Plus

I'm still at a loss why this thread, with a very misleading headline, was resurrected. We don't discuss moderation issues on TV, but I wonder in what capacity Dr.Patpong bumped this thread.

Dems promiesed to run in the next elections no matter what. They boycotted April because it was called for unjust and frivolous reasons - resolve one man's issues with the law. Next elections would have been necessary as the country didn't have a working parliament or senate.

The point of all that was to remove Thaksin. That was also the point of PAD protests. It's not about democracy or elites or the poor. No Thaksin, no problems, as simple as that.

56%. But what does it matter? He delivered.

The junta promised return to a civilian rule asap, Surayud was off the mark only by a couple of months.

Reds don't have any other grievances apart from restoring Thaksin to power, they don't have any other goals. They have tried to present themselves as being more than just one man's posse, but it failed to get any traction. Now they rally only around Thaksin, that motivates the foot soldiers a lot more.

When they were talking about democracy some even saw the possibility of their alliance with PAD. Thaksin couldn't allow that. They are HIS army, they can't get distracted on advancing democracy in this country, they need to stay focused.

After April elections fiasco, the EC scheduled next ones for October 15, but then the commissioners were jailed themselves. Elections were postponed indefinitely. New commissioners were selected, there were no concrete proposals for the date, "in a couple of months". The coup happened one day before new EC was about to take office.

Also, after April elections Thaskin has publicly resigned and his first deputy was in charge of the government. No one asked him to come back but he did.

I didn't suggest that parliament is the appropriate authority, I meant that's where people should submit their petitions if they have any.

There's no proper authority to grant reds what they wish. At most they can get Royal pardon for one case (forgetting about the rules for asking the pardon for a moment).

The rest of their demands must be formulated differently, then they can take it to parliament and ask for some amnesty law.

Actually they want one thing - Thaksin back in charge of the country, but the number of obstacles to this is staggering. Sometimes they just want to revert to 1997 consitution - that would easily overwrite everything that happened since the coup.

Unfortuinately, reverting to 1997 consitution can't be done legally, or democratically, so they came up with pardon idea instead.

Police reform comes into effect on August 16, like it or not. There are thousands of positions in colonel-general range to be reshuffled, and that list is one of the factors in Abhisit-Suthep-Patcharawat power play. Politicians are prohibited from interfering with the list, but they can appoint the Police Chief who can, even as Acting police chief while Patcharawat is on forced holidays. Then, in September, permanent Police Chief position is up for grabs.

Thaksin staffed the police with his cronies, if the position were awarded according to seniority, then next in line are Thaksin's brother in law and a classmate. Abhisit said he'd appoint Patcharawat's successor according to suitability instead.

Bringing tanks and guns into Bangkok to make a coup knocking a democratically elected Prime Minister is bad.

He was not elected, he dissolved the House more than half a year earlier. He also publicly resigned after a visit to Hua Hin, and there was someone else in charge for nearly a month. Then he reneged on his promise and returned, as if his resignation never happened. Legally he was only interim Prime Minister, the position that was not supposed to last more than three months.

List what achievements Surayud has made.

Wrote a new consitution, got it approved in referendum, and returned the country to a democratically elected government.

Reds can petition the King for anything they want. Unfortunately they don't understand that Thailand is a consitutional monarchy and so powers of the monarch are limited by constitution

I think you're not Thai when you say so.

The King has the right to pardon anyone who asks. Up to the King to consider.

This is not the first case people seek for Royal pardon. Other people have done that before.

The thing is that what reds want is complete and full reinstatement of Thaksin, not just a pardon in one case. He's got a dozen outstanding cases waiting for his appearance, and he is banned from politics for yet another case.

Reds don't want just one pardon, they want to award Thaksin victory against all his enemies in all cases in the past and in the future as well.

The situation is two fold and the gov't is acting irresponsibily, as well as acting too late.

First, is the right to petition the responsible authority.

There's no right to petition the King for anything you want. Petitions of this kind should be addressed to parliament. As for pardons - they must be asked either by serving convicts or their relatives.

