virtualtraveller

It's a childish and undiplomatic thing to do, but there again Cambodia has been fighting with the gloves off for some time now. It's using the temple as leverage to gain better control over the disputed land which it needs to gain access to the temple. The temple has a strategic position, as long as disputes continue, Cambodia can fired from the temple but the moment Thailand returns fire, it damages the temple and makes them look like spoilers. This is what has been happening, Hun Sen is not a man you do business with in conference halls, he's an ex Khmer Rouge rogue, simple as that!

Given the frightful time she's going to experience as the next PM (just ask Mark), she should be hoping instead that the establishment cheat, and cause a revolution - really it will be much less stressful for her personally.

Mark my words (no pun intended) her name is going to be added to the list of disqualified prime ministers, it's all going to end in tears for her, her brother has put her up to a Sisyphus task...

JurgenG, Thaksin is a genius, what a pity so much of it is channelled into bamboozling the dim wit voters, enriching himself and defending the guilt charges.

If he had been a bit more ethical and had not let his ego and judgment run away with him, there would have been no coup, no massive corruption, and Thailand would be really far ahead under him.

But, you're right, the largest number of people want this crook back, and though that's democracy, he's ineligible to lead this country again, so we're stuck in a deadlock of the masses trying to get their way, when they can't. It's all truly tragic really, the piss poor judgment of the voters, and the fact that so few recognise that there's actually rules in this country.

Thaksin is determined to come back, of that there can be no doubt, and despite Yingluck's soft denials and their conciliatory tone lately, he's already confidently stated he'll be back by Nov. If it's November 2011 then we headed for a traumatic end of year finale to this. I just don't see how they could legally legitimise an amnesty/pardon/appeal in such a short time and 'sell' it to the public.

This editorial makes a great deal of sense, it's the truth, but sadly, Peau Thai IS Thaksin, they've sold it that way, it's his money they're spending, he calls the shots, and all their success and effort has been geared towards bringing him back, there's going to be a lot of disappointed people one way or another. The solution is to tear up the rule book, which his supporters see as realistic since it's all 'coup written' in their opinion, but they're wrong. Pardon Thaksin without proper judicial review and you will end up with a long list of generals, strongmen, etc doing the same in the future.

Perhaps it's his usual bluster, but actually he's posturing and positioning himself better to cut a compromised deal with his foes, all the same we know that he (and by extension PTP) simply cannot be trusted. Such a shame this whole election is about him, because it's not democracy. And I'm appalled that so many of the electorate convincingly support a party based on 'bringing back a crook', notwithstanding their prerogative to vote, it's a revelation about just how backward Thailand is a democracy.

It seems, the only Thai solution is to let Thaksin back, let the crowds then react, while the Army refuses to get involved, so that we have a dysfunctional government for months until Yingluck breaks down in stress and quits, or calls another snap poll which solves little other than create further division, and Thailand gets so battered and dragged through the mud that the 15 million dim wits finally see the light and realise it's fruitless to support a single man rather than the country.

As always you can spin the numbers any way you wish. The Democrats have been around 60 years, they've 'won' several elections, they've even had one 'stolen' from them similar to the manner they came into power presently. Peua Thai have none, Their group have won three, but it transpired that they cheated so were disbanded.

Pre election polls tend to 'tighten' up in the final weeks, don't be surprised if the Dems do better than currently suggested.

This has become an election 'for and against' Thaksin. PTP have already identified BJT as 'against' therefore you can safely add the BJT and Dem numbers together.

At least the Dems aren't openly campaigning on 'army thinks we act' or 'bring back the army' or 'army choose Abhisit as their puppet/clone/whatever'.

The point being, when you put up an complete proxy party to represent one man who is legally ineligible to participate in politics, you create a farce, which is met with equal 'at all costs' actions.

I don't believe the army will 'not let PT' form the government, I'm willing to bet on it. There will be no coup, they might try to persuade Barnharn to 'do the right thing', but a PT government doesn't immediately spell disaster. There are lots of hurdles and blocks they can put in the way if PT do anything dodgy. I don't believe Thaksin will be able to legally come home for Christmas but if he does, you can expect the army to get involved. Probably not as an outright coup, but something complicated and dramatic.

This is the next big story folks.

