An Urban's Rural View

When the Thai government first announced its prop-up-the-rice market scheme three years ago it sounded like a godsend to farmers. The government promised to pay above-market prices for rice and store what it bought. The idea was that because Thailand was the No. 1 rice exporter, holding rice in warehouses would boost the world price.

The subsidies wouldn't burden Thai taxpayers because the warehoused stocks could be sold off gradually, recouping the government's outlays without killing the market. That these handouts would further bind Thai farmers to the ruling Pheu Thai party and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was more than just an added benefit. It was arguably the point of the plan.

The party, created by Yingluck's brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has won five consecutive elections, thanks to voters in the country's rural north and northeast.

Farmers make up nearly 40% of the Thai labor force. To say that city dwellers have been less enamored with the scheme would be a massive understatement. To middle- and upper-class Thais in Bangkok the rice program is anathema, as are most of Pheu Thai's policies.

In the U.S., the gap between city and countryside has huge and growing electoral consequences, as recent studies have noted (http://tiny.cc/…).

But for all of its troubling implications, it doesn't shake the foundations of democracy. In some countries the urban-rural divide does. In few countries is it as pronounced as in Thailand. The chasm has been at the heart of a political crisis that has plagued the country for the last ten years.

Unable to win elections, urbanites have turned to the king, the army, the courts and the streets to undo election results. Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006 and forced into exile. And now Yingluck's luck has run out. After months of sometimes violent demonstrations in Bangkok, the Constitutional Court has ordered her to step down.

As deserving of criticism as the city dwellers are for their undemocratic impulses, give them this: They have reason to abhor Pheu Thai's policies. The rice-price program, for example, has turned into a debacle. Its designers didn't seem to understand the hair-trigger responsiveness of agriculture-commodity markets to price signals.

Lured by the above-market price, Thai farmers produced more rice -- as much as three or four times more, by some estimates. India, a major producer that hadn't been exporting rice, started exporting again. With rice gushing in and the world price declining to rise, the Thai government found itself short of both warehouses and the funds needed to continue the program. Its losses climbed into the billions.

Meanwhile, middlemen and corrupt politicians feasted on the spoils. The day that the Constitutional Court ousted Yingluck, her supporters howled that the court was biased. They howled again the next day, when an anticorruption commission blasted her over the rice program.

The howls have some justification, but so do the city folks' fears of where Pheu Thai is leading the country. A Shinawatra henchman has replaced Yingluck until new elections can be held. Pheu Thai and its rural supporters want to hold them in July. The urbanites want to "strengthen" the courts and commissions first.

Nothing has been resolved; the urban-rural divide is no closer to being bridged. Neither side seems willing to compromise. Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators are back in the streets. All things eventually end but there's no end to this nightmare in sight. Americans troubled by the urban-rural gap in our country need only consider Thailand's to keep our situation in perspective.

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