LevelHead

Firstly, there are many parties who could have launched the grenade attack.

It could be a false flag attack, so someone supporting the protestors bombs then to get the sympathy and also push for a coup.

It could be some angry residents fed up of protests and wanting them to stop.

It could be a splinter group of red shirts who are more extreme.- like the extreme students who are charged wtih shooting and kiling police at the stadium and were arrested.

It could be rice farmers not happy that the protestors are trying to stop the election which will ultimately delay further their rice payment.

It could be anyone.

All we can say is :

Nobody knows who did it - so nobody should be accusing any side of doing it.

Its good than nobody was killed, sadly that did not happen when police were attacked by protestors at the stadium for party registration.

One way or another the farmers will get paid. Even in the event of a new govt, those payments would have to be honoured. The EC is saying the current govt does not have the authority, in caretaker mode, to commit the funds in the way they are proposing

No my friend, the EC is saying that it doesn't allow the government to dig a deeper hole to keep their voters happy.

They also said that they don't allow them to bankrupt the framers bank, e.g. use the farmers own money to pay them, but it seems it's too late already for that.

Now take of the pink red goggles

If there is an election the farmers will get paid after it, does not matter who wins, provided someone wins.

The problem is if there is an appointed committee of Suthep, or there is no election result. Either of these and the farmers have to keep waiting until an election.

So it is in the interests of the farmers to get an election result asap and a new government in place under the existing Constitution.

So look at it like this.

If they vote and PTP wins, they get paid.

If they do not vote and no winner, they will not get paid.

If Suthep takes over they will not get paid as the Constitution has been breached and massive, years long, delays.

So while the yellow tinted specs people see this as a win for anti-PTP, actually its beneficial for PTP for the farmers to not be paid due to the restrictions placed on them by the EC.

PTP blames EC, tells farmers sorry, its all Suthep and the EC's fault.

Only way out of the problem is to have an election and get a result.

In my opinion.

Poor farmers screwed again by PTP

Hopefully it will be a lesson learned by them

Pretty irrelevant as far as the Feb 2nd election goes as PTP are petty much running un-opposed

But since the election will not have enough members to form a quorum, this might make things interestng

What will PTP do? the honorable thing to do would be to fall on the sword, but in Thailand most do not do the honorable thing. especially politicians. They will deny / blame / and accuse others and never say "Sorry" or "my mistake"

By-elections !

Thanks to the new Constitution in effect now, if there is no quorum the present caretaker government remains in power and the EC has to run, again and again and again, by-elections in places where there was no result, until there is a result.

So its a case of sit back and wait after Feb 2nd until the EC finally does their job and gets a result in every seat.

How could seals get arrested by the keystone cops? Could you even contemplate USA seals getting arrested, hahahahaha. I thought seals were the best of the best?

Perhaps they disagreed with their mission and had been told to do something they consider bad, so they "allowed" themselves to get caught.......................

So, Navy seals on a "drug" related mission that the police do not know about.

So how many headlines do we see of "Navy seals bust drug ring" ?? Think it might be zero.

A bigger question is of course who is firing these shots at night ? and who is shooting police ? Wonder if two hands caught hold of the third hand ?

I wonder if they were wearing mysteriously dark clothing?

Black ?

Yes, you cannot delay unless in the event of War or something like that, National Emergency.

The EC wanting to reset to day 1 will only help 1 party, the Democrats.

The trouble for the Democrats is if the election goes ahead and lots of small parties win seats off of PTP, then its more than likely that lots of Democrat MP's will leave the Democrat Party and move over to join the smaller parties, as they want to be fed, and the Democrat Party will be decimated.

This is why Korn told them they must compete in the election, but was ignored as he is probably the only Democrat MP with a real intelligence, in my opinion.

So the upside for PTP now is that the Democrats decision to boycott will ultimately and finally lead to their own demise, provided there is no coup. This will be good as it will mean lots of stronger smaller parties with new ideas and new leaders to push democracy forward and to become the new opposition.

All in my opinion of course.

Now boys and girls - let's all gather round, and see the administration playing our favourite game " Let's Be Government ! " The rules are quite clear :

Rule number one : There are no rules ! Isn't that fun ? More fun coming up :

Rule number two : We can make up our own rules ! It gets even better :

Rule number three : We can change our mind whenever we want to !

