The week that was in Thailand news: Well, well, well....has happiness been returned to the people at last?

 

 

The fallout from the election result - or what seems to be the election result - dominated the week's news. As predicted  political maneuvering was to the fore with some sketchy lines drawn in the sand. While the ballot papers could not baldly state: Do you want the military to continue or not? that is just where the main line is now drawn.

 

You either subscribe to the men in khaki underpants or you don't. Simple - and a whole lot simpler than Brexit!

 

Sudarat Keyuraphan of Pheu Thai, the party who gained the most votes, cobbled together a coalition of virtually everyone except the Democrats who failed so abysmally at the ballot box. Her message was clear - join us if you are opposed to the junta. She needed as many seats as she could muster claiming midweek that she had reached 255.

 

Mrs May in Whitehall could have done with her help....

 

Thailand more than ever is ranging up against the military and their supporters. But there is a sense of foreboding in the air and Rooster is hardly alone in thinking this will not end well. The junta's political arm said wait until May which was a euphemism directed at the usurpers along the lines of "not on your nelly". 

 

Wednesday's hard hitting and surprising editorial from The Nation calling for Prayut to withdraw from politics said that Thailand had had enough of the bullet and now wanted to abide by the ballot. The editorial was amazing stuff but I suspect that both the writer and the editor who allowed it felt emboldened by the shift in the political landscape that was soon confirmed by Sudarat's coalition press conference. 

 

My post of the week relates to the election and was a response to those who claimed that billionaire and heartthrob of the young Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit had sold out to Pheu Thai. The Future Forward's support for Sudarat and co. inspired GarryP to write. It is not my usual appreciation of a pithy quip but something more lengthy and thoughtful befitting a citizen who has been here decades and knows what he's talking about:

 

"I am at a loss to understand why so many people are surprised that FFP joined up with PTP. They both have policies to downsize and reduce spending on the military. They have both made it clear they could not support Prayuth as the PM.

 

 They also have some other similar policies. And just because some believe that PT is the most corrupt party ever (the junta actually leaves PT in the dust on the corruption scale), does not make those other parties joining in the coalition (if it succeeds) corrupt too. In fact, they would probably be in a position to increase oversight over what is happening in the government. 

 

GarryP continued:

 

"Also, of the people who voted FFP who I have spoken too, not one of them believes it wrong to join up with PT to form the government.  It seems it is mainly the holier than thou foreign crowd who have problems with it".  

 

Certainly that foreign crowd who love to think they can figure out Thai politics were forced to reassess their views as once again the political landscape was anything but clear. I am the first to admit I really don't know how this will pan out except to say that I remember what happened in 1992 when the military tried to cling on to power. We ended up cowering in a curfew as unruly mobs and people with high power rifles toured the streets.

 

But it was not all doom and gloom and uncertainty. Earlier in the week came the amusing and very welcome news that Uncle Big Too's last Friday sermon was to be on the 29th. It was clear - as several on the forum pointed out - that this announcement was greeted with great relief. Happiness was finally, and five years after time, being returned to the people by Prayut NOT doing something. We will now be able to enjoy coronation news on a Friday, a distinct improvement.

 

Doing his best to upstage the politicians was surely someone who will have his name on a ballot paper one day - His Omnipresence Lt-Gen Surachate Hakparn. Big Joke - not exactly a shrinking violet in the best of weeks - was everywhere. Up he popped to rap the knuckles of people who shared "fake news" stories critical of the Election Commission. There he was telling everyone why e-cigarettes are so demonic. 

 

And there was more, much more. He seemed to have the Canadian authorities eating out of his hand as he prepared to bring a South African murderer of a Kanchanaburi jeweler back to Krung Thep to face the music. Then there he was banging up more Nigerian romance scammers and their Thai accomplices. 

 

He even had time to remember that he had a small job as chief of Immigration! Wednesday saw him all across the media talking about the proposed changes to the 1979 Immigration Act that have been considered by his BFF and DPM Prawit Wongsuwan.  With a straight face and lots of "khraps" BJ promised things would be easier and faster! 

