這篇新聞分析特別值得推荐，對轉型中的民主國家，有很多值得省思的地方。
泰國的軍事政變推翻了泰國有史以來最受歡迎、得到最多民眾支持（國會席次最多）的總理，但是，同樣的，塔克辛上任的種種攬權行逕也受到很多反對，在人民上街頭抗議數月，泰皇要求他下台都未果後，一場軍事政變，全球譴責之聲四起，但在泰國卻似乎受到大眾的歡迎，這樣出現一個問題：一個推翻民選政府的軍事政變能夠取得正當性嗎？
泰國的輿論現在出現這樣的論調；
如果軍方很快就指定一個文人政府並還權於民，可能是塔克辛主政以來最民主的政府。
還有，雖然塔克辛獲得鄉間百分之八十的選票，但民主不是只有選舉，是政府的制度。
報紙上甚至說：如果一個民主政府的領導人事實上是一個大家厭惡的獨裁者呢？若一個軍事政府效忠民主呢？
至今政變還是軍事政變，媒體被關，戒嚴等，但是，他們似乎仍被寄望。報紙說：退步是為了更進一步，沒有人像塔克辛一樣在泰國歷史上令人失望。塔克辛任用親信家人，掌控所有的機制，包括大法官、中選會等。用財務及法律的手段對付媒體，壓迫公民組織。他在政變前正準備在軍中換血，換上自己人。媒體更報導，他計劃製造支持者與反對者的暴力衝突，利用此來戒嚴。
當所有憲政體制下的反制都被封閉時，幾乎所有泰國的民主派人士都異口同聲的認為，民主反對人士唯有訴諸憲政體制外的方法。
但，無論人民如何為士兵獻花，都不足以掩飾這個政權不是經由民主程序，不是由人民的選票選出的政權。甚至也不是出自街頭的「人民力量」。
軍事政變在泰國的歷史一直是家常便飯，但近年來已經久未出現。無論此次會多和平多受歡迎，軍事政權的危險仍在。或許人民因為不耐煩而顯得接受此次軍事政變，但這樣是否再度鼓勵軍人在未來扮演角色呢？菲律賓就是如此，導致政權一再更迭，而且依賴軍方的支持。泰國好不容易擺脫軍事政變十五年，現在將重啟其循環嗎？
泰國模式不只是自身的危機，也成為亞洲關心的。南韓的一家報紙說，我們擔心泰國軍事政變會在亞洲引起效應，亞洲的民主仍很脆弱，從菲、印尼、馬來西亞、緬甸、台灣，以及南韓自己。
泰國的民主進程轉彎卻是緣於民選的政府，而非有槍桿子的人。原來的新憲法目的在給行政體系更多權力，結束過去一直不穩定的政權（難有一黨取得絕大多數席次），但卻被塔克辛利用作為擴權的工具。現在軍事政權已表示要重修憲法，以糾正此錯誤。
大部分的政治學者看此次政變，對此政變能否取得正當性，看法仍很小心。有一位說，軍事政變是無法在民主政治中有正當性的，但是，泰國民主仍在轉型，加上，如果我們有個民主政治，其中的主要角色卻利用此制度來降低民主，體制外的介入似乎就是不得不了。
但仍有人堅持，軍事政變對民主是相當傷害的，還包括言論自由、人權、經濟發展等等之傷害。很多事都必須回歸到一個主要問題；什麼是民主？民主不只是選舉，而必須靠誠實、信賴、對持續民主化的承諾。
News Analysis: Coup turns democracy on its head
By Seth Mydans International Herald Tribune
Published: September 24, 2006
It is an ugly anachronism and a loaded phrase - tanks in the streets. It calls up a string of menacing association: naked power grab, military adventurism, power-hungry generals, anti-democratic putsch.
But the coup Tuesday that ousted the popularly elected prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has been welcomed by many Thais who saw Thaksin stripping away their democratic rights and institutions.
In the face of widespread condemnation from abroad, the reaction of the public raises the question: Can a military coup against an elected government be justified?
If, as they promise, the generals appoint a caretaker civilian prime minister soon and step aside, people here argue, the coup may turn out to have been the most democratic event in Thailand since Thaksin took office five years ago.
Yes, they say, Thaksin has won landslide elections with his popularity among the rural poor. But elections are only part of the process; democracy also means a system of government.
”What is a democracy when its leader is actually a despot in disguise?” wrote Veenarat Laohapakakul, a commentator for the newspaper The Nation. ”And what is a military coup if the military pledges its allegiance to democracy?”
