Eric Loh

Those middle class and white collar citizens were disappointed with the violent outcome of the demonstration and left. Suthep was struggling to keep the demonstration going and bused in supporters from the Democrats’ strongholds in southern Thailand and recruiting students from vocational schools notorious for brawls. Suthep has to keep the demonstration going as part of his plan with Prayut to take out the Thaksin regime. This plan was hatched out since 2010 and Suthep openly admitted the plan. The plan climaxed with Prayut infamous words that Suthep was exhausted and he was taking over.

Ït could be said that those "black shirts" would not have emerged if Ahbisit addressed many of the concerns that motivated the protesters instead of using the army to suppress the demonstration. Supression without accomodation begets a movement towards armed retaliation.

Baht is sitting about right considering inflation, interest rate, current account, public debt and state of the economy.

A Beobert type character. Foul mouth unintelligent person attacking fellow parliamentarian for her dress and using derogatory name calling. Good riddance she out of politics and hopefully Beobert and heckler Greene too.

It's ok. Just your Pavlovian instinct to critique negative all things thai.

Trade deficit with China worsened since 2010 from 0.9% of GDP to 4% of GDP in 2019 (data best represented before pandemic). The government has 10 years to intervene with solutions to counter this worsening gap and sadly not much has been done except lip service. I squarely put the blame on the inept junta government with a cabinet of inexperienced and untalented ministers lead by a clueless Prime Minister. China is a not a low wage country with a per capita income higher than Thailand. In other words, Chinese human capital cost is 31.5% higher than Thailand. So is the Chinese manufacturers 31.5% more efficient or Thailand manufacturers 31.5% less efficient. The data is clear that this government has not taken much effort to address the widening trade gap or they just clueless. Hate or love him, Thailand do need someone like Thaksin.

Most likely might affect as the war disrupt semiconductor production because Ukraine and Russia are top suppliers of neon gas which is used in the lasers for chip manufacturing and Russia is also a major producer of Palladium, a rare metal used in computer components. Throw in shipping chaos from high energy costs and supply disruption and the lockdown in Shenzhen which is a major tech hub; you have a perfect storm for price increases from computers to Iphone.

Not bad for a Swedish company that do not make any of their furniture in Sweden but in countries like Myanmar, China, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Have fun with your own version of alternative facts.

Let me lay out the facts to you. All parties pay voters. This has been a time honored culture that date back before Thaksin. The court doesn’t find Yingluck guilty for the rice pledging scheme. Don’t you know that before making asinine comment.

Here you go again spewing unproven allegations. Which political party has the deepest pocket to pay voters. Think which party has the most yellow elites and big corporations. Dem Party paid voters too and they will take and vote others. This has been admitted by K Korn himself admitting that paying voters doesn’t guarantee voters will vote for the party. Sometime you got to stop making allegations without any evidence.

Say the narrator with a sumptous amount of imagination.

Agree with you that the word clan in this editorial is misleading. The right word to use should be dynasty and that will include the family you mentioned. Clan is associated with rulers from one family that were handed down. Hope I explain appropriately.

I guess they are smart enough to know that their lives are better under Thaksin.

Narrator? You are funny. Anyway, the UN recognized them as democratically elected prime ministers and current government as military-dominated semi-elected government.

I read up and they were democratically elected. That’s how democracy work.

250 senators military appointed is a disregard for basic democratic principle. Enormous powers in voting and veto is a mockery of their role of check and balance. Annual budget of 1 B Baht per year is money wasted and not in line with modern times. Thailand should have a unicameral system to put the country on path to a full democracy.

Mired in contradiction too.

Clan politics is bad for democracy all over the world even in western democracy.

Zero Baht tours and shops that you described has declined after the crackdown in 2016. Chinese that travelled on such tours have shun Thailand. The Chinese are big investors in the hospitality business. Nothing wrong with that.

Army is not a choice. Not a binary choice either for the Shinawatra as they still have to win the election from close to 30 political parties.

Fun fact. Among tourists of all nations who come to Thailand, Chinese tourists spend the most with 536,278 million baht, most of which is spent on shopping and leisure, such as spas, cruises, trips, etc.

He took a stand and calls for royal reformation on the parliament floor. That's sacrilege to the yellow shirt movement. You misunderstand. What I meant is that he is young to politics and from a wealthy family and had not cultivate the network to work for him in the rural areas.

Not impossible but actually high possibility judging from people sentiments on suitable prime minister candidate. She has been featured quite prominently in poll garnering close second to K Pita of MFP and not far from Prayut who is sinking like a rock in popularity each day. Even K Sudarat was a distant 4th favourite and the rest of the field for possibly prime minister like Anutin (BJP) and Jurin (DP) were almost non existence. K Pita will have a problem getting the rural support away from Ing. Those yellow shirts have lost their cause and a spent force. It's her to take unless the military snatched democracy out of the grips of the people again.

Actually the progressive movement didn't even need to try as there is an existing Act called Determining Plans & Process of Decentralization ACT B.E. 2542 (1999) and there were much progress and changes made in local offices. The movement is just too polite to highlight that the coups after 1999 made this ACT redundant by weakening local adminstration bodies. The coup government exert their control (centralisation) by changing the size of the local government bodies and controlling their budget.