jayboy

Too bad free elections have never been held in Thailand in it's history.

You say that but it is with respect a rather ignorant remark. Of course there have always been abuses, but there have been several occasions when independent observers have confirmed the election outcome was a fair one and reflected the popular will.

In a nutshell

Apisit- Thai people, please give me more time to show I and the Democrats can run the country well, we've implemented farming, educational and anti-loan shark policies the first year, now we want land tax reform and a farmers council. We know we sneaked into power in a dodgy way but our achievements will nullify all that.

Thaksin- No, you're doing a good job and must be stopped now. No.no, no I'll rephrase that.

I mean you must be stopped because you did not come directly from an election, it's not true democracy, god bless her soul.

I actually agree with your nutshell summary.None of that alters the fact however that Abhisit needs in the reasonably near future to renew his legitimacy through fair elections.I don't think it's helpful to set deadlines and it's basically Abhisit's call but I would have thought within a year or so.It goes without saying the elections must be transparent both in terms of politicians actions and the military keeping their noses out of it.

Jayboy, none of this is possible. Elections won't be transparent to the extent they can be held without transparency and the military will be involved. Wassana had a good article (as she normally does) in today's BP about the military's involvement and what we can expect this year. It's not going to be pretty.

I fear you are right.I suspect also with the rise of China and its successful non-democratic political model the attachment to democracy among those that matter in Thailand is often very fragile.

The reds don't want free and fair elections, lol. They want 'same same' elections. Regardless of the fact that the past two elections have resulted in their party (TRT and then PPP) getting dissolved for election fraud (its really just semantics, right?)

The answer's the same.Free elections need to be held and the judgement of the Thai people respected.

.... how else but by a coup could the red generals get their guy reinstalled?

Through fair elections Einstein.The likes of Anupong came to prominence through a military coup and contempt for democracy.

In a nutshell

Apisit- Thai people, please give me more time to show I and the Democrats can run the country well, we've implemented farming, educational and anti-loan shark policies the first year, now we want land tax reform and a farmers council. We know we sneaked into power in a dodgy way but our achievements will nullify all that.

Thaksin- No, you're doing a good job and must be stopped now. No.no, no I'll rephrase that.

I mean you must be stopped because you did not come directly from an election, it's not true democracy, god bless her soul.

I actually agree with your nutshell summary.None of that alters the fact however that Abhisit needs in the reasonably near future to renew his legitimacy through fair elections.I don't think it's helpful to set deadlines and it's basically Abhisit's call but I would have thought within a year or so.It goes without saying the elections must be transparent both in terms of politicians actions and the military keeping their noses out of it.

Despite the weaknesses and shortcomings of Abhisit as a PM, many people whether Thai or farang just don't expect the same or similar negatives of him that we got from Thaksin 2001 into 2006 and which we since have been getting from him in spades. Abhisit and the Dems are establishment elite types who are rooted in the 1932 origins of Thai democracy. They, like all the political groupings, simply want their time in power, their slice of the pie, and to basically continue to go with the flow domestically and internationally/globally.

Conversely and from the outset, Thaksin and his group set out to remake Thailand so a new guy would bestride the country from atop a new pinnacle of political power, to include creation of a new corporate domestic empire of Thaksin-Thailand Inc, and who would become a regional leader during a transformational time when regional geographic groups are being accepted as necessary due to evolving economics both domestically and globally, with a concomitant expanding reach of political power and influence for its leaders.

Thaksin clashed with the steady as we go elites who haven't any such radically different ego and appetite for so much in riches and political power. A major difference is that to achieve his ends Thaksin had to incorporate the dispossed rural agrarian poor into his planned journey, but only because they were the one segment of the population which was ripe for the pickings during the new age of the mobile phone, slick new motorcycles, electronic gadgets of all make and manner, color/cable tv etc etc.

Abhisit and the ordinary sociopolitical groupings would plod along in the usual ways with democracy and economic development in Thailand plodding along with them. Thaksin was eviscerating democracy, undermining traditional institutions and morphing the country's economy into new classes of the super-super rich who by the way would provide a new standard of living for the peasantry, a new standard of living however that is dependent on handouts and giveaways by the ever paternalistic and otherwise self serving new political elite.

Thaksin in his greed and meglomania simply took on too much.