As we come gradually back to Earth, it is hard to imagine a situation more inane as this from Pheu Thai. But we will try to yet again stress the obvious :

The EC is the sole authority for elections. What they say goes. Period. The Supreme Court has affirmed it. And now the Constitutional Court will likely affirm it as well. The administration says that the EC doesn't have this authority. That's called a constitutional crisis. They also say they don't have the authority themselves. Yet they have already contradicted themselves by proposing a three month election delay to the PDRC. The administration contradicts themselves yet again by stating that a forum they set up has the constitutional authority to make that decision. So Yingluck and Pheu Thai - apparently satisfied with all these contradictions, proclaims the meeting a stellar success. The conclusion of the meeting ? The EC is wrong and we are right. So there.

This would make sense if the administration was indeed playing a child's game. As they are not, this declaration shouts more clearly than any other that this administration has no longer any right to govern.

Genuine question seeking clarification as you seem to know to know a lot about the constitution. Please feel free to correct any of my points below if incorrect.

As I understand it, YL dissolved parliament and scheduled new elections for 02 Feb. This was given Royal approval and everything up to this point is within the law.

The EC is set up to oversee the election, to ensure that it is fairly conducted.

Because of the problems in the South preventing some candidates from registering, the EC is of the view that any elections will be nullified due to the lack of a quorum. They therefore suggest postponing it.

However, YL says that the Govt has no authority to postpone the poll - true or false?

She also said that the EC has no authority to postpone the poll - true or false?

Under what circumstances can either the Govt or the EC postpone the poll?

Luckily with the new Constitution the lack of quorum now means :

The caretaker government stay in power, as caretakers.

The EC must run by-elections, as many as needed and as many times as needed, until all seats are filled.

That is why PTP is saying go ahead with the election and anyone who says the lack of MP's is a problem is obviously not well versed with the by-election rules of the latest Thai Constitution,

Of course, its my opinion

If what you are saying it true, then it's checkmate already. I see no signs of a people's revolution in effect. What I see is lots of people turning up for a free concert.

p/s: the current singer just shouted in English, "the reason we are here is because of the b****y government" and the crowd cheered. I seriously doubt however than more than 10% understood what he just shouted. Mob mentality if ever there was one.

The protestor numbers are dwindling fast. Its like Songkran, its fun for a few days but then its boring.

Only the hardcore (and according to many paid for) that remain.

They might get a little boost at the weekend but there will be low numbers again most of the time.

And Suthep is clever, by having no colour shirts its impossible to see in a photo who are real protestors and who are just there watching, taking selfies, getting free food and drinks and entertainment. So the photos never actually show the real level of real protestors.

Another thing to do is to watch the mobile protests. Now, if I were a clever protest leader I would have a mobile mob who move around each location in advance, so the same people are cheering me when I arrive at Asoke, then the same people have moved and are cheering me when I arrive at Ploenchit and so on. This will give great photo ops of lots of cheering supporters at every place I go, but of course, a large amount are just the same people moving around in advance.

The protests are basically over and its now to elections, and then many by-elections until all seats are filled. And as YL said, if you do not like PTP then vote for the smaller opposition parties, or vote "no-vote".

I think YL will be caretaker PM for at least 6 months, maybe longer, until the EC has run countless by-elections to get 95% seats filled. It could even be that YL will be caretaker PM for 12 months or more - but the election process is the election process and the Constitution is the Constitution.

After campaigning to protect the Constitution so they say, Suthep and the Democrats have absolutely no right to call for UN-Constitutional things now. So the election proceeds and the Democrats are now out for a few years and other smaller opposition parties have the chance.

In my opinion all of that, of course.

I am not sure if other parties understand that they have very little time to campaign. This election was too rushed. It would not be fair to the others as they do not have the advantage of YS doing her early campaigning in December. I think EC will disqualify her and PTP for using state funds to campaign. EC was just being nice to her, but she brushed them aside. It will be interesting on Thursday and when EC will decide if her Northern visit(ONLY, where her power based is at) has broken election law.

How can you say this election is too rushed ?

It is being held well past the minimum time allowed and actually just a few days short of the maximum time allowed by the Constitution. The latest date it is allowed to be held is Feb 6th, and if it is not held by then the Constitution has been breached. So really it is nonsense to suggest its rushed.

As for the Northern trip, this was planned long before the election was called and provided she did not make speeches saying vote PTP, then there is no issue in my opinion. And I really do not see why everyone is complaining, they all moan than Northern area only vote PTP, and in the next breath they then complain because YL was there. If they all vote PTP as you say then how can she have been campaigning ? Like taking coals to Newcastle.

She was there on a pre-planned inspection visit, planned before Suthep demanded she dissolve parliament.

