In the UK, if there is a vote on something where the outcome for the majority is obvious and to their detriment we say 'Its like asking turkey's to vote for Christmas'. Perhaps an example is if you ask 100 employees if they should take a wage cut or their bosses should forego their bonuses this year. A poor example maybe, but you see what I mean???

I cannot find a similar expression in Thai. Can anyone help???

thanks

I cannot find this idiom anywhere. Ironically, Thaksin Shinawatra used this expression in this report I found whilst seaching the web, so it must exist. Mind you in Thai I expect its something to do with elephants...

'Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has warned the military to stay out ... to vote for a substantive pay cut - turkeys voting for Christmas, etc. ...

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/go/tag/view/all/politics -'

Found it...

I found this. This just says the vote is useless or wasted.

To expect Lloyds workers to vote against the status quo would be like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas.

การจะคาดหวังให้คนงานของบริษัทลอยด์ออกเสียงคัดค้านสถานะเดิมของการเป็นลูกจ้างย่อมเป็นไปไม่ได้ เพราะพวกเขาจะเสียประโยชน์

For the sentence I want to use it for, this does not really have the same impact as the English idiom, as this just says the vote is wasted. I am trying to say to a newly formed committee for our village, that the questionaire they sent around asking how people should pay their maintenance is flawed. There are 50 houses on the estate and most are small plots of land. The vote will therefore favour the majority, who will obviously vote for the option to pay just a small amount of maintenance and the few people with the larger plots of land pay significantly more.

การจะคาดหวังให้คนออกเสียงคัดค้านสถานะเดิมของการเป็นลูกจ้างย่อมเป็นไปไม่ได้ เพราะพวกเขาจะเสียประโยชน์

Can anyone come up with something better. I think I will be using this sentence a lot in the coming weeks

Edited December 25, 200817 yr by dsfbrit

My best effort so far:

การจะคาดหวังให้ลูกบ้านส่วนใหญ่ออกเสียงคัดค้าน

ย่อมเป็นไปไม่ได้ เพราะพวกเขาจะเสียผลประโยชน์

Edited December 25, 200817 yr by dsfbrit

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