Gay Boy Thailand

“Charlerm” went home to Anyburi to vote in local elections this weekend. He left Saturday afternoon and came back Sunday afternoon.

Chalerm had received a phone call from his grandmother that he had to come home to the village for the election. She again had been told by the village headman’s people, who not only tell city dwellers to return to vote but also (I suspect) who to vote for. The village headman has power to punish or reward villagers, which is why the pressure works.

Why can’t Chalerm vote in Bangkok? The government keeps records of Thai citizens based on their house registration. Chalerm is registered as living in the grandmother’s house in the village. It is not common to change this registration, so most migrants to Bangkok from the villages are not officially in the city. This is why we sometimes can see in books or articles that Bangkok city has six million people when the city is double that size. They only count those who are registered here.

If Chalerm wanted to become an official Bangkokian he would have to convince our landlord to register him as living in our building. I don’t know how that would go. I never heard of anyone who tried it.

I don’t know who Chalerm voted for. I don’t dare to ask as I probably would be upset if he told me.

Elections in Thailand are too important to be left to the voters, so those in power tell citizens who to vote for. I don’t know if this is true in Anyburi, but in general a village headman will “sell” the votes from his village to a Mr. Bigshot. The headman receives money for this, and often the voter gets money too – from 100 baht and up to 500 baht in the big cities.

Thais turned democracy into another version of their traditional patron-client system. Small people support Mr. Bigshot types in exchange for handouts, as cash when voting or as new roads, street lamps, water services, a new school etc. Mr. Bigshots uses tax money to reward villagers with building works but villagers see it as coming from Mr. Bigshot personally.

Mr. Bigshot doesn’t do all this to be nice of course. He will use his position for kickbacks and corruption. You can be sure he makes a profit. To run for political office in Thailand is like a business enterprise. Mr. Bigshot makes an investment in getting elected and then he wants his money back plus a lot more.

Village Thais don’t think far enough to see that they are getting cheated. They don’t see that Mr. Bigshot is stealing more than he hands out to them. They don’t see how this system distorts the economy, or how mafia figures get elected because there isn’t really any clear line between business and organised crime.