Ozymandias

Wrong, in to many small villages it is all that matters

They sell to the highest offer

Too many people in Thailand are not educated on who they should vote for

They do not know and or understand the issues

This is some what true. But I would like to add that many people who accepts money are honorable people. City folks forget what honor is thinking that they are being smart because we took the money and voted for some else. Hence, city folks are not trustworthy. "City Slickers"

If the citizens in the villages are asked to vote for a certain party, they will keep their words. Even if they don't know or understand the issue. All you have to pay is the village leaders, as most will follow there wishes. No one wants to upset the Pooyai. They know that whatever the outcome is, it won't matter much to their lives. But what matters is if the Village head gives them a hard time for not voting for their party, they will live in hell till the next election. Some are even scorn or belittle if they vote non red. You can consider that voter intimidation. So vote buying is definitely there still, but makes more sense to pay one person than many little people.

The point is, however, as stated in the article, that though it is a factor it is not 'decisive', i.e. it will have an impact locally but not on a national scale. This means that if we could subtract voter buying, the change in popularity of the 2 main parties would be minimal. A factor like this might have an impact were elections tight, but as we know over the last 15 years Thaksin-aligned parties have had a clear majority over the Dems.

And, as attested to in honest journalism & countless people's experiences, all parties buy votes. Figures suggest that in the 2011 election Dem voter buying surged, but to no avail. Must be frustrating for them, but if the election is re-run later in the year (as it obviously should be, this is a farce) maybe they can design a raft of policies to attract victims of the rice pledging fiasco.

That would be the educated response.

Wrong, in to many small villages it is all that matters

They sell to the highest offer

Too many people in Thailand are not educated on who they should vote for

They do not know and or understand the issues

It's ironic that you post this here after this article. Are YOU not educated enough to read and understand it or are you just stuck in this mantra forever?

Time & time again it's shown to be true through research that relatively few votes are bought and the money paid changes nothing. In small villages the general vote can be tracked by the parties & the kamnan made to suffer for it. Now ask yourself - what proportion of N & N E Thais live in such places?

19 000 likes. What a popular movement. Meanwhile Thaksin has 1.7 million likes.

Just 1.7m?

Very poor show.

Suthep can count more people on the street than that over the past few months and nobody really likes him.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

The problem with Suhep's counting is that he has been using binary code every time. He just doesn't tell the media.

So the court just threw the case right back at the EC. Now what? Can the EC change the date without the government approval? If either side disagree with the other side what happens? Seems the court did a terrible job making a decision here.

Given the line "The Court also clarified that the government and the Election Commission (EC) have the joint authority to postpone the election, namely by issuing a Royal Decree." I would suggest that the Court is saying 'sort it out between yourselves'

Now the ball is back in the Govt's court, do they push ahead and try for the election (it will fail, even if held) or do they back off and agree to postpone... guess its true colours time

It would clearly be stupid to go ahead with Feb 2nd given the current climate, but then stupidity seems to be the forte of both sides in this conflict. Both Suthep & Yingluck personify the concept of he blind leading the blind.

That said, hopefully the right decision will be made: Feb moved back a few months, Democrats get on board & finally try to win the hearts and minds of the rural farmers with fair policies, the rice pledging disaster will bring people together, PTP lose votes then there is a grand coalition including moderate elements of both sides, reforms agreed & made, Thailand moves away from polarization & becomes a more stable and fairer society.

Just a dream....

By the way, I have (inexplicably I think been accused of bias by Robbynz, one of the most blatantly pro-yellow anti-red posters. The above represents my position, Robbynz, don't think you can detect any there....maybe he's just as confused as he seems from his posts...

So the court just threw the case right back at the EC. Now what? Can the EC change the date without the government approval? If either side disagree with the other side what happens? Seems the court did a terrible job making a decision here.

Given the line "The Court also clarified that the government and the Election Commission (EC) have the joint authority to postpone the election, namely by issuing a Royal Decree." I would suggest that the Court is saying 'sort it out between yourselves'

Now the ball is back in the Govt's court, do they push ahead and try for the election (it will fail, even if held) or do they back off and agree to postpone... guess its true colours time

It would clearly be stupid to go ahead with Feb 2nd given the current climate, but then stupidity seems to be the forte of both sides in this conflict. Both Suthep & Yingluck personify the concept of he blind leading the blind.