If the gov't wanted to stop this campaign, it needed to act immediately after it was suggested.

It's not illegal to collect signatures, you can't stop people from doing so. And they were warned as soon as they started.

Sondhi is linking reds and their supporters among foreigners as working for the republicans. There were several theories of how republicans want to play it out, with Thaksin 2 plan even being mentioned in mainstream media.

You could say it's a lot of smoke, but there are plenty of red leaders who want to "adjust" the role of monarchy in this country, and there are plenty of supporters among foreign journalists who think it should be made more in line with current times.

They want changes, without actually spelling out their agenda or even visions of what Thailand would look like to the general public - they don't allow democracy mess with their dreams. Democracy and openness should only apply to the elites, not to progressive thinkers.

Many who publicly oppose this view are either in jail, facing jail or have fled to other countries.

What a <deleted>!

They got in trouble for publicly offending the monarchy, not for having opposing views.

And just how many is many? Out of all Thai with "opposing views", how many have been charged with LM? Five or six?

But ever since former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to the stage, people have been asking questions about taboo subjects and even taking taboo positions.

Don't remember one single question in all his five years in power on the monarchy issue, and Thaksin has introduced many other taboos and anyone asking questions about them was facing complete destruction. Some were even killed.

The rich elite army professor group think they're educated and have the right to vote 70%, and the rest are stupid and only deserves 30% of votes.

Judging by the way you understand their proposal - yes, they are stupid.

Actually the idea was that 30% "appointees" should come from the ranks of those "stupid" people, not from elite army professors.

In all seventy two years of democracy here, how many "stupid" people have been elected under your precious one man one vote system?

Zero.

Without PAD those "stupid" people don't stand a chance to get represented. And yes again - they are stupid if they think that voting for local business mafia puppets and assorted relatives of feudal lords makes it a "representative" democracy. It doesn't. Those MPs represent only the money that paid for their elections, not the people.

All the electoral battles under "one man one vote" elections are just one mafia clans against another, with sponsors equally investing in all sides so they always end up with winners working for them.

Actually there was a poll once where majority of people said it wasn't time for elections.

64% voted for parties other than PPP and now their representatives formed the government excluding PPP.

64% is a majority. They got the parties they voted for in power.

Did people lose jobs or die when his wife bought that land?

In ptinciple - yes, the assumption, on which that law is based, is that people in high political positions set standards for those beneath them. If the law is broken at the very top, there are far dirtier schemes being played at the bottom, and they go unpunished because of the culture of impunity. Eventually more and more people condone corruption and outright stealing, as poll results consititently show.

There IS damage from corruption, and it's quite heavy.

Pheu Thai Party spokesman Prompong Nopparit said the people were entitled to appeal to His Majesty the King according to Article 91 of the Constitution and the government should let them exercise their rights.

Oh really? That dude either misspoke or he was intentionally misleading

Section 91. Members of the House of Representatives or senators of not less than one-tenth of the total number of the existing members of each House shall have the right to lodge with the President of the House of which they are members a complaint asserting that the membership of any member of such House has terminated under section 106 (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (10), or (11) or section 119 (3), (4), (5), (7), or (8), as the case may be, and the President of the House with whom the complaint is lodged shall refer it to the Constitutional Court for decision as to whether the membership of such person has terminated.

He meant 191:

Section 191. The King has the prerogative to grant a pardon.

So five million people come up and declare - we are bleeding idiots, but there are a lot of us and we want something.

If I was in charge, I'd look at how much trouble these guys can really create and go from there - either/or ignore, reason, or rely on security apparatus to keep the riots under control.

As for the petition itself - it's a non-starter for a millions reasons mentioned already. The problem is dealing with the fallout.

>>>

Nation's editorial today was about their confrontational approach - that's not the right attitude when asking for forgiveness. They schedulled new rounds of anti-government rallies for next week, long before they hear the verdict on their petition. That's just not how you ask to arbitrate in any conflict. There will be reconciliation with this crowd.

Reds can petition the King for anything they want. Unfortunately they don't understand that Thailand is a consitutional monarchy and so powers of the monarch are limited by constitution

time to call elections or cut a deal with Thaksin

i dont see reconcilliation happening any other way.

