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Thailand – The Price of Democracy

He's a billionaire who wants a whole lot more. Thaksin Shinawatra wants government – and he's giving it quite a shake.

As Thailand's election campaign unfolds, he's proving very popular.

But is that popularity is coming fair and square or is this consummate, hard-nosed businessman and his political party digging deep into a bag of dirty tricks and paying for support.

The National Counter-Corruption Commission already has Thaksin in its sights over a possible breach of political disclosure laws. He's accused of hiding his awesome wealth behind family and bogus companies.

The local political press has evoked a colourful Thai saying for that little pickle -- You can't use leaves to cover a dead elephant.

Thaksin will be a dead duck if he can't beat the rap, but as Geoff Thompson reports from Bangkok, authorities should also be taking a close look at his party's shad ways on the campaign trail.

Thaksin's car with siren blaring

Siren

02:00

Thompson: Thailand’s money politics has a new high roller – policeman, billionaire and now prime ministerial wannabe.

Crispin: Thaksin is the elite right, he’s not the masses, for the most part. What you’re average Thai, at present, likes about the idea of a Thaksin regime is just that, the success. The country has been buried in failure for the last three years.

Crispin

Super:

Shawn Crispin

Far Eastern Economic Review

Here’s a guy they see that has been a success, has rode through the crisis and that perhaps he can make the whole country a success again.

02:34

Thaksin greets supporters

Thompson: Well before the election Thaksin Shinwatra has been on the campaign trail.

02:48

Since forming his Thai Rak Thai or Thai’s Love Thai party two years ago, this Thai billionaire has fashioned himself as a man of the people.

Woman in crowd: I have seen you on television – you were not handsome at all.

Thaksin: Not handsome at all.

Woman: Prime Minister, would you please accept my garland? In real life, doesn't he look handsome. Take a photo…take a photo! He is very nice… very nice. I have dreamt so long about this. I with you will be the next prime minister.

Entertainers

Music

03:22

Thompson: Thailand's consumers have already invested a lot in Thaksin's success. Millions use his mobile phone network and its new economy spin-offs.

The Thai Rak Thai leader is the founder and owner of the giant Shin Corporation -- the company that made him Thailand’s most powerful telecommunications tycoon.

03:40

Thompson on video wall/to camera

Super:

Geoff Thompson

Thompson: Thaksin Shinawatra made his billions by exploiting all the right connections. Family connections delivered him his first break in business. Connecting the nation to his mobile phone network made him Thailand’s richest man. Not content with mere fame and fortune, the tycoon is now making a bid for his country’s top political job.

03:52

Laser show

Music

04:11

Thaksin at laser show

Thompson: In this venture, no expense is being spared. This extravaganza at the provincial town of Chantaburi is not an opportunity to raise election funds, but to spend them.

04:21

Thaksin greets supporters in rain

If a personal appearance by Thaksin isn’t enough to get tens of thousands of people to brave the rain, then a light and laser show does the trick.

04:34

But Thaksin’s pyrotechnical pitch for the Prime Ministership could soon blow up in his face.

He’s accused of breaching Thailand’s new constitution by stashing millions of dollars in shares behind the names of his household staff.

04:52

It’s a mistake that could cost him his political life according to the head of Thailand's new anti-corruption watchdog.

Cheering/applause

Opas

Super:

Opas Arunin

Nat. Counter Corruption Comm.

Opas: If found guilty according to the constitution he will be removed from his official position and banned from taking any political position for five years.

05:15

Thaksin greets supporters

The NCCC can’t find Thaksin’s domestic staff let alone speak with them. Transferred shares have also made the tycoon’s celebrity son, hot property indeed.

05:34

Thaksin’s son

Son: I’m sorry my father doesn’t let me talk.

Thompson: He’s the only one that talks?

05:46

Undaunted by the allegations Thaksin poses as a corruption fighter.

05:57

Thaksin interview

Thaksin: Yes, that's what I want to fight. I declare war on corruption, poverty and narcotics. Well, you know, at least charity have to start at home. So you have to start to tackle corruption in the Cabinet level, which is very important.