Thaksin was right and his early moves were on the right lines.Thailand does need to be remade but his own greed and meglomania got in the way, a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions.As far as Thaksin's support for the rural majority is concerned your remarks reflect bile and ignorance.The reality is that he was just a supreme politician and saw how mobilising the rural majority would support his political platform.That's what democratic politicians do whether Sarkozy, Obama or Blair.The steady as you go elites as you describe them are not less greedy than Thaksin, just less competent and more reliant on brute force.I agree Thaksin took on too much but if you just ascribe his motives to personal aggrandisement you completely miss out on the big picture.I am afraid very few of you post indicate a rounded comprehension.It can't be very intellectually or morally satisfying to be a standard bearer for the gruesome collection of soldiers, monopolist capitalists and fading aristocrats that dominate Thailand now.Their marginalisation is of course not an "if" but a "when" question.Abhisit could be the great catalyst but does he have what it takes, not least to cut the military interest down to size?

Yes it will be a very long wait… but

The long wait doesn't bother me actually (yet… I bet I will feel very different about the whole thing in a couple of years time). I mainly did this to ensure that I will not be parted from my family in case I lose my job and "under consideration" does that as well as the actual PR. Don't have to leave the country within midnight the same day if I lose my job any longer. – If I understand it correctly, please let me know if I have missed something.

You may have missed something.My lawyers advised that a PR approval based on work is specifically related to the employment details submitted to Immigration.If you changed employment while the application was under consideration the new details can be submitted and that shouldn't be a problem as long as the new job was broadly in line with the old one.If you lost your job and didn't become re-employed before the approval then the application is null and void.Whether you advise Immigration is up to you but clearly there is a risk (and possibly a rather nasty one) if it's discovered you have not been honest about your position.This could happen if you were for example asked to provide additional info such as latest tax payment receipts.Having said that if you've been positively signed off by Immigration (i.e no more information required) and are waiting for Ministry of Interior approval it's possibly a risk worth taking.

Being Thailand it must be said, in the event you are without employment or approved employment, that it's helpful not to have local enemies at your old employer who are aware you are applying for PR!

Or, perhaps you were referring to the extremely professional regiment who peacefully, miraculously, gratefully saved Bangkok and poor people in Din Daeng from being burnt down and blown up by Mr Thaksin's reds last April?

This would make a certain amount of sense if one lived in an alternative time stream.But in the real world it's just comical hyperbole.On a serious point although in fact there was no clash between demonstrators and army in April, it is clear that elites the world over can usually rely on army units to crush popular dissent.

Yes the Thai military is overbearing and at times overactive but Thailand over the long term has both bananas and democracy. Given time it will have more of the latter, especially if the banana Himself finally at long last gets out of the way.

Please do not refer to General Prem in that disrespectful way, and the choice of fruit makes it that much worse.

Ok some allege he may have interfered with democratic politics and supported an illegal coup but on the other hand he is a respected statesman.Please no more then of this kind of scurrilous talk and remember Khun Prem's outstanding service to the nation..

I don't think anyone consider's Thailand to have been an Axis power. More to the point, their leaders were well aware they could not stand up to the Japanese militarily, and wanted to protect their country as best they could. No sense fighting a war that was lost before it started. The reason the US did not consider Thailand to be "at war" was the result of a canny Thai amabassador, who did not deliever Thailand's "Declaration of War" to the US.

Thailand declared war and therefore was a member of the axis powers. Their reason for doing so has been pointed out by other posters - they thought Japan would win. The war was certainly not lost before it started. Have you not read how the war developed. At the point when Thailand declared war no-one was certian of the outcome. Germany and Japan looked like winning. The turning point came much later.

America did accept that Thailand was a member of the axis powers, what it did not accept was that there should be reparations. If you look at the names on the headstones of war cemeteries in Kanchanaburi you will note the nationalities of those who died. Then you can see why it was not an American convern.

The fact that the US ambassador did not originally deliver the declaration of war is irrelevant. In international law a declaration is made when an aggressive nation makes the declaration. It does not have to be delivered.

To put this in perspective, France was overrun by Germany and large parts governed by Vichy but it never declared war. The legal government - in exile - under de Gaulle was an ally. You need to consider too the level of organised resistance put up by the respective nations.

This is a very accurate and admirably concise summary of the position, caf.

My purpose here is to draw attention to RustyYellowDodge's original post because it neatly encapsulates the version of history accepted by many Thais and taught in schools.In brief it is a slovenly

complacent and dishonest version of events compounded by an almost complete lack of intellectual curiosity.Even that hoary old canard about Seni Pramoj refusing to deliver the formal declaration of war is repeated.To be fair many nations fail to face up to their past -Japan, Russia and China all coming to mind and Thailand is very far from being the worst offender.Also in Thailand's case the lessons of history are just lack of principle and excessive self regard, not open criminality as in the three examples I mentioned.Overall then Thailand doesn't have too much to agonise over - not that there's any prospect of even limited introspection on past errors!

