Crisis Foes Were Fated to Collide

The two adversaries in the government crisis now unfolding in Thailand are tough, unyielding figures who spent their formative years in the caldron of Thailand’s military rather than in the compromise world of politics. But a mixture of differing backgrounds, age and even unorthodox religious beliefs helped place them on a collision course.

Until he was named prime minister last month, Suchinda Kraprayoon was commander in chief of Thailand’s armed forces, a post that in practical terms made him the most powerful and feared man in the country. Chamlong Srimuang, leader of pro-democracy forces opposing Suchinda, retired from the military in frustration and, as governor of Bangkok, won widespread respect for cleaning up the city’s creaking administration.

Suchinda, 58, is in many respects the archetypal Thai military leader. He was head of his class at Chulachomklao Military Academy. Graduates of his class, No. 5, form a tight-knit inner circle who control virtually all the top jobs in the military--and through connections, according to many analysts, control much that goes on in the civilian world.

Suchinda prefers Havana cigars and Mercedes-Benz limousines. In an illuminating incident last year, Suchinda’s wife publicly chastised him at a military reception for carrying on with a well-known actress and singer.

Last February, when the top commanders of the army and air force overthrew Thailand’s last elected civilian government, Suchinda was considered the gray eminence behind the putsch.

He was the most articulate spokesman for the junta and even gained it a measure of popular support by explaining that the takeover was designed to eliminate corruption in government, a popular issue.

But Suchinda badly misjudged the popular discontent that would arise from his decision to renege on a promise not to seek the prime minister’s job after elections in March.

Chamlong, 56, graduated from Chulachomklao in Class 7, but even as a young officer he developed a reputation for hardheadedness, criticizing the top brass for corruption.

Perhaps the defining moment in his life came in the 1970s when he and his wife became followers of a breakaway and subsequently illegal sect of Thai Buddhism whose advocates eschew wealth and adopt Spartan lifestyles.

In 1985, after his retirement from the army as a major general, Chamlong stunned the Thai capital by winning election as Bangkok’s governor, the local equivalent of mayor. Bangkok suffers from enormous problems of overcrowding and collapsing infrastructure, and Chamlong was seen as a dynamo who helped get the streets cleaned and garbage collected.

He has also proven uncompromising on the burning issue of corruption and is widely regarded as the only honest politician in the country.

Chamlong, who won a landslide reelection in 1990, decided to enter the national political scene last year after the military announced that elections would be permitted in March under a new constitution. His Force of the Spirit party had been expected to do well only around Bangkok, but the party won a respectable 40 seats nationwide out of a total 360 in Parliament.

Suchinda was appointed prime minister April 7 by a coalition of five military-dominated political parties. Protests began almost immediately outside Parliament condemning Suchinda for getting the top civilian post in the country without taking part in an election.

The demonstrations against Suchinda remained small and poorly attended until Chamlong electrified the nation by announcing on the steps of Parliament May 4 that he would remain on a hunger strike until death unless Suchinda resigned.

Chamlong called off his fast last Sunday, but by then he had galvanized massive support.