Dogmatix

There are still a lot luxury watches he doesn't own, or have on loan, yet and the best way of avoiding prosecution for his past misdeeds is to stay in power for the rest of his life.

Prawit has a lot of bargaining power with his old boss Thaksin prior to the vote because he controls the senate vote without which Thaksin can't shoehorn in his nominee. After that I think we will a folding of UTN back into PPRP whence it came which will make PPRP bigger than Anutin's BJP and the second largest party in the new style Thaksin led pro-dictatorship coalition. Then we will see Prawit coming into the cabinet in person, if not before.

One point never mentioned by police re gun crackdowns is how many of the guns turned out to be legally registered and had to be returned to their owners. In photographs of this latest cracckdown from another source there were a large number of .22lr rifles visible which are hardly the weapon of choice for most criminals and usually used for plinking at 50 metre ranges.

Looking at the stray dog problem I took my 2 year old son to bet rabies pre-exposure vaccination.

July 16th has been and gone.

PT is rapidly backtracking on its agreement to form a coalition with a party that had a policy to amend 112. This is despite Thaksin being quoted in Wikileaks telling the US ambassador the law had to go, as it was incompatible with democracy, and Sretha apparently saying on Tik Tok that it was OK to amend the law but not abolish it.

Yes. It was PT campaign policy. Thaksin has always had a hard line on drugs, as in his murderous war on drugs. It will be interesting to see, if Anutin puts up a stand, as Thaksin is going to need his 71 seats soon.

Rumours that Anutin is being offered the foreign minister job where there is little money to be made. Perhaps he has to bite the bullet and abandon his cannabis policy as Thaksin is dead set on recriminalising it. Otherwise he will demand the public health ministry but I can't imagine him settling for the foreign ministry.

Interesting question. I think it would because the speaker and deputies were legitimately elected in parliament. Since these are supposed to be neutral positions, there would be no good reason to pressure the MFP deputy to resign, although that might happen.

The program "Jo Deep Thaw Thai" interview with Chuwit talking about Sretha Thavisin. Chuwit mentions real estate firm that sells land by avoiding hundreds of millions in taxes, saying that if the millionaire rose to a prime ministerial candidate, he would "reveal" such a thing. Can't wait for this show to get started.

Undoubtedly MFP will be dissolved and Pita banned for 10 years and maybe even imprisoned. But the movement has shown the ability to regenerate and come back as something stronger and more coherent. Dissolving two Thaksinite parties also had minimal effect.

Given another 9 years he would fulfill his broken promise to restore happiness to the Thai people.

I don't think so. Don't forget the Chinese zero dollar tours that add a lot of bulk to the numbers and huge numbers of legal and illegal foreign workers are needed to staff up the tourism industry, simply because the Thai education system is too inefficient to teach even basic English speaking and aural comprehension skills to Thai kids. Export manufacturing is more important to the Thai economy, even though it requires enormous imported inputs.

Burma 1988.

Re level of Thai required it is intermediate level Thai. You need to be able hold a reasonable conversation and answer questions. If you are applying without a Thai spouse, you need to be able to sing the National and Royal anthems unaccompanied and handle an interview of about 10 minutes by yourself at the MOI- if married to a Thai your are interviewed with your spouse who may help you. Reading and writing is not required but you may offer to do the reading and writing tests to get more points. Knowledge of the Thai language is only an absolute requirement, if you don't have a Thai spouse but it is hard to get through the process without being able to communicate in Thai at all and you may need the points allocated for Thai language.

Russian national Mr Sirorkin has already been crated up along with other Russian criminals for loading on to Lavrov’s plane to go back to Russia to take up well paid positions in meat factories in a neighboring country.

Obviously he can’t get elected while the scoundrels in the junta appointed senate still get to vote. But the question is does MFP really want to remain in a coalition that will be constantly manipulated by Thaksin, if Sretha gets elected as a seat warmer for the airhead Thaksin daughter. They have already ceded the speaker job to make way for a notably corrupt former Thaksin flunky posing as an independent in order to get a chance of the premiership. They will not be able to get any of their major reform pledges done and will be tainted with PT corruption scandals. Far better to slip gracefully into the opposition and let Thaksin alienate his red shirt supporters by teaming up with his old pal Gen Watchman.

He is here to offer the sudden influx of long term male Russian tourists well paid jobs in canned meat factories in a neighboring country. With great pension and life insurance benefits.

This is madness. Obviously the majority required should be the majority of those that cast votes.

The interesting thing is that the establishment is not taking fright at a leftist party that wants to nationalise everything. They are scared of a liberal reformist party that wants to eliminate inefficiencies in the capitalist system that makes Thailand uncompetitive and unable to achieve its long run economic growth potential. They actually want to give Thailand's capitalism a tune up, not get rid of it. That would of course involve decentralisation to remove bloated Bangkok based bureaucracies, tackling monopolistic businesses that often use state concessions to supply inferior goods and services to Thai consumers at inflated prices.

The truth is that Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are extremely angry about the caretaker government's appeasement of the Burmese junta after it failed to implement even a scrap of the plan agreed with ASEAN. Only the dictatorial members Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are pleased with it.

Absolutely. Going into a coalition with Thaksin calling the shots and manipulating things would be the kiss of death for MFP. They would not get much of anything done from their reform agenda and would be tainted by PT and Shinawatra family corruption scandals, as well as continuing prosecutions of political activists as a way for Thaksin to demonstrate his loyalty to the people who booted him and his sister out of power. Let Thaksin do a coalition with the uncle parties and BJP and enjoy Anutin fighting to get the public health ministry in a rearguard action to save cannabis. Without BJP they would have a wafer thin majority that could collapse at any moment just before a budget bill or a no confidence debate. If there is no coup the senate will have no vote at the next election and MFP or its successor can come back stronger, if not tainted by association with a corrupt PT administration.

Do you know the exact method of selecting the next senate? Not in the constitution but must in the organic laws somewhere. About 90% of current incumbents were directly appointed by the junta which no longer exists. It's definitely by selection not election but not sure who gets to select. Also they the next senate has no power to vote for the PM.

Yes, it was pathetic that 81% of the scoundrels didn't actually vote at all after sponging off the taxpayer for 4 years. One of them resigned the day before reducing the number of votes needed by one as their are now only 749 MPs and senators.

After election Jonathan Head of the BBC asked Pita about the problem of military reform policies apparently not be popular with the military. Pita replied that MFP was extremely popular with army as evidenced by their excellent showing in the election in constituencies with large army bases. That is basically the problem - a minority of corrupt money grubbers intent on using any dirty tricks that come to hand to continue to lord it over the majority.