06:00

Chuan Leekpai

Thompson: But Thaksin is not the only politician accused of cooking the books and running afoul of Thailand’s political reforms.

06:24

Prime Minister, Chuan Leekpai, is also under investigation for hiding his wealth. So too are six of his ministers.

In Thailand, money and politics are inextricably mixed.

It's not policies, but pork barrel promises which grab attention.

Thaksin Shinawatra plays this game with billion-dollar bravado.

Thaksin addresses crowd

Thaksin: When I said I will allocate a fund of one million baht for each village they said it will cost more than 70 million baht. Where will I get the money from? As a company president I can borrow 30 or 40 billion baht. If I become leader, why can't I borrow 70 billion baht? It's nothing.

06:52

Thompson: At one lucky town two hours drive from Bangkok, five thousand people are guests of Thaksin and his local candidate – already an MP elected from a rival party.

More than 100 of Thai Rak Thai’s candidates are defectors. TRT is new wine in old bottles.

07:23

Crispin: He established the party as a party of a new generation, but in trying to consolidate his power base he’s had to take in the old generation to form a mass party. So there’s the fear that, yes, the party was launched under a grand reform banner but

Crispin

the reality of Thai politics is that you still do need to take in the old style politicians to form a party.

07:50

Thompson on street by political banner

Thompson: Many of Thaksin’s candidates have been lured from rival parties with promises of financial inducements. At the voter level it’s a similar story. For villagers who attend party meetings and sign up – its free T-shirts -- and if that’s not enough to bag their vote a one hundred baht note is thrown in as well.

07:57

View from car of Northern Thai countryside

Music

08:16

Thompson: Out here in Northern Thailand’s high-country 100 baht -- less than five dollars -- could feed a family for a couple of days.

We travelled to the village of Thoungyao to see for ourselves how political parties purchase political allegiance.

08:31

Here at the local community hall, villagers learn how to vote for Thaksin Shinawatra.

08:38

Thai Rak Thai official: The Prime Minister Thaksin may or may not be Prime Minister for the Northern people. Whether he is or not depends on you… because you have the power.

08:47

Thai Rak Thai officials

Thompson: At this table Thai Rak Thai officials collect ID cards and sign people up with the party, a deal sweetened with the promise of 100 baht to be paid later in the day.

09:03

Villagers were asked to select a representative to distribute Thaksin’s promised village development fund.

Thai Rak Thai official: Once the TRT becomes the government your village will receive one million baht for sure.

09:25

Applause

Thompson: Our presence didn’t go unnoticed. The meeting ended in confusion, ID cards were kept and no money was handed over.

09:36

Guy on motorbike

09:44

Woman: This is the ticket you use to get your ID card back and money.

Thompson: How much money did they promise you?

Woman: About 100 Baht.

Man on motorbike: They told the community leaders to tell us to go to a meeting – the Party is coming here. They will give us 100 baht for our time. Whoever attends gets paid, they said.

10:06

Photographers/ Thaksin at awards ceremony

Thompson: Back in Bangkok Thaksin Shinawatra is guest of honour at an awards ceremony for Make Money magazine.

10:24

Thompson: We have direct evidence that Thai Rak Thai officials in ?* province are paying villagers to join the party.

Thaksin: No. I don't think so.

10:40

Thompson: Do you consider that corruption?

Thaksin: I don't think so. I think allegation will be rampant now.

Thompson: Do you concede that there may well be vote-buying going on right now, prior to the election?

Thaksin: I think there might be, there might be.

10:54

Thompson: In your own party?

Thaksin: My own party, I don't think so. But maybe some people. If I suddenly find out that they do that, we will not find them a candidate.

Thompson: But the truth is vote buying is hardly isolated to Thaksin’s party. All parties are guilty.

Thepchai: Corruption is quite deep rooted in the Thai society

11:09

Thepchai

Super:

Thepchai Yong

Fmr News Director, ITV

to the point that a lot of people are giving up hope as to whether anything can really be done to solve the problem. It has been ingrained into the whole political system.