 

The forum faithful, tiring of BJ and his vinyl charts depicting common crime, gave the Lt-Gen a roasting for not batting on their side when it came to their rights in Thailand (as if they had any!). The reality was there was no new immigration news but when has that stood in the way of a good bar stool bashing!

 

The Immigration changes feature funky new stamps - one resembling a billowing flag welcomes you in and when leaving Thailand you get a lovely one in the shape of an ear of rice. A hand waving "bye-bye" might have been better for the latter. 

 

BJ also managed to get in his two-penneth about the real reason for the necessary changes - those nasty black people, oh, and seeing as it was fresh in his mind...South Africans. He clearly subscribes to the Spitting Image view that, no, he's never met a nice one. 

 

Other stories this week had the forum faithful frothing indignantly at the mouth.  A police volunteer in Pattaya swiped out with a club at a family on a motorbike doubling back to avoid a checkpoint. He hit a two year old boy who was sitting between mum and dad severely injuring him. Posters who believed he would never be prosecuted were proved wrong yet again though whether he will just face a wounding charge or attempted murder remains to be seen. 

 

Either way he was bailed for 10,000 baht as everyone on the force, at least, remained tight-lipped. 

 

Those of us who ride bikes in the kingdom can tell stories about police checkpoints that would make your short and curlies straighten. In the old days my general policy was to pretend to slow down and stop then rev off. The raison-d'etre being that their presence by the side of the road was illegal so why shouldn't I follow suit. This was not altogether wise - on one occasion the first Mrs Rooster and I nearly succumbed to a swipe from a very long torch while speeding through. 

 

Fortunately police checkpoints in Bangkok these days are virtually non-existent on the main roads. A few persist down the side streets where rogues continue their insidious extraction methods but by and large us bikers can pretty much do as we please so long as we don't draw attention to ourselves. 

 

Further outrage came from the irate netizens of TV over the story of Lance Whitmore who was sentenced to 50 years in jail four years ago for having a few Ecstasy pills. Ex-soldier Lance, or Lance Corporal Lance as one forum wag put it,  is being repatriated to the UK to see out his sentence that could be as little as ten years more. People have got a point when they complain about the disparity between sentences such as this and the relative leniency shown to people who assault and murder.

 

Many laws are being updated in Thailand to meet the needs of a changing criminal landscape in the online era but much more needs to be done. Apropos - and I make no excuse for referring to Lt-Gen Surachate yet again - one news source actually called these days the "Big Joke Era". 

 

Makes a change from the dinosaurs of the Jurassic I suppose, no offence Uncle P. 

 

And so to this week's Rooster Awards. The "Double Entendre" award sponsored by Finbarr Saunders goes to Air Asia for their billboard in Brisbane advertising that one could "Get Off in Thailand". 

 

Another wag claimed a further bit of airline advertising had said: "Cheap enough to say, Phuket I'll go!"

 

Mispronouncing Phuket has been something of a tabloid staple over the years; when one UK princess was engaging in some right royal rumpty-tumpty on a yacht many years ago "The Sun" revealed it "had happened off Phuket (pronounced fuk-et)".

 

However, my favorite mispronouncing story is the British comedian who asked a contestant on a UK game show, in all seriousness, "What is the capital of Thighland?". Not much you can say to that as Bang Cock might be seen as a facetious answer. 

 

The "Pull The Other One (It's Got Bells On It)" award goes to the folks at the British Embassy in Bangkok and their pay masters at the Foreign Office. Apparently the 426 million sobs they garnered from the sale of the embassy will be spent on their "World Class Diplomacy". World class cheek more like. 

 

"Best T-Shirt" of the week had to go to the Nigerian romance scammer who appeared before the cops at the tech division in Bangkok with "I HATE EXPLAINING SH*T" written on his back. No one in the Thai press mentioned it though Rooster, translating the story, couldn't resist making that my angle. One suspects that the Thai newshounds might have fed that idiomatic sentence into Thai Google Translate and got more gobbledygook than usual. 