That said, hopefully the right decision will be made: Feb moved back a few months, Democrats get on board & finally try to win the hearts and minds of the rural farmers with fair policies, the rice pledging disaster will bring people together, PTP lose votes then there is a grand coalition including moderate elements of both sides, reforms agreed & made, Thailand moves away from polarization & becomes a more stable and fairer society.

Just a dream....

The more the truth comes out the more it looks like a cover up by the anti government protesters and their leaders. But it seems to have failed.

In your hardly humble and ever so slightly biased opinion.

Sure. Anyway, over to the other English language newspaper in Thailand then. They report flatly that a 'Democrat Aide' is a suspect in the bombing (murder). But those kinds of articles you don't see in The Nation and affiliated media/forums.

Do a google search for " democrat-aide-sought-over-blast "

Not unusual to look for the driver of a vehicle that was attacked, nor is it unusual for them to look for the owner of said vehicle.

"Pol Col Khamthon Ouicharoen, an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialist attached to the Patrol and Special Operations Division, said it was unlikely the grenade had been thrown from the pickup said to be owned by an anti-government protester."

So who's right then?

The suspicious aspects of this are a) that the route was changed at the last minute that the PDRC claims it was thrown from a building and then stormed the building to find the evidence (now discredited) c) that the PDRC would not allow the police to access the crime scene - but let the army in who now have 'evidence' but mostly that d) if you watch the video a few times over, the behaviour fo the man in the white cap makes it clear that he was the one that dropped the bomb.

How curious - it seems to have disappeared from youtube. Can anybody locate the video? The Bangkok Post featured it earlier today and now it seems to have disappeared. Hope it hasn't been censored...

It really helps to take off those rose-tinted glassed sometimes you know then you'll see that a flag is indeed a flag and not whatever spin the red propaganda machine wants to put on it at that moment in time.

You didn't see it was a flag either.

Can I give you a hint: don't a) accuse somebody else of wearing rose-tinted glasses and use the phrase 'red propoganda machine' in the same sentence. Keep your self-contradictions at least one sentence apart and hope that nobody with half a brain notices.

P.S. There are posters on here with less than half a brain, so who knows, you may have got away with it this time...

And since the police have done nothing to protect anyone in the streets so far, whether protestors or innocent passers-by, the army has filled that vacuum.

Yeah and they are doing a great job at it too. Letting unauthorized people walk all over the alleged crime scene, and show case a bunch of BB-guns.

Nothing to do with being ordered to disarm and stay away from the protesters BY the army then? Who do you think is in charge here?

This is really going to hurt Yingluks support in the North East.

What is is showing is the PDRC cannot keep their Southern Supporters in BKK for many reasons. Money and lack of interest so they have come up with a work from home scheme basically.

Let them control the south. Then the rest of the country can see how despotic they are. Will also sort out the small boys from the very small boys then the Students are sent to Pattani to enfoce Sutheps law there.

Meanwhile to prove me right, Suthep is on a series of marches designed mainly to collect money for his failing putch. Support? Kidding me. He thinks there is more support to be garnered in Paholyothin after this being on the news for 80 days now? It's the money.

Yestedays sickening speach was also all about money and bleating that nobody believes him about the suspect bomb.

The donations yesterday are now PDRC money and only to go to the family if the doner specically reqested it. Look like they were just stuffing it into bags again... So... it's Sutheps money.

But at least the money was given freely, to a cause the doners actively support - Suthep!

Unlike the literally billions of baht of hard earned taxpayers money wasted on half arsed policies as exemplified by the last two years of mis-administration by the government. They have even failed their core voters the farmers who have been waiting 6 months nearly or their owed money.

You do realise that any post that begins 'But at least...' just makes the poster sound instantly like they have no more decent arguments left and are falling back on some half-thought-through apologist nonsense. Right?

"Some parents have brought their children to join the anti-government protests in the hope that they might learn about democracy and be part of the historic events, but experts warn the experience could have a negative effect on children's mental and physical health due to the exposure to loud noise and over-crowded conditions. Children might also end up copying the bad behaviour of some protesters, they said."

Nothing is as bad for children's health as the exposure to the shinaclan government for years.