Thompson: Thepchai Yong is one of Thailand’s most respected journalists. He was news director at ITV – the only free-to-air television station in Thailand not owned by the state.

11:31

Four months ago Thaksin Shinawatra’s company, Shincorp, became a major shareholder in ITV and Thepchai Yong lost his job.

11:42

Thepchai: A lot of people are now questioning the credibility of ITV – whether the station now is leaning in favour of TRT and Thaksin, the party leader.

11:52

Frankly speaking, I have doubts, very strong doubts now as to what extent ITV can retain its independence.

Thepchai on TV

Thepchai on TV: You would not believe the police could even corrupt road tolls in Bangkok.

12:14

Thompson: Before his removal Thepchai presented a series of investigative stories exposing police corruption.

Thepchai on TV: We found that at almost every toll there were traffic policemen waiting to stop trucks and collect money from the drivers.

Thaksin Shinawatra has come a long way since his early days a police lieutenant colonel.

Indeed he owes his early success in business to a government granted monopoly over the supply of computers to the nation’s police.

Thaksin greets police

Thaksin: Thank you brother… want to see a policeman become Prime Minister? Police know how to solve police problems – nobody knows us like we know ourselves.

12:43

Thepchai: They have mutual interests for example, politicians need policemen to serve their interests, and the policemen need the protection of politicians to get promotions, to get posted to where they think it can serve them best.

Police parade

Music

13:23

Thompson: Thailand’s police are anything but independent of the political process.

13:31

Thompson: Many Thai politicians are graduates of this Bangkok police academy. The force is a training ground for men aspiring to political power.

13:52

Inside of police station

These young men are the victims of a nightclub stoush with members of Thailand’s most infamous policing and political dynasty.

14:07

Chalerm

14:16

Thompson: This is Thailand’s deputy opposition leader Chalerm Yubaamroong (phon.) making a late-night appearance at a Bangkok police station to bail out one of his brawling sons.

Chalerm: I don't want to complain about the police because my father was a policeman. I am a policeman, my brother and my sons are policemen – but police behaviour is pathetic.

Applause

14:41

Thompson: That police corruption is rampant is common knowledge in Thailand. So too that the business of politics is a highly profitable pursuit.

14:46

Chalerm himself has been investigated for being unusually rich.

14:56

At Thonburi, on the outskirts of Bangkok, the largess of Chalerm and his two elder sons make them home town heroes. All three are candidates in the coming election.

Wuangchalerm: Look at my photo here. If you vote for me, I will win a seat and you will be proud of me. Look at my photo. See? Am I ugly? Am I ugly? My good looks are second to no one. You can tell everybody that your MP is the youngest and most handsome in Parliament.

15:16

Chalerm

Chalerm: The most important thing is that my sons learn how to behave like a politician like I do.

15:49

Thompson: Just how politicians behave in this, the first general election since '97's crisis, could have implications for Thailand’s entire reform program.

16:01

If vote buying scandals are rife, the new constitution may effectively jettison the election result.

16:11

News crew

New generation politicians, like the Democrat's progressive pin-up boy Abhisit Vejjajiva (Weechachewa phon.), know this only too well.

16:20

Abhisit

Super:

Abhisit Vejjajiva

Office of the Prime Minister

Abhisit: I think we’re at the crossroads – we’re emerging from a crisis. We are also a maturing democracy. We have had a very progressive constitution put in place which will be put in practice in terms of general elections for the first time. So it's going to be a very important decision that the Thai people are faced with.

16:28

Crispin

Crispin: Under the constitution, Parliament must be convened 30 days after the elections are called. If they are not then we face a constitutional crisis.

16:49

The risk of a constitutional crisis is that the country faces a political vacuum that is all the more destabilising to international investor confidence in the economy, and quite frankly could open the door for a conservative backlash against the entire political reform agenda.

17:01

General leaving plane

Thompson: In Thailand a conservative backlash has most often meant a military coup.

17:17

Even today, Thailand’s army commander concedes there are officers still hungry for a coup.