Do you mean you can see all the forces opposing Thaksin rolling over and admitting defeat, from Prem to Sondhi to PAD foot soldiers????

How's that going to play out in your "vision"?

Thaksin is like Aung San Suu Kyi, right.

The junta didn't ban him from running for PM again and they are not the ones stopping him now. His beef is not with coup makers.

Chaisit is a former Supreme Commander, and even though he was promoted by Thaksin, I'm sure he has enough officers under his patronage to create some real trouble. Like assassination attempt, or a bombing campaign.

I don't think he's capable of organising an outright coup, but come critical moment, like that Sunday during Songkran riots when reds went for Abhisit, police were nowhere to be seen and the army hadn't arrived yet, even a little numerical support from Chaisit loyal troops could be crucial.

It depends on how Thaksin plans to use them. Perhaps only as weapons/training suppliers, perhaps more.

Thaksin fan club cannot co-exist with the Thai society. They've got to go. Crashed, ignored, outlawed, outlived - whatever. They've been given plenty of chances, those who still stay are incurable.

your sounding more and more like Hitler with every new post.

"In a related development, Thepthai Senpong, Abhisit's personal spokesman, condemned Thaksin for pressuring the monarchy by using his supporters to create bargaining power in his own interest.

"When will the red shirts stop? What they are doing has aggravated the situation and widened conflict in the country,'' he said." - in today's Nation

See - it's not only me, reasoning with these people is not possible anymore.

I think Abhisit opted for "sit it out" option. Every now and again Thaksin would try some PR move to get some support, then stir up some trouble, Abhisit would deal with it and red support would plummet until eventually Thaksin runs out of options or energy.

Note how before April reds were all about democracy, and so were many their supporters on this board. Now that "democracy" idea failed to raise enough support to overthrown the govt, Thaksin is banking on his own popularity, and so are many of red supporters on this board - no one talks about democracy anymore, only about Thaksin himself.

I'm sure after failure of this petition and whatever violence Thaksin planned afterwards to exploit it, he'll come up with some new idea to enlist red foot soldiers, and then it will fail again. And so it will continue for a while, but it's one person's efforts against the whole country, it will subside sooner or later.

I'd give about two weeks for this current wave - one week to clear up what to do with the petition, one week for the follow up violence. Any longer than that and Thaksin will either lose momentum or he will got into August 12 with a very unwelcome agenda.

Then, after Mother's Day, Abhisit will come out with his usual line - that's enough with Thaksin and his troublemakers, people, don't forget we've got a country to run, and everyone will agree.

Or, perhaps, Thaksin would shif to "save democracy" mood again to divert anti-petition backlash and start the next round of rallies around govt house or something, ala April lead in.

three years of the orchestrated Thaksin demonization campaign

Maybe you should check pre-2006 threads on TV. There has been hardly any change, except he's got even less supporters now.

pro-democracy Red Shirts

Pro-democracy???

As if April "revolution" wasn't enough,

"Former supreme commander General Chaiyasit Shinawatra yesterday threatened opponents of ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra not to block the move to seek a Royal pardon for his cousin otherwise there could be use of force."

That's the second time they want to grab power by force.

You just click on a member's name and then on "view posts" - with only seven contributions it's not too difficult to spot a pattern.

One day in jail and he will be barred from political offices for life.

Currently he is banned from politics for offences not covered in the petition, afaik.

PAD wanted a Royally appointed PM according to their interpretation of Article 7 (don't remember what the article said exactly), but there were certain conditions under which the monarch could exercise such powers. There wasn't a signature collection campaign, certainly not of any notable proporions. When HM the King rejected the idea as a principle, they all shut up and forgot about it.

Back to the present - reds have all the rights to petition the monarch about anything they want, the objection is that what they want is unconstitutional, they don't even try to explain its legality, and the worry is that they won't take rejection for an answer. Another BIG point is that they put "us or them" choice on a table, which is highly inappopriate and embarassing to anyone who cares.