 

Finally it's that time of the year again when the Bangkok International Motor Show comes to Impact at Muang Thong Thani. Expect far more stories about the antics of the various genders of "pretties" than specifications of new super cars.

 

Rooster has to be careful when sneaking out to admire the scenery at the car shows so I usually come up with a cunning cover story to satisfy Mrs Rooster. "I'm off to Patpong", being my favorite. 

 

Being a younger "model" Mrs R has barely heard of it, let alone been there.

 

Rooster

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-03-30

An interesting read as always...

 

I couldn't agree more about Mr (Garry) P's post being one of the wisest of the week.

 

The simple fact is that while the FFP might (er... or might not) have a brilliant future ahead of it, the certainty remains that at the moment they don't really know what they are doing and, in a moment of wisdom, they have joined with those who can teach them. The great unknown is whether they will learn the good things while avoiding the bad things but, being the eternal optimist, I will hope and assume that they'll get it right. 

 

And, a final note; Mr R notes the numbers 1,9,9,2. Those particular numbers have been floating around my brain as well. Nuff' said at the moment.

 

Interesting times...

 

Same same, different day, Junta still rules at the end of the day, same same constitution in their favor until it is changed, but to be able to do that, they need to win a lot of seats, and we all know that ain't going to happen.

 

Why would anyone ever read a post like this after it very quickly can be seen to be factually wrong,  it says Pheu Thai won the most votes. !   At the moment it seems Pheu Thai has won the most seats, but it has not won "the popular vote"

 

BBC News states "On Thursday, the Election Commission (EC) released the final vote count, showing the pro-military party had won the popular vote."

 

Go, suck. This post, wrong at the start, should never have been allowed. 

Quote

 

 

 

 #4

Posted 55 minutes ago

 

Why would anyone ever read a post like this after it very quickly can be seen to be factually wrong,  it says Pheu Thai won the most votes. !   At the moment it seems Pheu Thai has won the most seats, but it has not won "the popular vote"

 

BBC News states "On Thursday, the Election Commission (EC) released the final vote count, showing the pro-military party had won the popular vote."

 

Go, suck. This post, wrong at the start, should never have been allowed. 

Wrong. There can be no greater proof that Prayut's stooges didn't win the popular vote than the farcical EC saying they did.

Edited March 31, 20197 yr by kalasiner
Correction

We all know how all this is going to end. As we can see the Uncle P doesn’t want to leave and ignore what others are sayinI, he tries to twist and says  he knows  everything and then he knows what he's doing. Basically he's making Thailand more like North Korea. Recently he approves the purchase of Chinese-made tanks that cost 2 billion proposed by Prawit saying buying from western countries are more expensive than China. Is it necessary for tourism country like Thailand? So they are spending on military equipment rather than developing country for those poor in rural areas. Just imagine, what will happen if the opposite party takes over? They are going to lose all their plans.So he wants to keep everyone under martial law. Wait and see what will come at the end.

Can’t see Prayut letting go of the reins. He’ll let the election results simmer for a while trying his hardest to provoke an air of inreconcilable differences between the parties and then declare martial law and reinstate himself under Section 44. 

Meet the new boss, same (exactly) as the old boss. 

 

......or perhaps he will just roll over and let everyone scratch his belly. 

 

Sorry I was off with the fairies. 

On ‎3‎/‎31‎/‎2019 at 9:31 AM, Zack61 said:

then declare martial law and reinstate himself under Section 44. 

Also known as SSDD.

I am really amazed that the military did not think that the Thai people were unhappy with their rule!  I am also amazed that PM Prayuth thought that he would be the PM under the new government.

 

Governments across the world must always be aware that the people want their freedom and their right to rule themselves. No matter how good or bad the government, people want their own!.