No issues at all, in my opinion.

The caretaker PM has the chance to solve the problem herself, (resign) and again she deligates others to do it for her. ( vote me out). She has had a couple of good years in the limelight, being waited on, and coached by her brothe and his cronies who were placed next to her. She is a walking, living example that some people will never learn to pour water out of a boot with instructions and a flashing light on the heel.

Wrong, again.

The caretaker PM is not allowed to resign during an election period.

If she were to resign she could be charged with negligence and end up in prison.

Caretaker PM's are not allowed to resign, simple as that.

Thats my opinion

Now boys and girls - let's all gather round, and see the administration playing our favourite game " Let's Be Government ! " The rules are quite clear :

Rule number one : There are no rules ! Isn't that fun ? More fun coming up :

Rule number two : We can make up our own rules ! It gets even better :

Rule number three : We can change our mind whenever we want to !

As we come gradually back to Earth, it is hard to imagine a situation more inane as this from Pheu Thai. But we will try to yet again stress the obvious :

The EC is the sole authority for elections. What they say goes. Period. The Supreme Court has affirmed it. And now the Constitutional Court will likely affirm it as well. The administration says that the EC doesn't have this authority. That's called a constitutional crisis. They also say they don't have the authority themselves. Yet they have already contradicted themselves by proposing a three month election delay to the PDRC. The administration contradicts themselves yet again by stating that a forum they set up has the constitutional authority to make that decision. So Yingluck and Pheu Thai - apparently satisfied with all these contradictions, proclaims the meeting a stellar success. The conclusion of the meeting ? The EC is wrong and we are right. So there.

This would make sense if the administration was indeed playing a child's game. As they are not, this declaration shouts more clearly than any other that this administration has no longer any right to govern.

Genuine question seeking clarification as you seem to know to know a lot about the constitution. Please feel free to correct any of my points below if incorrect.

As I understand it, YL dissolved parliament and scheduled new elections for 02 Feb. This was given Royal approval and everything up to this point is within the law.

The EC is set up to oversee the election, to ensure that it is fairly conducted.

Because of the problems in the South preventing some candidates from registering, the EC is of the view that any elections will be nullified due to the lack of a quorum. They therefore suggest postponing it.

However, YL says that the Govt has no authority to postpone the poll - true or false?

She also said that the EC has no authority to postpone the poll - true or false?

Under what circumstances can either the Govt or the EC postpone the poll?

Luckily with the new Constitution the lack of quorum now means :

The caretaker government stay in power, as caretakers.

The EC must run by-elections, as many as needed and as many times as needed, until all seats are filled.

That is why PTP is saying go ahead with the election and anyone who says the lack of MP's is a problem is obviously not well versed with the by-election rules of the latest Thai Constitution,

Of course, its my opinion

Now boys and girls - let's all gather round, and see the administration playing our favourite game " Let's Be Government ! " The rules are quite clear :

Rule number one : There are no rules ! Isn't that fun ? More fun coming up :

Rule number two : We can make up our own rules ! It gets even better :

Rule number three : We can change our mind whenever we want to !

As we come gradually back to Earth, it is hard to imagine a situation more inane as this from Pheu Thai. But we will try to yet again stress the obvious :

The EC is the sole authority for elections. What they say goes. Period. The Supreme Court has affirmed it. And now the Constitutional Court will likely affirm it as well. The administration says that the EC doesn't have this authority. That's called a constitutional crisis. They also say they don't have the authority themselves. Yet they have already contradicted themselves by proposing a three month election delay to the PDRC. The administration contradicts themselves yet again by stating that a forum they set up has the constitutional authority to make that decision. So Yingluck and Pheu Thai - apparently satisfied with all these contradictions, proclaims the meeting a stellar success. The conclusion of the meeting ? The EC is wrong and we are right. So there.

This would make sense if the administration was indeed playing a child's game. As they are not, this declaration shouts more clearly than any other that this administration has no longer any right to govern.

I think you are reading too much the Thai English newspapers.

Don't forget Thai newspapers have the ethics codes of perhaps North Korea. They can write any story and claim anything based on un-named sources.

The EC's sole role is to carry out elections. They have no authority to cancel or delay them, they are tasked with the execution of the election. And if it fails in any place they are responsible for running by-elections until all seats in Parliament are filled. Period, that is their job.

The caretaker government has correctly told them this is their job, they have no authority to delay the elections unless there is a National Emergency (like war etc..)