Read the post just prior to yours and make a comparison. You'll note that it was a reasonable and balanced analysis of the current situation directly related to the news piece, whilst yours is exactly the kind of kneejerk pettiness that we hope to steer children of both camps away from, at least if this country is to become / remain unified.

Still, I don't suppose any of that is a concern to you now that you've had another pointless little rant, is it? Next time, why not just kick the nearest dog and save us from more of your innane drivel?

Here we go again, hasn't Suthep had enough of murdering his own people for some cheap publicity?

This post is a perfect example of what you get when you combine ignorance, stupidity and an agenda to vilify someone.

Hope the guard makes a quick recovery and the coward who did this gets his just deserts.

The problem is that we do NOT know who shot him. Consider:

Violence would be counterproductive for the government. Any violent attacks upon Suthep's protesters will garner sympathy for them, draw more supporters and make a coup (military or judicial) more and more likely before Feb 2nd.

The above gives Suthep's group the motive for arranging attacks on his own people.

What makes the above unlikely also is that Suthep does not want a military coup either - though a judicial one would seemingly suit his purposes.

Given the above, it is much more likely that these attacks are carried out by a) renegade red shirts/PTP supporters disgruntled members of the general populous who have lost income through the protests c) people trying to settle personal scores, knowing that it will be perceived as a political act & therefore cover their tracks.

Any of the above options a) - c) seems more feasible than the former.

Thaksin's little helpers hard at work, again.

No evidence for that. Assumption based on nothing but your desire for it to be true.

In today's world so many reporters fall into the trap of believing that they have to report the facts which are their own interpretation of data. Simply report the data and leave the interpretation up to those with a better understanding. The political culture here is so divisive that it becomes almost impossible to differentiate between reality and perception.

When even statistics gathered can be selected before they are presented to you as a journalist, there is always some form of bias in journalist's reports and - as Head suggested - the very fact that reports have to be delivered in short, viewer-friendly bursts means that complex issues often have to be reduced to sound-bites.

However, although there are respectable English language Thai journalists here who are doing a good job, they seem mostly to be confined to editorials. I'm not in a good position to comment on the journalism in Thai language newspapers, as my ability to read Thai is not of a sufficient level yet to judge. Some comments I can make with some confidence, however, are that:

1. Foreign journalists will have a wider perspective of the current crisis unmuddled by personal involvement or experience. This can go either way (i.e. 'you don't understand us' or 'oh, you get us a little TOO much and it makes us feel uncomfortable')
2. Foreign journalists generally have the urge to dig deeper into the murkier aspects of the conflict, where Thai journalists would be afraid to tread for fear of falling foul of certain laws.
3. The irony of no. 2 is that foreign journalists are rarely given the airtime to report in detail and so these more in-depth analyses never see the light of day unless they become part of a TV documentary or published book.

"If the crisis ends well, with a "few" casualties, real history will have been made."

It's not about making history. It's about saving the country from financial disaster and chaos.

Neither the government nor the protesters seem at all interested in doing as you say. Sad.

Will anyone be surprised by yet another report of thuggery, intimidation and violence by supporters of this so -called reform movement?. No. Another day, another report. And yet leaders of the movement now suggest that foreigners don't understand what is happening because the news is being translated to make the movement look bad . They say the motive is profit? I don't see any unfair reporting of the protests....they speak for themselves in the way they behave

Jumping on the band wagon before you read the item properly or just using part of the story for your own point of view? It quite clearly says, "a group of around 10 men tried to drag him into a dark corner, but was rescued by other PDRC staff after he called for help." Were they really PDRC staff or troublemakers dressed up for the part trying to tarnish the real guards?

I very much doubt that the 'PDRC staff' are so stupid that they failed to recognise their own guards and as stated in another tweet, nowhere have the PDRC claimed that this was a 'red infiltration' - although if you are desperate to deny any wrongdoing by your side, I suppose you can blame any violent incident on an 'infiltration', can't you? Meanwhile, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the rest of us will accept that outrageous, unthinkable possibility: that there are violent malevolent thugs in the pay of the 'protest' movement.

So he was rescued by the real PDRC people after being grabbed by someone who claimed to be PDRC.

The thugs are coming out to try to take advantage of the situation.