General

Super:

Gen. Surayud Chulamont

Thai Army Chief

General: We are still in a society which we are moving towards a democracy which we think will be the right one. For us and it will take some time – it's not just turn it off and on just like a switch.

17:33

Rioting

Thompson: 1992 was the last time the land of smiles became a land of bullets.

17:52

Hundreds of people were killed when the military crushed public protests sparked by a general appointing himself Prime Minister.

The general and the protest leader were called before Thailand’s King on their hands and knees.

18:20

King: How you solve the problem is up to you – but the interests of the nation must come first.

Those few royal words made the blood letting stop. It is impossible to overestimate the reverence and respect the king commands in Thailand today.

Crispin: He is above politics, almost in a godly sense, whereas Thai politicians

Crispin

generally represent everything that is, that is human, in the sense greed, corruption, a desire for power.

18:59

Brass band

Band music

19:12

Thompson: Modern Thailand is still struggling to become a robust democracy.

A Thailand that can cope without corruption and without coups, and without requiring the intervention of its 73 year old king.

Thepchai

Super:

Thepchai Yong

Fmr News Director, ITV

Thepchai: The king will be around until the country makes real political progress and them the system itself can survive without needing to have the same kind of type of intervention that was required of his majesty in time of crisis in the past.

19:43

Schoolchildren singing

Singing: We will make the world know that we are your children. We will follow your guidance to make Thailand happy and prosperous forever.

20:10

Credits:

Reporter: Geoff Thompson

Producer: Geoff Clegg

Camera: Kate Goodman

Research: S. Panyastianpong

Editor: Stuart Miller

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Peru – The Real Fitzcaraldo

A steamship, a mountain range, and a destination in the South American interior sounds like the premise for Werner Herzog's epic film, Fitzcaraldo, about one man's obsession to take a riverboat overland to the Amazon.

Unfortunately, the Herzog film is as heavy going as the journey and clocks in at just under three hours.

On our epic trip over the Andes we discovered a nineteenth century steamship folly in Peru – just as remarkable – and it skips along at well under nine minutes.

Here's our postcard.

Lake Titicaca

Byrne: It’s one of those things almost everyone remembers from school - Lake Titicaca - a name to conjure with. South America - in the Andes - very high - very big - very beautiful.

21:00

Music

Byrne

Byrne: Whether Lake Titicaca is the highest lake in the world -- which it isn’t -- or the biggest of the world’s high lakes -- which it is -- the point in human terms is that an altitude of 4,000 metres -- that’s 12 thousand feet above sea level -- can you feeling extremely weird. Slow, a bit cloudy in the head, your face if you may have noticed tends to puff up and the slightest exertion can leave you panting and exhausted. In fact for all the beautiful scenery all you really feel like doing is having a good lie down. Still the locals say there is no permanent damage

21:27

Llamas on plain

Byrne: Armed with this reassuring knowledge I set forth into jama land - that’s jama as in llama not as in bed.

22:06

The reason for my journey - high on the Peruvian alto plano, close to the Bolivian border - was to come to the lakeside town of Puno and trace the remarkable voyage of the Yavari.

Music/steamship whistle

Carlos: Welcome on board, ma'am.

Byrne: Thank you very much, it's lovely to be here.

22:30

Byrne: It was built in 1861 - a good old fashioned steam ship from Birmingham, England.

Yavari

Dickens had just published Great Expectations, the American Civil War was in full flight, and local heroes Butch Cassidy and Sundance were still kids when the Peruvian Government decided it needed a fighting ship on top of the Andes.

22:43

Byrne and Carlos on board Yavari

Carlos: Actually it was a gunboat at the beginning…

23:01

Byrne: It was built in kit form -- 2,766 different pieces --with no piece too big to fit on a mule.

And that’s just how it got here - by ship to the Peruvian coast, then by land on one of South America’s earliest trains - finally ascending the mountains by mule.

Townspeople

During its working life the Yavari never did go to war; true the lake forms national boundaries, but at this altitude nobody in their right mind could feel like fighting.

23:33

Early last century it was left abandoned, until in the eighties it was spotted by a determined English woman. Preserved by the altitude and the fresh water, the ship was in remarkable condition.