PTP did not offer a 3 month delay, you might find this was another sensational "source" story in the Thai media, no names mentioned. Which means it was never offered. All part of the protest backers PR campaign.

The forum was set up discuss what could be done, to gather opinions.

The conclusion of the meeting was that the EC should carry out its job, which is to carry out elections.

Under the Thai Constitution elections must be held in a fixed time period (in this case before end of Feb 6th 2014) and if its not then there is a breach and the caretaker PM will be out of a job and the courts will appoint a new PM. Only in the event of war or other National emergency can the government seek to delay. Nobody has the authority to delay the election if there is no National Emergency as defined in the Constitution.

In my opinion, of course.

Bit difficult to tell the difference between un-uniformed police and red shirts, unless they have grenades in there pockets.

What a disgusting comment. I find these kind of posts inflammatory and despicable in my opinion

Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin of the Matuphum Party and Chuvit Kamolvisit of Love Thailand Party,

So, in the interest of accuracy, Yingluck is boasting about a coupist and a happy ending massage parlour magnate attending her meeting.

Would that be Gen Sonthi who led a coup and appears to have said (at the time) he would never enter politics or want to be an MP ? Similar to how Suthep says (at the moment) he is out of politics for good................... ?

Subsidy ? Well yes, the rice pledging scheme is a subsidy. Rice farmers have made big profits on their rice and the government, but way of a subsidy has run a loss making subsidy.

LevelHead

You keep asking for proof from others, please present proof that rice farmers have made big profits.

The only ones making the big profits are the politicians and middle men in this scheme. The poor farmers are actually making less money than they did before. At least that's the case in my wife's rice farming village of some 100 families.

Thats interesting. So whilst many appear to accuse the PTP party of vote buying with the rice scheme as farmers get high prices, you are saying they are poorer. So how come people claim that the rice subsidy is vote buying ?

You are saying a few select people are making money and the millions of farmers are worse off.

So the Democrats will be happy there is an election and will win based on what you say............oh........wait a minute...................

Define "Step Down" in terms of the Thai constitution. It would be wholly illegal for any PM, and a breach of her oath of office, to simply walk away and hand the country over to a mysterious junta of 'good people', not one of whom has yet put their name on public record.

Step down, as in resign.

I don't believe it would be illegal for the PM to resign. Politicians, even in Thailand, do it all the time.

Of course, people can quote and twist a sentence in the constitution to make it sound like it would be impossible, but they would just be using that as an excuse.

.

Like Suthep and his backers, you just haven't thought this through, have you? Let's say Yingluck and the cabinet get on a plane to Dubai tonight, never to return. Who would be running Thailand tomorrow? No fancy sentence twisting there, just a straight question.

If Yingluck was to resign, a deputy PM would step up in her place. The protesters aren't asking the whole cabinet to get out. Just the Shinawatras.

Have you read the Thai Constitution ?

She cannot resign, the Constitution does not allow her to resign from caretaker PM post.

In the same way, the Constitution does not allow for elections to be delayed (unless in the event of a National Emergency like war, earthquake etc..).

Country loss on state vs. tax payer money from this idiotic scheme

870.280.000.000 Baht (gone)

Does Suthep know this? Why is this not on Thai TV? Headlines in all newspapers? Why aren't the populace taking to the streets in protest ....oh.

There are no figures released, a lot of the data is not in public view.

Therefore your claims on figures are misleading in my opinion.

You cannot claim to know how much of a deficit the scheme has run, so please, clearly state the figure is just your fantasy opinion only. And the money is not lost, it has not disappeared. You mean only to say the scheme has run at a loss as the money has been distributed across rice farmers, millers, dealers etc............ so the money is not LOST as you claim, its not vanished.

I doubt anyone should be surprised by this violence when Suthep is trying to over throw a Government that was elected by nearly 50% of the voting population. You are always going to get some crazies, all sides have them. Amazing that someone would go to the risk of throwing a grenade at the head of the Democrat Party's house without bothering to check whether anyone was actually home. Unless of course it was a false flag attack designed to instigate the army to come out.

Well, if it were a real attack then it would have been done when people were there.

If it were a false flag attack to try to damage the caretaker government and incite the protestors a little more it would be done when nobody is at home................... just my opinion.

So, anyone at home when the attack happened ?

Isaan is booming everywhere.

Isaan now has the highest GDP growth in the whole of Thailand. Land prices and house prices are rising fastest in Isaan.

Why do you think the Bangkok elite are jealous ?

