THAKSIN'S ASPIRATIONS

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is a leader in a hurry to achieve
greatness. As Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad and Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew fade
from the scene, Mr. Shinawatra clearly sees himself stepping into their
shoes as his country's indispensable politician and Asia's senior
statesman. To that end, he continues to enhance his already considerable
power by promising Thais that government can solve all their problems, both
social and economic.

Despite the fact that many of the prime minister's goals are worthy ones,
that should set some alarm bells ringing.

Most recently Mr. Thaksin declared war on poverty and pledged to eradicate
it within six years.

The first step is to get all the poor people in the country to register
with the government in the first three months of next year. Then for
another three months officials will analyze the root causes of their
poverty and they will be channeled into appropriate programs.

Starting in July their productive capacities will be unleashed. "We will
unshackle the poor people from slavery under capitalism," the prime
minister told officials. "I will not give the people fish, but I will teach
them how to catch fish."

These are noble sentiments, although Thailand's poor are not enslaved by
capitalism but simply have too few opportunities to engage in
entrepreneurial activity.

To be fair, Mr. Thaksin seems to recognize that, and several parts of his
plan make sense.

For instance he wants to strengthen land rights and cracking down on human
traffickers. The mentally ill will be diagnosed and stand a better chance
of getting treatment. Nevertheless, the idea that government bureaucrats
can find the key to unlock each individual's potential is dangerously
romantic. Bangkok's governor gave a hint of more prevalent attitudes when
he suggested recently that the homeless should be moved to the same
shelters as stray dogs.

In fact, Mr. Thaksin is increasingly trying to remake Thai society from the
bottom up. Earlier this year he embarked on a war against illegal drugs.
But instead of using his parliamentary majority to tighten the laws and
devote more resources to catching and prosecuting drug dealers, the
government sent the police out with orders to simply round up those they
knew to be involved in the illegal trade and force them to confess or turn
informant.

Letters were sent to those on a blacklist, and within three months more
than 2,000 who refused to cooperate turned up dead. The police blamed these
killings on infighting among the drugs gangs, but forensics experts were
discouraged from examining the evidence too carefully.

Another campaign is underway to eliminate immoral behavior.

Not surprisingly, a key target is the sex industry, but the effort
backfired when Chuwit Kamolvisit, the owner of several large massage
parlors in Bangkok, retaliated by revealing details of how he bribed police
and entertained high-ranking politicians. That may help Mr. Thaksin fulfill
another promise -- to clean up the police force within five years.

Doing its part, the Culture Ministry moved to ban 18 love songs with
explicit lyrics.

It's difficult to criticize the government's lofty goals, but consider that
Mr. Thaksin is trying to achieve them by force of will (or just plain
force) and mass mobilization rather than by building institutions. Earlier
promises, such as one to fix Bangkok's notoriously bad traffic in six
months, fall by the wayside to make way for new ones. All this is
reminiscent of the grand schemes of Chairman Mao Zedong, who was too
impatient to wait for production to rise gradually, and so had the Chinese
peasantry running from killing sparrows to building backyard steel
furnaces, all in the name of leapfrogging ahead of the capitalist nations.

If Mr. Thaksin's foibles were limited to social engineering schemes quickly
taken up and quickly abandoned, Thais could be more sanguine about the
damage being done. But all along the prime minister has shown a related
tendency to increase the state's role in the economy.

Perhaps it's understandable that the former CEO of a large company would
try to run the country as he did his business empire.

Nevertheless, the dramatic increase in the amount of credit being directed
to favored enterprises and groups suggests that there will one day be a
reckoning.

For now at least, this easy money, augmented by deficit spending that is
only partly reported on the official budget, is fuelling an economic boom.
Thais are thrilled to have money in their pockets again, and Mr. Thaksin's
nationalist rhetoric and discrimination against foreign investors does him
no harm either -- his approval ratings are above 70%. Those who dare to
question whether this will help Thailand in the long run are increasingly
shouted down, as the famously thin-skinned prime minister seems to have
little patience for adversarial politics.

With a few exceptions, the press has been wooed or intimidated into
supporting Mr. Thaksin, and the opposition is a ridiculed wreck.

The prime minister even told his own supporters that he thinks Thailand may
become like Singapore, with his Thais Love Thais Party ruling virtually
unopposed like the People's Action Party. Given the government's popularity
and Thai democracy's shallow roots, it is not inconceivable that Thailand
could move in this direction.

Putting aside whether Mr. Thaksin has the political cunning and
administrative ken of a Lee Kuan Yew or a Mahathir Mohamad, the question is
whether Thailand would benefit from weakened democratic institutions and a
return to authoritarianism.

Having broken through the political gridlock that used to paralyze
Thailand's government, Mr. Thaksin has an opportunity to consider what kind
of a system he wants to build in Thailand. Reflating the economy and
mobilizing campaigns might work for long enough to ensure victory in the
2005 elections, but if he is serious about holding onto office for eight
years, that means he will be around when the bills come due. Mr. Thaksin
has picked the right goals by targeting poverty, corruption and vice. But
the only way to stamp them out for good is to impose checks and balances on
the government and reduce its size and interference in the economy.

It may be difficult for an ambitious prime minister to accept, but that way
lies true greatness as a leader.