We need those election monitors [Editorial]

[webfact]

We need those election monitors

By The Nation

 

 

Breaking with accepted tradition, the foreign minister says foreign experts are unwelcome on polling day. He’s wrong
 

Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai pretends that Thailand has nothing to hide and, since he sees no overt problems with our political system, he regards the idea of having foreign observers monitor the upcoming general election as “inauspicious”.

 

We have to wonder where Don has been for the past 14 years. Thailand remains gripped in a clamp of social and political crises with the end nowhere in sight. Don, however, apparently equates the absence of street violence and colour-coded politics with peace and stability.

 

The military junta did indeed get Thais to stop bashing each other over the head, but it has failed in four and a half years to move us even a step closer to reconciliation, much less resolve the political dilemma.

 

Don told reporters last week that the elections need no foreign witnesses helping to assure fairness because Thailand is a dignified country. We have “no problems” that might warrant their presence, he said.

 

Yet there is nothing dignified in forestalling democracy and seizing power by the gun. Nor is dignity restored by deigning to acknowledge, as the foreign minister did, that this government’s mandate rests on a coup d’etat – a blow against the state, to translate the French, the overthrow of a sitting government.

 

It was a democratically elected government that was overthrown in 2014 and another that fell to the generals in 2006. The Yingluck Shinawatra administration was problematic, divisive, incompetent and corrupt, but it could have been ousted by the same legal mechanism that put it in place – a general election.

 

Modern Thai history, though, demonstrates repeatedly that the military believes it has a moral obligation to “rescue” the citizenry in times of ideological turmoil and is the sole agency that can do so. The generals with their tanks and guns do not admire democracy and have no patience for elections. 

 

Don’s spin on the 2014 coup was that, unlike military seizures in other countries, the Thai junta – the National Council for Peace and Order – has not curbed rights and freedoms to the point where the majority of citizens were affected.

 

There is truth in that statement, but it hardly negates the need for the international community to keep a close watch on the coming election. Our elections in 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2011 were observed by the Asian Network for Free Elections and no one found it undignified or “inauspicious”.

 

Independent election monitors are needed because there are indications the junta is tilting the playing field in its favour and because lower-income Thais are prone to selling their votes for money, as happened most notoriously in 2001. Party bagmen making the nocturnal rounds of upcountry villages triggered a phenomenon subsequently called “the night of the howling dogs”. There have been many more such nights since.

 

While as yet there have been no reports of howling dogs this year, the inescapable facts are that the junta-led government rules without popular mandate, basically willed a pro-military constitution through a referendum, and has imposed grievous restrictions on political discourse.

 

It thus makes perfectly dignified, auspicious sense that the return of power to the people, as the general ostensibly promise it will be, is observed by outsiders in the hope that the transition is as transparent as possible.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30357954

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-11-06

[Samui Bodoh]

"...We need those election monitors..."

 

Yes, you do.

 

Very, very, very badly.

 

End of discussion.

 

 

[Odysseus123]

"foreign experts are unwelcome.."

 

Oh..just on polling day.

[zzaa09]

1 hour ago, Odysseus123 said:

"foreign experts are unwelcome.."

 

Oh..just on polling day.

Just as easy to slip a bribe. 

If the price is right - no pompem.

[YetAnother]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Don told reporters last week that the elections need no foreign witnesses helping to assure fairness because Thailand is a dignified country. We have “no problems” that might warrant their presence, he said

Not the first time he has said something foolish; I see little dignity and lots of problems

[ChrisY1]

Not going to happen......military governments don't like election snoopers.....!

[Thailand]

Pointless anyway, the fix is in, monitoring the voting will be a waste of time.

[seajae]

definitely need the election to be watched by neutral observers, whether or not it happens is up in the air because interested parties dont want anyone seeing what they are going to do to ensure they win. I doubt very much there will be a free and fair election in this country ever

[Srikcir]

Prayut's concession to foreign election monitors might be those from Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and China.

After all, it's about national dignity and dignity of those four countries would be equals in regard to Thailand's 2019 general election.

[cmsally]

Crikey, someone at the Nation seems to have woken up lately.

[Gudge]

Doesn't matter what happens or who is elected there will still be ex pats on here whining and bitching about it. Sad to say but the military had to step in when they did as the previous government was not going to go away and riots, killings, suicides and no go zones were an everyday occurance. Now there is none of that BS going on. Even if Mother Teresa was elected there would be ex pats on here complaining about fixed elections and military intervention because there personal choice was not elected. People who have no say seem to have a lot to say and whine about.

[baboon]

45 minutes ago, Gudge said:

Doesn't matter what happens or who is elected there will still be ex pats on here whining and bitching about it. Sad to say but the military had to step in when they did as the previous government was not going to go away and riots, killings, suicides and no go zones were an everyday occurance. Now there is none of that BS going on. Even if Mother Teresa was elected there would be ex pats on here complaining about fixed elections and military intervention because there personal choice was not elected. People who have no say seem to have a lot to say and whine about.

Wow. Still the fanbois try to sell the notion that Thailand was akin to Rwanda in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Makes you wonder how it was that so many of us survived all those commonplace riots and mass killings on every corner...

Edited November 6, 2018 by baboon

[yellowboat]

Dignity comes from having nothing to hide.  Not opposite way around.  Don years at his post has been trying to put a dignified spin on the less than nimble minds in green running the country.  He probably just wants to keep his job next year.  They all do.  They want what is best for their egos, not the country.

[DM07]

So?

Then you get them!

Elections -if they happen- will go ahead!

Junta will cheat!

Observers point it out!

Junta denies it!

Life will go on, in Thailand!

That will just the way, it happens!

Observers or not!

[zzaa09]

Too many are easily manipulated and lulled into a slumbered state.

 

So it goes.

[rosst]

17 hours ago, Gudge said:

Doesn't matter what happens or who is elected there will still be ex pats on here whining and bitching about it. Sad to say but the military had to step in when they did as the previous government was not going to go away and riots, killings, suicides and no go zones were an everyday occurance. Now there is none of that BS going on. Even if Mother Teresa was elected there would be ex pats on here complaining about fixed elections and military intervention because there personal choice was not elected. People who have no say seem to have a lot to say and whine about.

I disagree, I was thinking that the Yingluck government was doomed and I was looking forward to the change.