BANGKOK There is scarcely a doubt that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his party, Thai Rak Thai, will win the election in Thailand on Sunday. But that does not mean that the voting will be of little importance either to Thailand or its neighbors. At stake is the extent to which national institutions and the Constitution are able to check personal and executive power, and whether Thailand moves further down the road of the populist authoritarianism not unfamiliar in either Southeast Asia or Latin America. The margin of TRT's victory will be one key to that future. The other will be the prime minister's own response to becoming the first democratically elected Thai leader likely to serve two - and perhaps more - full parliamentary terms. Thaksin's position has been strengthened by the tsunami, which drew attention away from politics at a time when some of his shoot-from-the-hip policies were beginning to erode his support. The disaster enabled him to display his hands-on, action-oriented abilities and the mix of pragmatism and nationalism that has enabled him to appeal to atavistic sentiments without causing undue offense to foreigners. But he was bound to win in any event. The first reason for that is the buoyant economy. The groundwork for recovery from the Asian crisis was laid by his predecessor, but Thaksin's populist stimulatory measures - including public spending on major projects and pressure on banks to pursue bolder lending policies - have added to the new glow of confidence. Likewise, debt relief for farmers and low-cost health care have been hugely popular, especially among Thailand's oft-neglected rural majority. The economic cycle has smiled on Thaksin. The question for his second term is whether he has been carried away by his own rhetoric, promising higher economic growth than is feasible without creating another boom/bust cycle, adding to the national debt and undermining the central bank's hard work in having restored the banking system to health. The second reason for his success is his "end justifies the means" attitude, most apparent in his war on drugs, which saw the extra-judicial killing of large numbers of alleged drug dealers. The campaign undoubtedly undermined law-based governance, and whether it will have any long-term impact on the drug trade is questionable, but it has unquestionably been popular. Thaksin has also cemented his position by using state powers to persuade most news organizations to avoid critical comment and exposés of scandals and instead to provide outlets for a well-oiled government/TRT publicity machine. One way or another, institutional checks and balances like the Counter Corruption Commission and the Constitution Court have lost their will to challenge the executive. Thaksin's pro-business rhetoric and pressure for generous write-offs for indebted companies has won him many supporters, particularly among the Sino-Thai business community. This has helped fend off criticism that his own family company, the giant Shin telecoms group, has been a major beneficiary of government decisions and even been a factor in Thailand's more friendly relations with the junta in Myanmar. For many, Thaksin's policies in the Muslim south of Thailand have been crude and confused, exacerbating old problems there, endangering relations with Malaysia and casting a shadow over his international image. But his nationalistic response is unlikely to lose him votes in most of the country, which is largely ignorant of its Muslim-majority southern provinces. That is not to say there is no opposition or criticism. Thaksin is deeply disliked by many, especially among the urban middle class and established elites, as well as academics and social activists who fear his methods and distrust his mix of populism and money politics. But lackluster leadership of the main opposition Democrat Party has added to Thaksin's own luster and enabled TRT to escape relatively unscathed from various scandals, the mishandling of the South and such failed gimmicks as Thaksin's attempt to buy a British soccer club. Ironically, Thaksin's organizational skills and money enabled him to make the best use of constitutional changes introduced when the Democrats were in office to encourage the formation of a few large parties in place of the multitude that used to make Thailand's democratic politics so unstable. The long-established Democrats own institutional base has thus far proved unable to compete with the appeal of a party based on one man. The Democrats will doubtless still be around when Thais finally tire of Thaksin. But meanwhile it remains to be seen whether re-election will make for a kinder, gentler, wiser leader. Or whether like Juan Peron or Ferdinand Marcos he will be hoist on his own sense of destiny and indispensability. See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune. < < Back to Start of Article