Anand Panyarachun (, , ; born 9 August 1932) is a Thai retired politician who served as the Prime Minister of Thailand for two terms, first from 1991 to 1992 and again for a brief period during the latter half of 1992. He was effective in initiating economic and political reforms, one of which was the drafting of Thailand's "People's Constitution", which was promulgated in 1997 and abrogated in 2006. Anand received a Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service in 1997. He was a supporter of liberal corporatism.
Education career in civil service and business Anand was the youngest of twelve children of a wealthy family of Mon heritage on his father's side and Thai-Chinese mixed on his mother's.PAVING THE WAY His father, Sern was a son of a high-ranking official of Mon ancestry. His father studied in England on a king's scholarship, and later oversaw all royal schools and thereafter a successful businessman in the 1930s. His paternal grandfather built an ethnic Mon monastery in Ratchaburi called Wat Khao Chon Phran. According to Anand, he inherited his Chinese heritage from his mixed ethnic Chinese-Mon maternal grandmother, whose surname was Lau (). His Chinese ancestors came to Thailand in the mid-18th century and eventually became one of the country's most prominent Chinese descent families. He is distantly related to Korn Chatikavanij through this branch of his family. Anand attended Dulwich College and later read law at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with honours in 1955.
Anand spent 23 years in the foreign service, serving at times as the Ambassador of Thailand to the United Nations, Canada, the United States, and West Germany. In January 1976 he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the foreign ministry, and played a leading role in ensuring the US military withdrawal from Thailand. Following that year's October coup, Anand was branded a communist by the military during the subsequent political witch hunts, presumably for the Foreign Ministry's role in the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Thailand and the People's Republic of China. Although the civil service panel set up to investigate the allegations cleared him of any wrongdoing, Anand was put into relatively unimportant posts and in 1979 left the public sector for the private.Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 December 1991 He became the Vice-Chairman of the Saha-Union Group in 1979 and the Chairman of the Board of Directors in 1991. He has been a Director of Siam Commercial Bank since 1984.
Prime Minister of Thailand (1991–1992, 1992)
First premiership (1991–1992) On 23 February 1991, a military coup led by General Sunthorn Kongsompong, supreme commander of the armed forces, and General Suchinda Kraprayoon, the commander-in-chief of the army, imprisoned Chatichai Choonhavan, the democratically elected leader. As in previous Thai coups, the military formed a National Peace Keeping Council (NPKC) to run the country. To shore up its image and gain the trust of King Bhumibol, the NPKC appointed Anand as interim prime minister.
Anand, closely linked to the palace and held in respect by both the bureaucracy and the business community, proved acceptable to the people and the international community. He was regarded as being astute and disciplined, and had never been associated with any financial scandals.Murray
Upon accepting the position of prime minister, Anand was quick to declare that he did not agree with everything the junta had done and that he intended to follow an independent course. He angered the NPKC by suggesting that Chatichai be released immediately upon a cabinet being appointed.Bangkok Post, 3 March 1991
Formation The interim constitution that was promulgated on 1 March 1991 reconfirmed the intention of the NKPC to retain substantial control.The Nation, 11 March 1991 However, Anand was allowed relative freedom to select his own cabinet members. For the entire period of his premiership Anand faced constant pressure from the junta leaders, who tried to influence government decisions in order to gain financial benefits.Handley
Anand filled his cabinet with well-known academics, technocrats, and ex-bureaucrats with proven records. Various commentators, ranging from the president of the Thailand Development Research Institute to the mass-circulation newspaper Thai Rath, described the cabinet as the most impressive Thailand had ever had.Bangkok Post, 7 March 1991The Nation, 7 March 1991 The strong guiding hand of privy councillor Prem Tinsulanonda could be seen. Amongst those selected by Anand were Prem's previous finance minister and economic advisor. A senior diplomat during the years Prem served as prime minister became foreign minister. The technocratic orientation of the cabinet substantially diminished the fears of foreign investors.
Reforms Anand's administration proved harder-working than his predecessors. The administration worked on its task of implementing a long list of much-needed reforms. Its emphasis on education, public health, exports, agriculture, industry, environment, and improvement in living conditions, met with widespread approval. In a Bangkok poll in late-July 1991, 61 percent of respondents felt that the Anand government was more honest than previous administrations.Bangkok Post Weekly Review, 2 August 1991
Arguably the most significant of the reforms was a restructuring of the taxation system, which saw the introduction of a value added tax (VAT) and a reduction in corporate and income taxation. Several measures were taken to free up the flow of funds into and out of the country. Thai nationals were allowed to invest abroad without the approval of the Bank of Thailand. Regulations were altered for foreign banks to open branches and the ceiling on bank interest rates was lifted.The Nation, 16 April 1992 In addition, the process for obtaining official operating licences for factories was greatly simplified, while the method of allocating textile and tapioca quotas was made more apparent. In the energy sector, price control barriers were dismantled.