No surprise that you once again speculate from the outset in this tweet. Your desperation to deny any PDRC wrongdoing and attribute all blame for any and every example of violence to the 'others' is pretty transparently the work of a mind without the ability to discern or make balanced judgements. Perhaps you have watched too many Hollywood movies where good battles evil and there is no grey in between, and where the 'good people' can do no wrong. Certainly, both sides have many members with this depressingly extremist and blinkered mindset.

The depressing thing here is that as an 'outsider' yourself you have the potential to weigh things up in a rational manner and avoid the kind of dumb bias that besets the Thais. Instead, you buy into it without much thought at all.

When or if you take your blinkers off, you will see that neither side in this fight for power (for it's nothing more principled than this at its heart) cares much for the lives of its own supporters (cannon fodder) and far less for the well-being of anybody that opposes them. Violence, when it comes, could come from any or all of them. There are plenty of peaceful, non-violent people on both sides, to be sure, but there are also - on both sides - the malevolent thugs you insist only dwell in the opposite camp.

Yingluck is a sitting duck politically. Pity as if she had some balls to ditch Thaksin and actually govern to a democratic standard she would have been a worthy Prime Minister ...on Thai Soap Opera performance admittedly...but Thais lap that up. The Army should step in now and arrest the lot of them...politicians, Senior Police, Judiciary, All Senior Government agencies heads...those and others I would imprison in a camp, break the rules or fail to learn they will be evicted and someone else from their group replace them... and force lecture them on morals and manners for kindee, before they could progress to Democracy for Beginners....guest lecturers from top democratic countries.... invite the other Thai sectors like Education, business, universities, social groups, etc. to write a constitution and democracy that is agreed to by a minimum of one in favour..toss a coin in the event of a draw. Otherwise its just going to be like riding the merry go round.

You seem confused about the way democracy actually works yourself, so perhaps you need to invest in a copy of Democracy for Beginners yourself. To begin with, in a democratic society, one of the crucial checks and balances is that the army are under government control and accountable to it. And you seem to be confusing the army with the police force, as the army can only arrest those in their own ranks.

Dear me.

The voice of the people is now come out. Respect their rights to live and work without blocking their roads and building.

The opposite is also valid - 'respect my right to protest'.

Compare the protests here (red or yellow) with protests in almost any other part of the world and note the difference: elsewhere protesters are law-abiding; here in Thailand, they take over government buildings, airports and prevent entry to public buildings.

So, perhaps we can amend your comment to 'respect my right to protest in a reasonble and law-abiding way'.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I believe an eye for an eye is the only punishment.

Then you should be living on the set of Game of Thrones and not in the 21st century. Why not try Afghanistan once the Taliban take over again, or perhaps Kim Jong-Un's nice little regime? I'm sure these people would welcome you with open arms.

What this 'human being' did to someone he claimed to love is cowardice. We demonstrate our moral superiority by showing the sociopathic thug how to use the power we have - by not using it to influct suffering on others. If he just doesn't get it, that's fine, because Thai prisons don't have the luxuries that many western inmates are used to.

How much longer is Yingluck going to carry this out. She tells the police no violence she tells the army no violence but what about the red shirts who are supporting her. They seem to act under the orders of there three different leaders.

Do we actually know who carried out the attack? Obviously, someone who was pissed off with the protests but as usual the assumption is made that it has to be red shirts. This is not to say that you may not be proved right in this particular case, but if you are sympathetic to Suthep's crowd you cannot have the hypocrisy to ignore yellow shirt attacks on taxi drivers, threats to take over the stock exchange/air traffic control/kidnap cabinet ministers, burn buses and shoot reds in Ramkhamhaeng and then claim (only) redshirt violence is thuggery.

If you had a modicum of perspective, you could see that both sides (save the genuinely peaceful protesters, red, yellow and no shirts) have extremist leaders and extremist wings who are prepared to carry out all sorts of heinous acts and care nothing if innocent people (old ladies protesting, old ladies on buses, cabbies trying to make a living, passengers, street vendors) are injured, maimed or killed.

Certain posters make a big moral point about how wrong violence is and then ignore the violent acts from their own side, deny they exist or blame them on mysterious infiltrators - assuming that the rest of us are too dim-witted to see through their poorly constructed arguments. We are not.

Either maintain some coherence in your morality or admit that you only apply it to the other side and can openly tolerate it in your people because, well, you're fighting the good fight, right? Wrong. We've heard it over and over and it's drivel.