Zolt

Stop Smearing The Military: Army Chief

... unless it's with peanut butter. We loves peanut butter.

People of Thailand. . Don't want an election now. So forget about it. If the government still persist.. A civil war will surely broke out. Then you will see police and red shirt vs army and the people.

Then why are there mass rallies supporting the election in 20 provinces? These are not people of Thailand?

Hypothetical: If the Democrats happened to get in at the next election (or via a coup or whatever), are they obliged to pay the farmers?

I would say no because the scheme is between the farmers and this government, a new different government is not liable for the mistakes of its predecessor (and enemy) in this domestic issue. And if the army take over, then no way they would go around handing out money, everything would be shut tight.

If that were the case, nobody would ever lend money to a nation-state.

"Whoops, sorry, this bond you are holding was issued by the previous government, nothing to do with me!" It's been tried before, but it just doesn't work that way. The Thai government is the Thai government, no matter who happens to be PM at any particular time.

The only thing I could see happening is the NACC finding the whole rice scheme illegal and void, that may void some of the obligations. If they do, why did they wait 2 whole years to announce that? Even so, I don't think they'd have legal basis for denying the farmers compensation.

Zolt remarked:

Useless dipshit.

The Government already asked the Council of State. The Council of State already said that postponing the whole election was not allowed under the constitution. The government offers to try and do it anyway, and he snubs them.

Am I the only one who think the EC's tactics mirror the PDRC's a bit? Demand something, then when you finally get it, ignore it and demand something else.

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Oops, when and where did the Council of State come up with this. Unlikely it would have slipped my attention.

But I'm sure, if the CoS rulez that there is no change of date, then the CoS will also explain, how the problem of too few MPs elected will be overcome. And take the blame, when the Comptroller General (sp?) will blame the government for wasting 3.8 billion Baht on a useless election...

It all comes down to Taksin ordering his sister via Skype to stay on, regardless of what will happen. Ah, and the later the election the more angry the farmers will be over the defaulting on their rice payments.

Sorry for the late reply. Council of state rep spoke on that a while back, December 14 to be precise:

Can't link because it's a Bangkok Post article, but just google this: "Council of state: Poll delay impossible : Bangkok Post"

Just shows the lack of good education in Thailand if these words are coming from a renowned scholar.

I like how he uses the expression "forfeited their rights" - nah, we just want to take back these rights that they had no business having in the first place.

CAPO reveals court order to arrest ‘Suthep’

Why does he get quote marks on his name? He was operating under an alias all that time?

Did I hear that right?

Yep he wants kidnapping adding to the list of charges he already faces

And hasn't been, and likely won't ever be held answerable for.

The police officer also warned that the country's glory did not need to come from the cremation flames of the protesters or law enforcers

Whoa.

A coup has felt inevitable for weeks. If it is going to happen it may as well happen before the 13th, rather than people having to go through all that standstill annoyance.

I have a feeling that this whole circus will go on for weeks and weeks yet.

The army big wigs actually want democracy to fail and the situation to degenerate into chaos, so they can be seen as savior when they step in.

Feb 02 elections will take place, and will fail to produce a government, because too many seats are left vacant. Maybe even another round of by-elections will fail to do that. All the while protests will go on and will make everyone miserable. The anti-democracy crowd actually want this to happen, so they can argue that democracy has failed completely and advance their own agenda, with more unelected sources of power and less elected ones. They might even get rid of the universal suffrage altogether the way things are going.

Abhisit's reply: "Vote for me, then I will respect your vote. Oh wait you can't!" :trollface

They won't. You think I want to explain 80's politics to anyone?

What he doesn't say is which roads exactly will be blocked. I would expect it will still be centered around government complex on Chaengwattana, and all the ministries and government house around Rajadamnoen. I'd be surprised if they try anything around Sukhumvit or the business district.

This whole thing is actually very dangerous. If the EC decides to postpone the elections beyond 60 days, there is a major risk that the Constitution Court can rule them invalid and annul them - they have done so before with less reason than that!

It changed from PDRC to DPRC, and soon it will be DPRK.

If this is done it will mean that the much needed reforms can be done in a unilateral manner and are set in place before an election and therefor not left up to the whim of the next Govt.

Read that sentence again. Did you really mean to write that?

Any newspaper article that has to use the word "butch" in the headline probably shouldn't have been written in the first place.

In terms of the election date several well established Thai legal eagles have indicated that there are ways to postpone / change the election date. The PT folks are not listening, for one simple reason, they don't want to listen.

Further, I,m starting to wonder if the new Election Commission president is making too many statements on this subject.

Here's a pretty good analysis on the whole election date quandary.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/117342/can-the-election-be-delayed/

Yes, some legal heads have advanced ideas allowing to postpone the date, but none of them look really solid at all if you look at the text of the constitution. Only a ruling by the constitution court would give any kind of certainty.

It might be me (with my over-simplistic way of thinking) but can they not just ask the King to move the date, pretty please? Is it that dam_n hard?

Well actually it is. Not even the King can pass a decree that's a direct violation of the constitution, and in this case the constitution states the election must be held no later than 60 days after the dissolution. There is no obvious constitutional way to work around that.

But if the alleged vote buying on a mass scale is true, then it ISN'T truly democratic. The newspaper misses this fundamental aspect.

Here's a good piece on vote buying.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/116697/vote-buying-thaksin-and-the-democrats/

The thing is, all parties actively engage in it, and the Dem's financial backup is at least as good as PT's. Then most people will either refuse the money, or take it but vote for whoever they wanted to anyway.

It's pretty easy to verify actually, just run a few opinion polls across the country. People don't get paid to answer those - so if the result is broadly consistent with the elections, it means that vote buying isn't such a huge issue after all.