If Suthep 'has the evidence' then hand it over to the EC. What's the bet, if PT form the next government they will be disbanded within 8 months for being an obvious proxy of a banned politician, well what's new about that, but in this case it's not going to be difficult for them to dig up evidence. They can start with the video of Thaksin personally announcing 'his' choice for PT Party List Candidate No. 1'.

To be fair, as prime minister and number 1 candidate he showed up in person while other parties just sent minor players. Yingluck couldn't even make it because 'she was too busy'. A week before the poll, you can't expect someone to sit around for hours in a forum, it was a bit rude, yes, but at least he showed up.

Well said! Herein lies many of the causes for the present crisis.

As we move into the last week of the campaigning the ever shrewd Thaksin is now trying to allay fears of chaos and protest if the Peua Thai get in, he's going for the undecided voter who thinks that voting for PT isn't good in the long run because they'll bring him home and the country will erupt.

But just last week he was speaking about being home in time for his daughter's wedding in December. His freedom bid has been his (and his party's) number 1 goal for several years now, they are on record plenty of times saying so confidently, they've campaigned on it, now they are switching their story.

It's nice to hear some remorseful words from Thaksin, but it's a bit late, we don't trust him, by apologising is he finally admitting that in fact he was guilty all along?

Thakins Thinks (pardon), Puea Thai acts (on pardoning).

Their party policy in a nutshell.

What they should have said, but couldn't directly, is if you grant unconditional amnesty to those involved in 'political crimes' since 2006, then you are writing a blank cheque of freedom to any future perpetrators of coups, city/parliament/airport sieges, arsonists, and so on. That is the direction we might heading with this country...

Since when did you need to be a uni graduate to qualify for a job in Thailand, I'm not certain this would hold when challenged in the courts, even if it is a stipulation laid down by immigration. There are many specialist jobs that don't require a degree. It's discriminatory according to the constitution. And what then about the double standards of the 'special' permits for the millions of uneducated Burmese they need to build all their houses?

As to married and working, they are two different things, if you are here on a marriage visa you are entitled to stay, but should you wish to work you need a work permit and that needs to be presented to immigration. For several years I had both, but it just complicated things and gave good old immigration more excuses to give me the run around and wait for me to say 'ok, how much..'. Eventually I dropped the WP and gave it to one of my staff, now I 'work' in Thailand for my UK registered company, living here on a spousal visa. Incidentally I divested the assets of my Thai company to the newly established UK one for this reason, and besides the corp tax is slightly less - so Thailand's revenue services get a million baht less a year, pity.

It's all about spinning numbers, the PTP supporters have been pointing to polls in their favour as if it's a foregone conclusion and any other result would be from fishy business, or backroom deals, and the UDD are unlikely accept defeat in any form.

But PTP have no one to blame but themselves! They've closed the door on BJT already (which was a noble thing to do considering the background between the two), so that you can consider BJT/Dems to be an alliance. If the latter collectively get more MPs than PTP perhaps they can claim the right to form the govt first, but it doesn't exclude CTP from ignoring them in favour of PTP. BJT are keeping their options open because they can't afford to be in the opposition, and Dems are keeping their distance because they can't afford for voters to associate them with a dodgy party.

In the final week, I bet someone like the PAD are going to wade in and threaten instability and street action if/when a PTP govt returns Thaksin, this could well sway the undecided.

I've been asking both the BP and Nation to write this sort of article for some time now. It still doesn't touch on the Ratchapedisek case that will put him behind bars. He's yet to be convicted in the Assets case, or at least handed down a punishment. It's a criminal conviction unrelated to politics, however the absent of an appeal process, which would allow him to be freed on bail, is the result of a retro-actively applied law in the 2007 constitution. It can be argued that retro-actively applying a law is unfair, even if it's the terms of the sentencing rather than the law which was enacted after the crime was committed. It's most likely that PTP would manage to roll back this, allowing Thaksin his bail freedom for years, while an appeal inches through court awaiting a more friendly set of judges. Also, though the spirit of the law is sound in sentencing him in this case, there is less grounds for absolute guilt - in other words he was 'judged' to be guilty because he was PM at the time and 'influenced' the case. This is the where his lot are saying the process wasn't transparent, it's certainly a grey area of the law where 'intention' is used as the justification for a guilty verdict.

Certainly, from a legal perspective, you're looking at 1 year minimum to push all this through, even if PTP get a majority in parliament.

They could still try the pardon route, suggesting that the time served in exile is comparable to jail time, but I don't see it being granted by the man at the top.

