Thailand’s General Election: Can the Winner Really Take All?

[heybruce]

2 hours ago, sidneybear said:

Most countries practice autocracy and repression these days, in one way or another, so it's a bit unfair to single out Thailand. 

This is the Thailand forum.  Did you forget?

[heybruce]

2 hours ago, sidneybear said:

The young will be sent for "attitude adjustment" in army camps, or forcefully cleared from the streets, just like every time before. It's a ritual that goes back many decades. Maybe it's not a bad thing - who wants Thailand to be like the West? People move to Thailand because it's different, right? 

Why not have an election and let the majority of Thai people decide what they want for their country?

 

Oh wait, you don't like that.  It appears you're OK with  brutal repression to prevent it.

[hotandsticky]

12 hours ago, Enoon said:

 

Always read the small print:

 

"Past product performance is not a guarantee of future returns"

 

 

Absolutely.

 

 

But, past performance still remains the best indicator of what is likely happen in the future.

[zzaa09]

13 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Why not have an election and let the majority of Thai people decide what they want for their country?

 

Oh wait, you don't like that.  It appears you're OK with  brutal repression to prevent it.

Where do you witness brutal repression?

[Henryford]

17 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Which is totally wrong.

The party with the largest majority should elect it's own PM

Nothing to do with the rigged senate.

You think dictators care about what "should" happen?

[heybruce]

22 minutes ago, zzaa09 said:

Where do you witness brutal repression?

Read the post I replied to.

[NoshowJones]

3 hours ago, sidneybear said:

The young will be sent for "attitude adjustment" in army camps, or forcefully cleared from the streets, just like every time before. It's a ritual that goes back many decades. Maybe it's not a bad thing - who wants Thailand to be like the West? People move to Thailand because it's different, right? 

You have a point, but when you have soldiers probably with a similar IQ as the ordinary Thai person running the country, what happens? I don't know how long you have lived here, but I came here when there were proper politicians, with good education running the country, no forced 90 day reports like common criminals.

After 2014 "the coup"  which and leading up to the pandemic, hundreds of ex pats were leaving Thailand. Compare  the streets and entertainment places in Bangkok and Pattaya in 2014, then again in 2019 before the pandemic. 

"who wants Thailand to be like the west?"  despite an unelected caretaker government  running the country, the good still outweighs the bad compared to the UK.

[sidneybear]

1 hour ago, heybruce said:

Why not have an election and let the majority of Thai people decide what they want for their country?

 

Oh wait, you don't like that.  It appears you're OK with  brutal repression to prevent it.

All I'm doing is forecasting the future, based on countless past experiences. Keep dreaming if it makes you feel better. 

[sidneybear]

28 minutes ago, NoshowJones said:

I don't know how long you have lived here, but I came here when there were proper politicians, with good education running the country, no forced 90 day reports like common criminals

I first came when Prem was in charge. Some may say he wasn't too bad, but others would call him a military strongman. 

 

Who fits your definition of a proper politician? Thaksin jacked up the price of visas, and PR went up from 25k to 250k ....

[heybruce]

4 hours ago, sidneybear said:

The young will be sent for "attitude adjustment" in army camps, or forcefully cleared from the streets, just like every time before. It's a ritual that goes back many decades. Maybe it's not a bad thing - who wants Thailand to be like the West? People move to Thailand because it's different, right? 

 

5 minutes ago, sidneybear said:

All I'm doing is forecasting the future, based on countless past experiences. Keep dreaming if it makes you feel better. 

You didn't just forecast the future, you seemed to approve of it.

[MrMojoRisin]

23 minutes ago, sidneybear said:

All I'm doing is forecasting the future, based on countless past experiences. Keep dreaming if it makes you feel better. 

Kinda like choosing last weeks winning numbers when buying this weeks lottery ticket.

 

The only constant is change.

