Following their recent referendum, which voted to instate a new draft constitution, dishonest politicians can be banned from running for office.
Thailand’s military junta, who took control of the nation in 2014, will be responsible for determining whether particular politicians are honest or not.
But how they will determine a politician’s honesty has yet to be understood.
Under this new constitution, the junta will hand-pick senators and small councillors. However, the House of Representatives will still be an elected body of politicians. It will be the only electable body of politicians.
But amongst those who run for the House of Representatives, junta-approved election officials can cull candidates by either branding the candidate as someone who is “dishonestly bankrupt” or lacks “apparent honesty”.
This is all part of Thailand's new military-run regime that is pushing for political stability, accountability, and honesty - albeit in an unusual way. According to , the word “honest” and the related words “ethics” and “morals” appear 75 times in the new constitution.
So explain this referendum first…
The referendum took place to solidify the military junta’s control of Thailand. In 2014, the military staged a successful coup against the government, the success of which was founded upon their promise to rid their country of political instability and resultant violence that had persisted over the past decade.
Unofficial tallies show of voters cast their ballots in favour of the new constitution, which was in draft stage at the time. However, the Thai election commission recorded only of the voting population turned up to vote.
In addition to weeding out dishonesty in politicians, the military junta has been severe on Thai citizen who appear disloyal to the junta’s leadership.
Even innocuous acts such as liking a meme on Facebook that shows discontent towards the junta, or mimic the ‘Hunger Games’ three-finger salute has resulted in arrests.
Also, campaigning against the military junta is illegal.
So why is legislating against dishonesty so concerning?
Dr Matt Beard, a moral philosopher at The Ethics Centre in Sydney, told SBS there are a few points that need to be flagged regarding the new constitution and its law against dishonesty. The first is the issue of defining honesty.
“So is this a previous history of fraud or corruption that has been proved in a court or is this going to be something more like a character judgement? And on what basis are we going to make those determinations?” he posed.
“Lots of politicians in Australia, where we have a fairly robust democracy, have been accused of dishonesty because they haven’t fulfilled an election promise. And if we cut people on that basis we’re going to really dwindle the amount of candidates who are eligible.”
Dr Beard also raised concerns surrounding the efficacy of controlling the electable candidature. He believed it could damage the relationship and trust between a people and its government.
“The whole idea of having some kind of political representation that’s determined by the people is because we trust them to determine what kind of government they require. But by inserting some kind of a caveat on that like, ‘well you can elect the candidates you want, but only if there’s a right kind of candidate’, we actually create a distrust between the state and citizenry which is concerning in a political context,” he said.
But most worrying, said Dr Beard, is by trying to legislate honesty, one inevitably erodes it.
“A problem occurs when you try to build into legislation what is ethical. The reason why we require ethics at all is because we can’t legislate to force people to be honest. We can’t legislate to force people to be kind.”
Therefore to truly rid politics of being a “dirty game”, Dr Beard recommends the military looks beyond legislation for a solution “if it’s going to stick”.
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