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Thailand 1932 Coup
The long era of absolute monarchy was brought to a sudden end
on June 24, 1932, by a bloodless coup d'etat engineered by a
group of civil servants and army officers with the support of
army units in the Bangkok area. The action was specifically
directed against ministers of the conservative royal government
and not against the person of the king. Three days after the coup
a military junta put into effect a provisional constitution drawn
up by a young law professor, Pridi Phanomyong. Prajadhipok
reluctantly accepted the new situation that had stripped him of
his political power but in principle had left the prestige of the
monarchy unimpaired.
The coup leaders, who were known as the "promoters," were
representative of the younger generation of Western-oriented
political elite that had been educated to be instruments of an
absolute monarchy--an institution they now viewed as archaic and
inadequate to the task of modern government. The principals in
the coup identified themselves as nationalists, and none
questioned the institution of the monarchy. Their numbers
included the major figures in Thai politics for the next three
decades. Pridi, one of the country's leading intellectuals, was
the most influential civilian promoter. His chief rival among the
other promoters was Phibun, or Luang Plaek Phibunsongkhram, an
ambitious junior army officer who later attained the rank of
field marshal. Phahon, or Phraya Phahonphonphayuhasena, the
senior member of the group, represented old-line military
officers dissatisfied with cuts in appropriations for the armed
forces. These three exercised power as members of a cabinet, the
Commissariat of the People, chosen by the National Assembly that
had been summoned by the promoters soon after the coup. To
assuage conservative opinion, a retired jurist, Phraya
Manopakorn, was selected as prime minister.
A permanent constitution was promulgated before the end of
1932. It provided for a quasi-parliamentary regime in which
executive power was vested in a unicameral legislature, the
National Assembly, of which half of the members were elected by
limited suffrage and half appointed by the government in power.
The constitution provided that the entire legislature would be
elected when half of the electorate had received four years of
schooling or after ten years had elapsed, whichever came first.
The National Assembly was responsible for the budget and could
override a royal veto. Real power resided with the promoters,
however, and was exercised with army backing through their
political organization, the People's Party.
A rift soon developed within the ranks of the promoters
between civilian technicians and military officers. As finance
minister, Pridi proposed a radical economic plan in 1933, calling
for the nationalization of natural resources. This plan was
unacceptable to Manopakorn and the more conservative military
members in the cabinet. The prime minister closed the National
Assembly, in which Pridi had support, and ruled by decree.
Accused of being a communist, Pridi fled into exile, but army
officers opposing the civilian prime minister's move staged a
coup in June 1933 that turned out Manopakorn, restored the
National Assembly, and set up a new government headed by Phahon.
With sentiment running in his favor, Pridi was permitted to
return to Bangkok and was subsequently cleared of the charges
against him.
In addition to factionalism within the cabinet, the
government was also confronted with a serious royalist revolt in
October 1933. The revolt was led by the king's cousin, Prince
Boworadet, who had been defense minister during the old regime.
Although the king gave no support to the prince, relations
between Prajadhipok and the political leaders deteriorated
thereafter.
The first parliamentary elections in the country's history
were held in November 1933. Although fewer than 10 percent of the
eligible voters cast their ballots, they confirmed Pridi's
popularity. Pridi and his supporters in the civilian left wing of
the People's Party were countered by a military faction that
rallied around his rival, Phibun. In 1934 Phibun was named
defense minister and proceeded to use his ministerial powers to
build his political constituency within the army. Campaigning for
a stronger military establishment in order to keep the country
out of foreign hands, he took every opportunity to assert the
superior efficiency of the military administration over the
civilian bureaucracy, which looked to Pridi for leadership. Prime
Minister Phahon had to maintain a precarious balance between the
Pridi and Phibun factions in the government.
The civilian conservatives had been discredited during the
Manopakorn regime and by the support some had given to the
royalist revolt. Their loss of influence deprived the king of
effective political allies in the government. In March 1935,
Prajadhipok abdicated without naming a successor, charging the
Phahon government with abuse of power in curtailing the royal
veto. He went into retirement in Britain. His ten-year-old
nephew, Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII, 1935-46), who was attending
school in Switzerland, was named king to succeed him, and a
regency council, which included Pridi, was appointed to carry out
those functions of the monarchy retained under the constitution.
The new king did not return to his country until 1945.
Data as of September 1987
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