[MrMojoRisin]

20 minutes ago, sidneybear said:

I first came when Prem was in charge. Some may say he wasn't too bad, but others would call him a military strongman. 

 

Who fits your definition of a proper politician? Thaksin jacked up the price of visas, and PR went up from 25k to 250k ....

Would you prefer a Thailand with 25k PR and no 30 baht (universal) healthcare?

 

A proper politician is a politician who holds office because of the outcomes of free and fair elections.

[sidneybear]

43 minutes ago, heybruce said:

 

You didn't just forecast the future, you seemed to approve of it.

Well the status quo in Thailand really isn't that bad. It's much better than when marauding thugs were setting fire to department stores. 

[sidneybear]

23 minutes ago, MrMojoRisin said:

Would you prefer a Thailand with 25k PR and no 30 baht (universal) healthcare?

 

A proper politician is a politician who holds office because of the outcomes of free and fair elections.

All governments do good and bad things. All I really want is a peaceful society that values its culture and heritage. Oh wait, that's what we've got now, so why all this change for the sake of change? We came to Thailand because we preferred it to the places we left. Many people here seem to want to turn Thailand into the (pretty ghastly) western world.

[heybruce]

5 minutes ago, sidneybear said:

Well the status quo in Thailand really isn't that bad. It's much better than when marauding thugs were setting fire to department stores. 

You're referring to 2010, when the military was firing on protesters, the press, and a nurse trying to help the wounded.  Do you think that is an acceptable way to prevent democracy and elections?

[sidneybear]

31 minutes ago, MrMojoRisin said:

The only constant is change

We should at least make sure that changes are for the better, rejecting changes that aren't. Change for its own sake seems to lead to chaotic disintegration of societies, as we're seeing in the western world. 

[sidneybear]

1 minute ago, heybruce said:

You're referring to 2010, when the military was firing on protesters, the press, and a nurse trying to help the wounded.  Do you think that is an acceptable way to prevent democracy and elections?

Show me a country where democracy exists and I'll sell you a bridge. 

[zzaa09]

1 hour ago, NoshowJones said:

 I don't know how long you have lived here, but I came here when there were proper politicians, with good education running the country, no forced 90 day reports like common criminals.

 

......and when was this time?

[NoshowJones]

1 hour ago, sidneybear said:

I first came when Prem was in charge. Some may say he wasn't too bad, but others would call him a military strongman. 

 

Who fits your definition of a proper politician? Thaksin jacked up the price of visas, and PR went up from 25k to 250k ....

Are there any proper politicians? If you put Thailand and the UK together, All senior politicians are liars, thieves (in the case of the UK) and hypocrites, and that's not counting the soldiers, who are even worse. Unlike "proper" politicians, the soldiers don't even have the brains to cover up their corruption.

[sidneybear]

30 minutes ago, NoshowJones said:

Are there any proper politicians? If you put Thailand and the UK together, All senior politicians are liars, thieves (in the case of the UK) and hypocrites, and that's not counting the soldiers, who are even worse. Unlike "proper" politicians, the soldiers don't even have the brains to cover up their corruption.

So a proper politician is one who can cover up corruption better than an improper one. I can't argue with that ????

[heybruce]

1 hour ago, sidneybear said:

We should at least make sure that changes are for the better, rejecting changes that aren't. Change for its own sake seems to lead to chaotic disintegration of societies, as we're seeing in the western world. 

Of course when you post "We" you mean those people you agree with.  Your certainly don't mean "we, the majority of Thai voters".

[heybruce]

1 hour ago, sidneybear said:

Show me a country where democracy exists and I'll sell you a bridge. 

democracy

 

dĭ-mŏk′rə-sē

noun

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.

Will you accept the above definition of democracy?  Or will you insist on another one?

[MrMojoRisin]

3 hours ago, sidneybear said:

We should at least make sure that changes are for the better, rejecting changes that aren't. Change for its own sake seems to lead to chaotic disintegration of societies, as we're seeing in the western world. 