One wonders what else they're going to try, other than a sweeping in-yer-face amnesty, bulldozed through, interpreted as 'anything Thaksin was convicted of is political and therefore void', with him stepping out the plane going 'boo! arrest me' and we all know how effective the police would be in doing that!

Either it's the usual Thaksin cockeyed-optimism bluster, or he's ready for the brinkmanship of a yellow versus red street battled to settle it all. I hope not.

His arrogance know no bounds, but the intelligent and law abiding citizens aren't fooled. More proof of why this man should never be let near the reigns of power ever again.

She can't control peoples passions because people are fed up with empty promises that have not produced any improvement in the disparity between the rich and the poor. The income gap in Thailand is a disgrace. If you compare the incomes of the top 5th of the population to the bottom 5th the numbers are some of the worse in the world and only slightly better than African countries with civil wars.

The gap in Sweeden and Japan is 3 to 5 times

Europe and North America is 5 to 8 times

Asian neighbors of THailand 7 to 12 times

Thailand 13 to 15 times.

The difference in wealth is 69 times.

Because of the Thai tax structure poor people pay almost twice the taxes as rich people do.

These figures come from a 2009 study and little if anything has changed.

People are angry. Most revolutions got their start from the inequities in taxes. Abhisit has done nothing to address this issue because he represents the wealthy. If he was interested he would have done something.

Comparing figures here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Whichever way you look at it Thailand is more-or-less in the middle of the table for income inequality, certainly better off than Singapore, the US and UK when measuring by the Gini Coefficient.

Income inequality is a syndrome of most developing countries, especially rapidly industrialising.

I don't agree that the poor pay twice as much tax as the rich, perhaps relative to their income, but only 5 million of the 25 million strong workforce pay any meaningful income tax, and poorest avoid VAT since most of what they buy is through the informal sector.

The flip side of this argument is that you and me who work hard and earn hard, get far less back from our tax money than the poor do. That's called social spending inequality, but that's life, as are taxes.

They getting mileage when they can, when their lot get into government, all these commemorative anniversaries will suddenly be forgotten, what's the bet!

Unfortunately we have an electorate who are mostly too dim to understand this, no insult to them, but economics is headache stuff and no matter how much your best and brightest warn about populist policies bankrupting the country, a simple farmer only understands that 300 baht a day minimum wage is better than 250 baht, even if he doesn't realise that half the workforce would be fired and the other half put to greater work to justify their increase.

Perhaps the route to go is let the parties outdo each other with populist policies that land us in the same position as Greece, then the people can re-evaluate their trust. But, half the populist policies that secure votes never see the light of day since the parties know they can't sell them to the business community, of course that's all forgotten come next election.

We are entering a populist era that could well lead to the next financial crash, and who will take the heat for it?

This might just be one of the most profound stats to emerge from this election. I support the idea that Peua Thai have done a much better job of securing the trust of the masses who make up this country, and that is part of the democratic process, but for those who are concerned about the future direction, economically, and good governance, will be dismayed to learn this. It seems the majority are setting the direction on blind faith. It also stumps Thaksin's claim that he's the economic guru and the Dems are 'lacklustre'.

its ridiculous ideas like this that demonstrate how far our political parties still have to go to be taken seriously if we had a serious electorate, considering alot of families don't have access to a computer, let alone internet, broadband penetration in the country is less than 10%, 3G will never happen, and many that need the boost still can't afford internet, this is just a gimmick that wasn't thought out well, and the money could be better spent on training better teachers. Giving a kid a tablet wont make them learn more or better or be smarter, they will get hacked so that they can download pirated games and the nation can produce a lot of world champ gamers. Says alot about Peua Thai's short sighted mentality I'm afraid, but they know that it will appease the voters.

..., Abhisit got a better reception in Samut Prakan - a so called Red stronghold - than Yingluck.

There is a pertinent factoid to ponder.

The Silent Majority exists and is not telegraphing it's intentions.

No matter how PTP spins it or how pretty her face, they are not getting 50%

more likely the typical 1/3rd they usually get, her face may counter act the Red faces a little.

But that always leaves 2/3rds of the voting public that are NOT and never were, for PTP/PPP/TRT. Even the one larger TRT coalition anomaly was partly smaller parties blocks being sold to Thaksin before the election, not after.

So regardless of spin and such, the silent majority will have it's say about the 'Reds work' last year, and whether they should be included in a new government. And given absolution for all sins.

