He may have enough votes to back his claim to be the legitimately elected head of government, but beleaguered Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is now being charged by his critics with lacking in qualities that befit a Buddhist leader.

Days after one of the largest anti-government rallies were witnessed in the Thai capital in over a decade, this line of argument that Thaksin has lost his legitimacy from a Buddhist point of view is gaining currency. Thai leaders are “expected to uphold Buddhist values,” said Somkiat Tangkitvanich, a leading economist. Among the 10 principles Buddhists expect their leaders to uphold are a commitment to charity and generosity, high moral character, self-sacrifice, honesty, kindness, austerity and non-violence.

But a billion dollar business deal that Thaksin’s family has profited from, and his reaction to his critics since then, has eroded any claims the prime minister can make to living up to these Buddhist ideals, Somkiat said.

“Businessmen and those in political power should have greater social responsibility,” Suchit Bungbongkarn, a former judge on Thailand’s Constitutional Court, said. “They have to raise the moral standards in their decisions.”

The financial deal that has riled many Thais, at least in Bangkok, is a January 23 transaction where Shin Corp., the telecommunication giant owned by the Thaksin family, was sold for $1.88 billion to a Singapore company, with no taxes paid. Thaksin, who founded Shin Corp. and had become a billionaire before he took over the reins as prime minister, dismissed his critics of being jealous of his windfall.

“That is not a reaction one expects of a Buddhist leader. He is gloating about making himself and his family richer rather than trying to help others,” Sulak Sivarksa, a respected activist and commentator on the Buddhist way of life in Thailand, said. “It shows he has not grasped the 10 principles of virtue.”

By choosing to ignore this religious challenge to his legitimacy, Thaksin is revealing that he is out of touch with his country’s cultural currents or he does not want to be held accountable by these values, say people like Kasit Piromya, Thailand’s former ambassador to the United States. “He cannot just talk about the votes he got at the election and ignore the need to lead the country in a moral way.” Thaskin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thai or TRT) party secured an unprecedented mandate in February last year when it was re-elected to power for a second term by some 19 million voters. The TRT currently has 376 seats in the 500-member legislature.

Such a mandate, following an equally comfortable majority during the previous term beginning in January 2001, has enabled Thaksin to ignore a steady stream of accusations about his autocratic tendencies and accusations that he was shaping government policy to feather his own nest. But Thaksin has only to look at a campaign against one of Thailand’s leading beverage companies to realise that a public drive to uphold Buddhist values can wreak much damage.

Since February last year, the highly profitable company that sells the popular ‘Chang’ brand of beer has been prevented from selling in the Thai stock market

due to demonstrations against it led by Buddhist monks that have brought thousands of protestors on to Bangkok’s streets. — IPS