Do the peasants get a say in what change is acceptable or desirable?

[MrMojoRisin]

3 hours ago, sidneybear said:

All governments do good and bad things. All I really want is a peaceful society that values its culture and heritage. Oh wait, that's what we've got now, so why all this change for the sake of change? We came to Thailand because we preferred it to the places we left. Many people here seem to want to turn Thailand into the (pretty ghastly) western world.

So cast your vote for the Junta and don’t deny others the right to cast their vote as they wish.

Most votes wins, losers go away, refine their message, and try again next election.

 

Methinks, Thailand is not for you anymore - time to start researching the visa situations in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

[billd766]

On 4/21/2023 at 8:11 AM, sidneybear said:

Déjà vu. Fast forward a few months and we'll see yellow shirts on the streets, then Pheu Thai kicked out, then a coup, then back to the start. 

You will probably see yellow shirts and rabid royalists kicked out and a resistance to another military coup.

 

It will NOT be like the last time.

[billd766]

On 4/21/2023 at 8:11 AM, herfiehandbag said:

Put simply, no.

 

The "established governing class" now have a built in control over the senate, control of the judicial machinery and the electoral machinery. By convention they have a generous amount of time before the results are declared. They will use this to count, recount and count again to get the result they want - a definition of proportional representation perhaps? They will interpret, barr, ban, disqualify and ignore ballots to get the result they want. If an unsuitable party after all that, has an overwhelming majority; well, as you may know the election of a new Pope is announced by white smoke over the Vatican. Here the emergence of a new Prime Minister can be announced by blue diesel smoke from the tank parks of barracks around Bangkok!

 

The eventual outcome may be decided by whether the people are prepared to have their electoral decision rebuffed again.

I don't think that they will get away with that this time IMHO.

 

The yellow shirts and the rabid royalists are dying off and the youth are replacing them, and they don't want the military at all.

 

There are far more of them than there are of the military and the group that led the coup last time are no longer as powerful as they were.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_Guard_(Thailand)#:~:text=The King's Guard (Thai%3A ทหาร,the Royal Thai Armed Forces.

 

may hold a balance of power as they are independent of the Thai military

 

King's Guard units
The Royal Guards are today composed of 87 formations (formerly 94 battalions or equivalents), mostly found in the Royal Thai Army.

 

It depends on who actually controls them and what that person wants to do. That person is not as popular as his father, and I think a lot will depend on if, and how much, he is willing to compromise.

[Phoenix Rising]

On 4/21/2023 at 8:03 AM, OneMoreFarang said:

If anybody has the absolute majority in politics, then they have the right to rule.

But obviously they still have to follow the laws and the constitution.

 

And the politicians are still subjects to the laws. If they do something unlawful, then they should be prosecuted and convicted. That seems to be a problem in Thailand.

How about instigating coups - should that be prosecuted?

[billd766]

9 hours ago, sidneybear said:

Thailand has much more to its economy than tourism. 

Such as what?

[billd766]

5 hours ago, sidneybear said:

I first came when Prem was in charge. Some may say he wasn't too bad, but others would call him a military strongman. 

 

Who fits your definition of a proper politician? Thaksin jacked up the price of visas, and PR went up from 25k to 250k ....

Any politician elected by the Thai people in a free election.

 

ANY military coup is treason against a freely elected government and should be punishable by death and NOT rewarded,

Edited April 22, 2023 by billd766
corrected some bad spelling

[Phoenix Rising]

5 hours ago, NoshowJones said:

 I don't know how long you have lived here, but I came here when there were proper politicians, with good education running the country, no forced 90 day reports like common criminals.

 

I have lived here full time since 1993 and I fail to come up with any period  since then where Thailand was run by "proper politicians, with good education".

It's not that such persons do not exist. It's just that in a society where who you know counts for far more than what you know, such persons will have a very hard time getting into positions of power.