for dinner, a Thursday breakfast with seats ranging from $5,000 to $35,000 and a star-studded event Thursday night at the Sony Theater where the president will tap the entertainment industry for similar sums.

This follows his fundraising kickoff in Chicago and will likely be followed by a trip to New York to go trawling for Wall Street big fish. It’s part of an effort to raise what Democrats believe will be an insurmountable sum. The goal is to beat the president’s 2008 haul of $750 million and do so without the need to spend money on a costly primary campaign.

That effort will be augmented by unrestricted spending by outside groups led by Obama loyalists like former spokesman Bill Burton and the president’s labor allies. The range of spending in support of Obama’s bid for a second term could be far in excess of the eye-popping $1 billion that first caught attention.

The message to Republicans (and any Democrats daydreaming of a primary challenge) is that they can’t afford the stakes at Obama’s table.

There are downsides to Obama’s gold rush, though. Canoodling with corporate donors and the heir and heiress set who populate Democratic fundraising circles reinforces Obama’s image as out of touch with regular Americans and diverts his attention from governing at a time when he is struggling to show he is in control.

Democrats hope that Obama can raise enough money early on to rev up the machinery necessary to put the squeeze on mid-level donors soon with an avalanche of postal, electronic and telephonic solicitations. That effort will be expensive, but less time consuming for the president.

By buttering up the rich folks this spring, Obama is trying to build a perpetual motion political machine.

 

 

Obama Jabs, Geithner Dabs

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Trump's Strength in Early Presidential Polls Defies Conventional Wisdom

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A top adviser for President Obama dismisses him as a "sideshow." Former Bush adviser Karl Rove calls him a "joke candidate."

But that hasn't stopped Donald Trump, who has captured national attention with his outspoken skepticism of Obama's citizenship, from surging in early presidential polls. He leads all potential GOP presidential candidates by nine points in a Public Policy Polling survey released Friday. He trailed only Mitt Romney in a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week.

The real estate mogul and star of NBC's "The Apprentice" says he's encouraged by the polls, but won't make an announcement about his plans for a presidential bid until June. Yet he'll be in Florida this weekend to speak at a Tea Party Tax Day rally in his first political trip since he began making waves with talks of a possible presidential bid.

Despite Trump's early strong showing, many still aren't convinced of his electability and analysts say he will have to go beyond the so-called "birther" cause and define himself for Republican primary voters on social, fiscal and foreign policy issues.

Cary Covington, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, attributes Trump's high poll numbers more to a weak Republican field than to Trump's strengths as a potential candidate.

"The Republican Party right now hasn't found that resonant individual who speaks to the various bases the way a Bush or Reagan did and until they do

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