[ Just yesterday the owner of the language school where I worked as director of the department of foreign services asked me during our lunch together why the (Sino-Thai) Thaksin was getting such a bad deal in Thailand. I was pleased to advise her.

I hope you told her this was just one view and that there was plenty of evidence most Thais thought otherwise.That would require a degree of honesty which I don't know if you possess or not.

Don't be silly about Abhisit's path to power by the way.Of course he didn't organise it but the argument I assume you're alluding to goes that a safe candidate acceptable to the elite was railroaded to power through an ilegal coup, a rigged constitution, a directed judiciary and cynical back door deals.Above all the Thai people were denied a final voice in those who govern them - for the time being.

Oh wait, he came to power thanks to the military coup.

And the perpetrators of the coup awarded themselves a full amnesty immediately afterwards.

Sorry dude,

but swept off my bike in a flash flood in meter deep fast running water

caused by infrastructure breakdown is not Munchausian in any degree.

It was scary as hel_l and left me angry about the cause ever since.

Ask anyone who was there about the winter floods on Samui and Surat Thani 2005-6...

You should get Terry Gilliam to direct this comical scene as he has solid Munchausean experience..As a matter of interest what was the gap in time between the TRT defeat in your area and the Animatic swept off his bike and out to sea shock horror.You seem like an educated man and therefore will understand the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.Perhaps the TRT rogues sabotaged the bicycling infrastructure or is Thaksin responsible for global warming among his other misdemeanours?

Of course on the main point of Thaksin's "alleged" overall national mandate nothing from you but silence.

Buying a mandate is not the same as earning one.

Or acting for all citizens, above and beyond the demographic limits of an alleged mandate.

If in the first sentence you are saying that Thaksin's mandate wasn't genuine (just vote buying on a massive scale) you have just lost complete credibility.Thaksin was and probably is still the most popular Thai politician, and therein lies the problem.

As to the second sentence you have a point.Thaksin made some despicable comments when PM on "if you aren't with us you're against us" lines with the clear suggestion that state funds would be withheld from unfriendly areas, ie the South.On the other hand bear in mind the Bangkok middle class who generally hate Thaksin have for decades had more than their fair share of resources.

Not just suggestions but facts.

My landlord in 2005 was at a Samui meeting were to two losing TRT candiates came in and said;

I paraphrase:

'Well we lost, and the boss cut your infrastructure funds by 80%,

should have voted TRT.' and left laughing.

Shortly there after there was 18 days of rain and the island infrastructure was overwhelmed,

I personally almost drowned, because of this. and many died in Surat thani flooding.

Finally a emergency was declared and funds were shamed into being sent out for big pumps and hoses.

But not before it had been a critical need for some time.

This was the reality and not hyperbole.

His own TRT minions confirmed it in public.

I never want to see the likes of Thaksin in office again.

Not just his alleged mandate, but ALL of Thailand must be given equal aid and governance.

Do read my posts more carefully.I actually agreed with you that Thaksin discriminated against regions where he didn't have support (though your "nearly drowning" anecdote "shortly thereafter" has a certain Munchausen flavour to it).

On the critical point of Thaksin's overall national mandate all you can feebly rejoinder with is "alleged".

Buying a mandate is not the same as earning one.

Or acting for all citizens, above and beyond the demographic limits of an alleged mandate.

If in the first sentence you are saying that Thaksin's mandate wasn't genuine (just vote buying on a massive scale) you have just lost complete credibility.Thaksin was and probably is still the most popular Thai politician, and therein lies the problem.

As to the second sentence you have a point.Thaksin made some despicable comments when PM on "if you aren't with us you're against us" lines with the clear suggestion that state funds would be withheld from unfriendly areas, ie the South.On the other hand bear in mind the Bangkok middle class who generally hate Thaksin have for decades had more than their fair share of resources.

The audience and it's significance I am referring to was big, very big - Suchinda did apologize!

And since hasn't mad the slightest move to force an amnesty, a further pardon of the crime he committed

and never ever threatened the country and it's institutions - that is certainly a BIG difference!

Which a certain individual expects to be the other way around and is trying even to force it to get it his way!

That is the HUGE difference - agreed - even seconded!

I'm not entirely sure what point you're making here other than comparing the pardon process for Suchinda and (in his dreams) Thaksin.I'm not sure that's the most interesting or significant aspect of all this but I don't take exception to the detail you provide on this matter.I have already explained why Thaksin is a much more threatening figure to the elite.As to the famous audience all I can say again is that there are different interpretations of its significance.You may say it's all in my head but those who have followed contemporary Thai history will know that isn't the case.