How many average people in this country are truly for destruction as a way to win power?

That's correct, and though PTP should be rightly recognised as the most popular party should they win the largest share of the vote, they will only have themselves to blame if they fail to set up a coalition, this is because they have set this whole election up as a vote for and against Thaksin. They are not a political party they are Thaksin Inc. Their ideology is 'Thaksin thinks' - but he's banned from politics and has been exposed as a dishonest criminal. He's blatantly running the show, to their advantage, and will blatantly run the government if they get in, and that is not democracy. And those who make the key decisions, such as the middle sized parties, will not want to be part of that. They will get plenty of pressure during negotiations from various movers and shakers, not necessarily the elite and army. And Thaksin's pre-planned response to that is 'this is democracy stolen so we have every right to go back to the streets to get our power back'. It's all a game, designed to side step the social contract of democracy and try and legitimise himself through popularity. It doesn't alter the fact that he's a rat.

Gosh, if there's one thing you can bet on with PTP/UDD is they are outright hypocrites!

What's constructive about letting everyone off the hook, so you can free you brother.

What's constructive about putting firebrand UDD leaders, who instigated the burning of Bangkok, high on your Party List - confirming you are rewarding them.

What's constructive about all the Abhisit posters nationwide that have been defaced in a systematic campaign.

What's constructive about refusing to debate the issues facing a novice PM candidate.

Thaksin seems to flip between shrewd scheming and outright cockeyed optimism. Unless his yes men have forgotten to tell him that he's at once both Thailand's most popular and hated man at the same time, coming back to Thailand is going to elicit a full scale riot, and any fool can see what it will do the country to provoke that, no matter how many red shirts you have in your private 'army'.

If he's patient, and sits in Dubai, pulling the strings, for another year, Thais will forgive and forget, his government can pressure the other side into compromising deals, some sort of suspended sentence might be palatable to his enemies and the public, Yingluck can gain credibility and PT get on with the economic wizardry they believe they are capable of.

Apart from the fishy timing of his daughter's wedding, if Thaksin makes it back into the country a free man, within 6 months of his lot taking office, he can expect to be 'taken care of'. I'll feel appalled for the future of the country if it was that easy to whitewash someone once you've got hold of the reigns of power, just imagine how quickly the Dems could whitewash the army when they pull off another coup.

The most pertinent immediate question to Peua Thai and the Democrat party is how they plan to avert a tourist season completed ruined by political protests if/when a) Taksin decides he wants to come back in November a minority govt causes outrage among the red supporters.

I've repeated suggested to the BP and Nation that they commission an legal expert to write an article on the various channels and hurdles towards Thaksin returning, one way or another, pity no one has clarified it. From what I know these are scenarios;

1. A PTP majority in parliament can push through constitutional changes that alter the circumstances of his verdict. Since it's a criminal case, relating to a law pre 2007, they cannot absolve him of political crimes, nor can an amnesty reverse this verdict. However, they can change the 2007 which says that those in high political office found guilty DO NOT have the privilege of appeal. With an appeal he can then walk free and sit around for years while the appeal inches through the courts, by which time, he could get his own men in courts and get a re-trial.

2. BUT pushing through such a controversial bill is likely to be blocked by the senate and challenged in its legal validity by the constitutional courts, and could take up to a year to succeed.

3. The cabinet could approve a pardon for Thaksin, though this will be too blatant, and would have to be hidden in a general amnesty for all, which again wouldn't be something a cabinet or PM can willy nilly approve, otherwise they would be using it to let off all their buddies. Besides, as I understand it, an individual pardon has to be made by the King and only after the person has served part of the sentence.

It seems arrogant bluster to me, for what sort of country in the world can function when a govt can so easily pardon people so soon after taking office, for example the red shirts could go around murdering Dem candidates, win the election then get a pardon.

But let's read between the lines, Thaksin should know it's not that easy, his lawyers would have advised that, but he's after the sympathy voter here 'Gee, all I want to do is come home for my daughter's wedding and those horrible army guys won't let me' - says a lot about Thailand.

It wouldn't surprise me if he just got off the plane and challenged the police to arrest him, and them refusing, citing it to be 'political'. And we all know what the reaction from the streets will be, unfortunately Thaksin doesn't give a dam_n does he!

The truth hurts doesn't it Weng? The Reds are masters at smeer campaigns, it's what they did all last year.