This is not a rice scam, it is a rice subsidy. Channeling money to the poor by way of giving them a higher price for their rice. All very simple and subsidies are not illegal. Most governments all over the world use subsidies for various things to keep the masses happy where needed.

The scam part is that the "channel" has huge leaks.

There will always be leaks, even Singapore has corruption cases where government money is siphoned off by people.

It is therefore not the subsidy that is the problem, its those abusing the system, and they should be investigated and charged.

But people should not slam the subsidy, its the greed of some people who abuse the system, and those people wear yellow, red, white, blue, green, brown, grey, black and multicolour shirts.

But if you want the country to grow, if you want the poor to become wealthier and so increase GDP growth in the provinces you have to endure some of this leaking.

Just my opinion

This lack of funds to buy the rice vote up north is the chum in the water that is smelled by the opposition. A golden chance to prove to the Issan voters exactly what kind of duplicitous slime they have been voting for. All the promises were kept over the years by financial legerdemain and trickery, but now the bottom line has good deeply red and those in Issan not deeply red are beginning to realise the reality not the rosy pictures painted by the propaganda machine.

So now we get a do or die rally to remove the PTP puppets from the controls,

and prevent them 'Taking from Somchai to pay Boonchaing'...

This goes two ways in my opinion :

Way 1, a clean and non-corrupt opposition party who are seen as supremely Democratic and not at all biased to Palm Oil and Rubber in the south, whose leaders have not been exposed to lots of land scandals and palm oil scandals and all sorts, whose leaders have not been charged with murder for sending the Army in with live ammo to kill protestors, rises up and is seen by Isaan as the saviours.

Way 2, Isaan folk see the delays as all being caused by self serving, corrupt, anti-Democracy, poll boycotters who have sold their souls to the Amart time and time again. They blame everything on these people and come out and strongly vote for PTP.

Given the parties that do not want elections it seems that Way 2 is the way. If Way 1 was the way the Dems would not be having a boycott.

As for the rice payment protests, there has to be some, for if there were no protests there would be no resentment to lead to way 1 or way 2.

Its also great future PR for PTP if they win the election. They can say with no rice payments and rice farmers having protests they still won the election, which proves the rice subsidy is not a vote buying tool. Thanks Suthep

The trouble for the Democrat Party is that they must find a way to delay the election, for if they believe Way 1 is happening they need to reset the election process back to Day 1 so they can now sign up for the election, now that their friends have blocked out all ways to payments to the farmers and made payment to the farmers late.

So the friends of the Democrat Party will be pushing for reset, or delay and reset, so they can now all sign up to contest the election. But of course, the Constitution does not allow for a delay and PTP are following the rules. Whooops............

Just my opinion on things.

However much has gone missing from the rice scheme, much of it has filtered down to the farmers. The Isaan is booming, largely as a result of it. Now that the baht has weakened and the rice is saleable on the open market, 'Legal Experts' (read Ruling Elite) will decide if the government can sign a long term contract with China. Jealousy of the farmers will probably mean they wont allow it. They'd rather see the government embarrassed by stockpiles that were caused by their own insistence on a strong baht!

Issan is booming --you said, WHERE ?? Much of the money has filtered down to the farmer which farmer, certainly not the little farm man that voted for PTP.

Maybe you are getting mixed up with the giant farmer that has-the big business ones that have benefitted along with the other pilferers.

Isaan is booming everywhere.

Isaan now has the highest GDP growth in the whole of Thailand. Land prices and house prices are rising fastest in Isaan.

Why do you think the Bangkok elite are jealous ?

This is not a rice scam, it is a rice subsidy. Channeling money to the poor by way of giving them a higher price for their rice. All very simple and subsidies are not illegal. Most governments all over the world use subsidies for various things to keep the masses happy where needed.

Well the Bangkok Shutdown has been a total and utter failure, a real big flop, of such magnitude to make a normal flop look small.

However this also means the militant entities will step up to the plate now.

In my opinion the PDRC will happily state that other parties pushing violence are nothing to do with them to try to distance themselves from what is ahead.

Get ready for airport shut down perhaps, this time perhaps via Aerothai. If it happens Suthep and the PDRC will sit their smirking in my opinion whilst stating its nothing to do them them, ha ha ha.

They are getting more and more desperate and will resort to desperate measures to force a coup, the question is how much longer will the, in my opinion, rather dumb pawns in most cases following Suthep continue to allow themselves to be used as pawns under the alleged reform banner, when in fact there are much darker forces at work for much darker reasons than the headlined and trumpeted political and police reforms.

Just my opinion on certain things.