Carlos and Byrne look at map

Captain Carlos Sevadra* had left the Peruvian navy and was in Africa when he heard about it.

23:59

Carlos

Carlos: I didn't have a job, and then suddenly I received a letter from a friend of mine in Peru saying that there was a crazy English lady who bought this ship.

24:06

Byrne: Carlos travelled to England in search of his destiny.

Carlos: But I mean, when she saw the CV and she was surprised because something was missing, you know, something was missing. And I said that’s impossible That anything can be missing, I’m the right man. I’m happy to be your captain. But she kept saying no that something was missing. But what is missing? Everything is here except that you are a stupid dreamer So she asked me that, you know, "Carlos are you a stupid dreamer?" And I said yes. Okay, now join me. So that was the starting point of this project, I mean the affair.

24:21

Ship's compass

Carlos: I’m going to show you something that is important – look at that, that is the original compass. Well the glass is broken as you can see, but we prefer to keep it like that because it's original.

24:54

Byrne: The last captain of the Yavari did something unusual - knowing its importance he insisted that the original features were kept when the ship was decommissioned.

Byrne: So things like the clock, the bell, the chronometer…

Carlos: …the telescope, even the address where it was built is still written here.

Byrne: And this is the original steering wheel?

25:13

Carlos: That is the original steering wheel, and something that is important to point out – look at that, the steering wheel. That is the right position actually, because I mean usually don’t think that we Peruvian sailors are stupid ...it’s not like that. I mean actually you need two sailors, one here one here and the other one here. And that is the captain’s place. Look at that.

25:26

Byrne: According to Carlos it’s the oldest working diesel engine in the world. The original steam engine proved impractical - the only fuel was llama dung.

25:56

Carlos

Carlos: They used to be run on llama dung, because that was the only combustible available, that we used to have here.

26:05

Music

Lake shots

Byrne: It was not just the ship that appealed to Carlos. Lake Titicaca - the highest navigable lake in the world - was something of a challenge and an inspiration.

26:22

Music

People on lake bank

Byrne: The Uro are the local indigenous people, famous for their use of the reeds that grow so profusely in the lake. They build with it they make boats with it - they eat it.

26:38

Carlos eats reed

Carlos: That is the read they actually eat.

Byrne: What does it take like?

Carlos: Nothing.

26:52

Byrne: Very good nothing.

Carlos: But is rich in iron, and that's why these people, I mean this keeper of our boat, he's Aymara, and they don't have any problem with their teeth.

Music

Byrne: The Uro and Aymara of lake Titicaca are also famous for their warlike spirit. They defeated the Incas and are now doing a pretty good job of dealing with the new invaders - the tourists.

27:20

Locals dancing

Band playing

27:32

Byrne: Tourists from all round the world come here to marvel at the famous floating reed islands and generally get a wedding thrown in.

In fact, the weddings are so frequent you can’t help but wonder if the divorce rate is equally high, or at least question whether some people are double dipping.

28:10

Byrne: Is it my imagination or do people around Puno have more than the normal number of parties?

28:08

Carlos: No, no you are right actually, but I think they deserve it. You know, because I mean to live here at this altitude, in order to have your life more kindly, you have to dance.

Floating reed islands

Byrne: The guide books tell you about the exotic floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca. What they don’t tell you is that they're not traditional at all.

28:30

Byrne: Honestly, is this traditional, or is something that they've dreamed up for the tourists?

Carlos: Well, it's a good question.

Byrne: Carlos felt that we hadn’t really experienced the true indigenous culture. On the other side of the lake, he said, things were different.

28:51

So we crossed the lake - almost to the Bolivian border.

Music

Byrne: I don’t know what I expected – maybe an ancient people harmonising with nature on the roof of the world.

29:10

Certainly what we got -- yes you guessed it - another wedding.

29:21

Band music

Credits:

Reporter: Jennifer Byrne

Camera: Geoff Clegg

Sound: Kate Graham

Editor: Garth Thomas

Producer: Andrew Clark