At the moment, the junta is acting like a junta, and Thais are hoping for the best. On Sunday, it tightened restrictions on all political activity. It has declared martial law and banned gatherings of more than five people. It has closed hundreds of independent radio stations, primarily in areas that support Thaksin, and has warned the press to be ”responsible.” It has required local officials to report to military commanders and has detained some of Thaksin’s top aides.
As The Bangkok Post put it in a hopeful headline, ”A step back so as to move forward.” In the editorial that followed, it said, ”No person in Thai history has let down the nation like Mr. Thaksin.”
He took office in 2001 with the first outright majority any prime minister had enjoyed. Almost immediately, he began to gather power into his own hands. At one point he said he intended to remain in office for 15 years.
By engineering the appointments of his supporters and family members, he took control of the institutions that were meant to check his power: the Senate, the courts, and commissions to oversee elections and curb corruption.
Using financial and legal pressure he took over the TV stations and intimidated the press. He worked to silence civic groups and critical academics.
At the moment he was deposed he was attempting to manipulate an annual military shuffle to place his supporters and relatives in command positions.
Some newspapers here are reporting that he planned - as early as last week - to engineer a clash with pro-democracy demonstrators and to seize total power through a state of emergency.
With constitutional avenues of opposition closed off, Thai political analysts almost unanimously say, the democratic opposition had no choice but to resort to extra-constitutional means.
But all the garlands that people handed to soldiers and draped over the gun barrels of tanks cannot disguise the fact that this was regime change by force, not by ballot or political pressure or even ”people power” rallies in the streets.
This is a country where coups were once a habit. There have been 18 of them in the past 72 years. After a 15-year hiatus of elected governments, the military was reverting to a maneuver in which it had more practice than most armies.
Even in the most benign of outcomes, a dangerous precedent has been set, the analysts said. Indeed, the more gentle the current coup appears to be - troops on the streets have been ordered to smile - the more acceptable military intervention may seem in the future.
It may be that the public’s impatience with the challenges of its young democracy and its calm acceptance of military intervention were a result of the familiarity of precedent. Now that it has acted, and with such popular acclaim, will the military take on the role of arbiter of civilian governments, stepping in when it deems appropriate?
This is the Philippine model of repeated coup threats and coup attempts, and it has resulted in a government that is constantly maneuvering to stay on the good side of the generals.
Thailand may have to hold its breath for another 15 years to learn whether the military has really gone back to its barracks this time.
The optimistic spin is that Thaksin interrupted a democratizing trend that had only begun to take root after the adoption of a liberal Constitution in 1997 and that the trend can now resume.
Nevertheless, Thailand has presented a dangerous model not only for itself, but also for its neighbors.
The dangers were summed up last week in an editorial in The Korea Herald. ”We are concerned that the ’success’ of the Thai military could have a ripple effect across Asia,” it said. ”Could it put into reverse the democratic changes we have seen in the region since the late 1980s?”
Across the region, it said, democracy is still fragile.
”We have seen democratically elected leaders fighting uphill battles in the Philippines and Indonesia,” it said, ”the legacy of authoritarian politics persisting in Malaysia and Singapore, political darkness in Myanmar and once-popular presidents struggling in Taiwan and in our own country.”
Thailand’s democratizing trend, though, was diverted not by men with guns but by the elected prime minister himself.
The young Constitution had attempted to create a strong executive and end a continuing rotation of weak coalition governments. Thaksin exploited its loopholes, and a central task of the interim government will be to redraw parts of the charter.
The junta has laid out a program for returning to democracy that it said would take at least a year: installation of a civilian interim government, creation of a new Constitution, adopting the Constitution through a national referendum and finally electing a new Parliament.
Given the political context of the coup, political scientists and international lawyers found themselves struggling a bit to decide whether there might be circumstances in which those menacing tanks in the street could be justified.
”My sense is that a coup cannot be justified in democratic politics,” said Muthiah Alagappa, director of the East- West Center in Washington, a private policy group, who has written a book on the declining role of the military in Asia. ”But there are two caveats,” he said. ”First, Thai democracy is still in transition. The second is that if you have a situation in which a democracy would actually be undermined by the players within the system, then one can make a case for extralegal intervention.”
Steve Golub, who teaches democracy and law at the University of California at Berkeley, said the answer must boil down to: ”Time will tell.”
Almost always, he said, ”military coups are very bad things in terms of democracy, human rights, economic progress - you name it.”
Still, ”A lot of this gets back to the big question of, What is democracy? If it’s more than just elections, if it involves some minimal level of honesty, accountability and commitment above all to continue democracy, the picture becomes cloudier.”
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