Interesting Suchinda has always been very very defensive of Thaksin and his various governments until now. Maybe it comes down to the old class 5 hatred of Chavalit. They had the last laugh in 1997 wonder if they will again. Thaksin and Suchinda have always had good history until now.

Both make the flesh creep but there's a long tradition in Thailand of the elite forgiving the unforgiveable, often after a period of exile whether external or (metaphorically) internal.It's always interesting to speculate what prompts the exceptions to this policy.In Thaksin's case I assume it's because he represents a threat, not so much in himself -a declining influence in my view- but for what he has unleashed in popular politics.Suchinda in contrast, except in the minds of the brainwashed, is incomparably a greater criminal than Thaksin but doesn't represent any kind of threat.Indeed in some ways his current high status reflects the suspicion he was the elite's good and faithful servant who most regrettably was forced by events to pull out of his grisly mission before it was satisfactorily completed.

I wonder how he defines "traitor".Would it for example include a general who ordered the mowing down of scores of innocent Thai civilians?

It beggars belief that this disgusting old murderer, with crimes that dwarf those of Thaksin, still has a respected position in Thai society but he does.Forum rules preclude detailed discussion.

So I ask again, what should happen to Generals that call for a coup?

They should be ignored, told to shut the hel_l up and concentrate on their main line of business, i.e making money off the backs of the Thai people

So if a general says there wont be a coup, they should be fired...but if a general calls out for a coup, they should merely be ignored and told to shut up?

Some priorities you have here...

In both instances they should be ignored (and privately told by the civil authorities to pipe down.)

...and what would happen to the generals calling for a coup?

Exactly.

All Anupong said, is that

he is looking to prevent the opposition from even starting off a coup attempt.

Not in any way does this say he is holding back a coup from his side,

which seems to be the implication by some here.

The Nation reports contradicts you.Whether however he undertakes not to launch a coup or prevent someone else doing so it is really inappropriate for him to comment.Some of these generals should learn to keep their mouths shut.

Thaksins 'family-blood in general shape' called for a coup.

So I ask again, what should happen to Generals that call for a coup?

They should be ignored, told to shut the hel_l up and concentrate on their main line of business, i.e making money off the backs of the Thai people

Could you imagine the Army Chief of Staff in the USA calmly announcing this for the new year? He'd be sacked before the New Year arrived! Such is the power and influence of this country's military. Rather arrogant and brazen.

Of course Thailand and the US have different backgrounds but toptuan's point is valid nonetheless.Just because it doesn't cause particular surprise Anupong's comment is a disgrace and in an ideal world he would perhaps not be sacked but sharply reprimanded.

...and what would happen to the generals calling for a coup?

Exactly.

All Anupong said, is that

he is looking to prevent the opposition from even starting off a coup attempt.

Not in any way does this say he is holding back a coup from his side,

which seems to be the implication by some here.

The Nation reports contradicts you.Whether however he undertakes not to launch a coup or prevent someone else doing so it is really inappropriate for him to comment.Some of these generals should learn to keep their mouths shut.

Khun Devakula is one of the better Thai minds for sure,

In the sense that Pee Wee Herman is one of the better American minds (for sure). I see what you mean.

Could you imagine the Army Chief of Staff in the USA calmly announcing this for the new year? He'd be sacked before the New Year arrived! Such is the power and influence of this country's military. Rather arrogant and brazen.

Quite, would someone remind General Anupong who pays his salary and who works for who, I think he seems to have forgotten.

If the US had had 18 military coups previously then their Generals might also have made such announcements.

Sometimes you really are comparing oranges and apples.

This is more in line with a presidents promise to reduce engagements overseas only to increase it with another 30 000 troops in time for Christmas...

Of course Thailand and the US have different backgrounds but toptuan's point is valid nonetheless.Just because it doesn't cause particular surprise Anupong's comment is a disgrace and in an ideal world he would perhaps not be sacked but sharply reprimanded.

I think few at this point would dispute that "the" military is in fact 350,000 or so soldiers, sailors, air personnel in uniform and under the flag but subdivided sociopolitically into competing camps.

One camp consists of traditional loyalists, another follows the money especially closely and other camps range from the indifferent to the weathermen who watch which way the wind blows.

While I agree the military is divided I would suggest that what actually drives the so called traditional loyalists is in fact the prospect of their snouts being dislodged from the money trough (or having to share it) with other questing snouts.

Anudit, who chairs the party's anti-graft committee."

In other words the P.T. get something to smear on anyone in the government committee,

and this is just another grasping at straws.

As LG, said this guy Korn is loaded from his own past successful international businesses,

and plane tickets are nothing to him at his level.

I agree with you.In this case it's a non story.Korn is legitimately very wealthy and it's not in his character to freeload anyway.Would that others were like him.