The government was also able to successfully conclude agreements for a number of large-scale infrastructure projects initiated by the Chatichai administration. A regulatory board to oversee the privatisation and private investment in infrastructure projects was established. The projects themselves were also to be independently approved and monitored by agencies outside the government in order to minimise the opportunities for corruption.
In an attempt to spread the benefits of the country's economic growth, civil servants were given a 23 percent raise in wages, state employers a 20 percent wage rise, and the minimum wage was raised by 15 percent. In addition to this, the Anand government allocated six billion baht in the fiscal year 1992 budget to be distributed to villages and spent at their discretion.
Key accomplishments of Anand's government include: The establishment of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) A highly effective anti-AIDS/HIV policy. Electricity market reform, including the introduction of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and the initiation of a 10-year liberalisation and privatisation plan for EGAT. Many have noted that Saha-Union Group, which Anand chaired, won a major bid to build a large coal-fired power plant while Anand was in power. Award of a multi-billion baht concession to Telecom Asia (today known as True) to build and operate two million telephone lines in Bangkok. It was noted by many that General Suchinda, the coup leader who installed Anand as Prime Minister, was appointed chairman of Telecom Asia after he was toppled from power. Suspension of the Hopewell rail-train airport link project.Bangkok's Independent Newspaper
Foreign policy On the international front Anand performed well. Despite international concern over the coup, foreign administrations had sufficient confidence to resume relations quickly. Anand made visits to China in September 1991 and Japan in December 1991, and went on to meetings with President George H. W. Bush in the United States. He was able to shake off the stigma of being a junta-installed prime minister, instead successfully presenting the image of an administration determined to deregulate, cut red tape, and create an environment conductive to free enterprise.
The Anand government's policies to its neighbours followed the lead of his predecessor Chatichai. Relationships with Laos improved significantly, with Thailand allocating one-half of its 200 million baht aid budget to the nation.Bangkok Post, 20 February 1992 Thailand under Anand became deeply involved in the Cambodian peace process, while relations with Vietnam went through a period of fence-mending and confidence-building.
The only foreign relations area where there were serious reasons for criticising Anand's administration was Thailand's soft stance towards the repressive military junta of Burma.
Disagreements with the NPKC Anand disagreed with the military junta's plans to increase the defence budget. Anand denied the military's request for supplemental funding that would have totalled 53 billion baht. Junta member Air Chief Marshal Kaset Rojananil criticised the government for being too "inefficient" and calling for it to resign.Bangkok Post, 2 October 1991 Suchinda justified the military's request by stating that there were still communist fighters in the Indochina region. In November and December Anand publicly repeated his views that the country's security did not lie in military might, but in its economic and political development, on one occasion stating, "Military might is no longer a guarantee of national security. No nation can feel secure as long as its citizens are deprived of freedom of political expression and of the opportunities for a better and more meaningful life."The Nation, 5 November 1991
Anand also voiced disagreement with the junta's draft constitution, although the constitution was ultimately promulgated. At first, he refused to comment as the Constitution Scrutinising Committee, hand-picked by Sunthorn, made changes to what became the final draft constitution. Then on 16 November, Anand spoke out against clauses that gave the appointed 360 member Senate the same powers as elected members of the House of Representatives as well as a clause allowing permanent public officials and military officers to hold political posts. Anand suggested that the Senate be reduced in size. The military-dominated Constitution Drafting Assembly refused to accept his suggestions and voted unanimously to pass the draft. Anand's response was simple: "I'm disappointed".The Nation, 22 November 1991
Human rights Anand's refusal to interfere with the junta's actions meant that his administration failed to come to grips with human rights issues. He had a comprehensive environmental bill passed, but it was ignored by the military, which continued its corrupt activities. Not long after it had taken power, the NPKC announced a huge rural development project that would help solve the problems of rural landlessness and encroachment on protected forests, issues that had for decades occupied the king's attention. The military had promised to resettle more than 1.2 million people to permanent farmlands, but instead evicted villagers from forest reserves, where they had lived in some cases for generations, and transferred the lands to corporate plantations.Occasional Paper No. 21, Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies, University of Western Australia In almost all cases, the army failed to provide new homes and food supplies. When an activist monk led villagers to protest, he and his followers were attacked and arrested.