Thailand General Election Thread 2005

[The_Moog]

The wealthy are corrupt and don't give a ###### about the rest of the country. I like to think of Thailand like this:

Thai land, Chinese government.

Am I wrong about this?

Its far more complex than this. If you made a similar comment about corruption in Indonesia, then i'd agree 100%.

Corruption constitutes a small part of Thai economic activity. Black market activities are confined to certain defined arenas. You can live here for years and not be touched by it. In Indonesia, graft is a daily fact of life.

TRT is in essence the politicising of the surviving business powerbrokers from the 1990s economic crisis. Business elites are Chinese, thats why TRT has a Chinese/Thai interface.

Its inaccurate to make a sweeping statement like 'the wealthy are corrupt'

If you want an in depth study of Corruption in Thailand, PM me and i'll forward you the link.

Edited February 8, 2005 by The_Moog

[Erwin1011]

Someone commented about the election signs coming down so fast well that's because the people want them so that they can recycle the paper and get money. The Thai people are poor and uneducated. The people who control this place don't care about that fact. The wealthy are corrupt and don't give a ###### about the rest of the country. I like to think of Thailand like this:

Thai land, Chinese government.

Am I wrong about this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would go 1 step further. Chinese land, chinese government. let me explain.

If you ake Crown properties out of the equation, less than 15 % of the arable land is owned by ethnic Thai. the rest is owned by large family groups of Chinese descent.

This is comparable to the situation in Imperial Russia before the October Revolution.

( the %-age splitt there was even worse.)

The industrial oenership went along similar patterns, where you just replace foreign ownership by "of Chinese descent".

Similar to the Russian situation, the steps taken to alleviate the that situation resulted in hand outs to the population. People were given some ownership, but as they could get their produce to the market they were forced to sell to middle men who happened to be of the "right" descent.

does that seems to ring a bell?

[chingy_]

corrupt consist of many factor, not only because you're wealthy or chinese.

[george]

Sweeping Thai cabinet changes planned

BANGKOK: -- The newly re-elected Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shiwanatra, is considering making sweeping changes in his cabinet, The Nation reported.

Somkid Jatusripitak is tipped to become deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs in the new government, while Somchaineuk Engtrakul, Olarn Chaipravat and Boonklee Plangsiri are among the potential candidates to succeed him at the Finance Ministry, political sources said.

Somchainuek is a former permanent secretary for finance, while Olarn, former president of Siam Commercial Bank, is one of the most influential advisors in the government and has the ear of the prime minister.

Olarn was the main person behind Thaksin's initiative to promote an Asian bond market. He is also the architect of the "supply-side" initiative involving infrastructure investment, a highlight of the TRT's recent election campaign.

Boonklee is chief executive of the Shin Corp and one of Thaksin's most trusted aides.

Somkid's move to another Cabinet post would lead to changes not only at the Finance Ministry, but also other key economic agencies, including the Bank of Thailand.

At least half of the Cabinet ministers are likely to be changed.

--UPI / World News 2005-02-08

[george]

Abhisit heavily tipped to be Democrat acting leader

BANGKOK: -- Democrat deputy leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said today the new party leader would encounter heavy burden reviving the party's popularity as well as creating a better understanding on various changes.

He made the remarks following a decision by Democrat executives earlier in the day to resign en masse in the wake of the party's humiliating defeat in last Sunday's general election. According to the latest vote count by the Election Commission, the Democrat party won less than 100 seats nationwide.

Mr Abhisit, heavily tipped to take the helm, said the defeat was the collective responsibility of party's executives which have yet to appoint an acting leader after Mr Banyat Banthattan called it quits on Monday.

Asked if the major changes would lead to conflicts within the party, Mr Abhisit said he believed all Democrats would not want internal problems to obstruct the changes.

"It has come to the point where everyone should join hands in salvaging the party. A major review of the party's performance is necessary. Everyone should have a good understanding of the changes so that they could win over the people," he said.

He said the party's ideology must however be maintained and "to achieve that, three major factors, namely the party's structure, personnel and working style, must undergo a major shakeup.

The changes should be deliberated in the executive committee, he said.

Meanwhile, Democrat chief advisor Chuan Leekpai strongly backed Mr Abhisit as the acting party leader, saying Abhisit was the seniormost deputy leader.

Democrat executives will hand-pick the acting leader and secretary general on Friday. Secretary General Pradit Patraprasit has also tendered his resignation from the post.

--TNA 2005-02-08

[george]

Public wants single-party government: poll

BANGKOK: -- The majority of the public are fully behind the landslide victory of the Thai Rak Thai party, and want to see Thaksin Shinawatra lead the country with a one-party government, according to a poll published today.

The Suan Dusit survey of 1,569 respondents across the country, published two days after the general election which saw the Thai Rak Thai party returned to government with an overwhelming majority, found that 61.67 percent of the public want to see the TRT party go it alone, citing ‘political stability’.

However, a substantial 38.33 percent of respondents said that the TRT party should pull the Chart Thai party into a coalition, in order to provide an internal check on the party’s power.

Asked what they wanted of the new government, the respondents said the party should honour its manifesto pledges.

Opinion was more divided on the decision of Democrat leader Banyat Banthathan to resign, with 52.12 percent professing agreement, saying that it would allow young blood to step into the top party posts, while 29.15 percent said that he should have stayed on to fight another term.

Respondents had similar views on the decision of Sanan Kachornprasart to resign from his post as advisor to the Mahachon party, which won only a single seat in Parliament. While 53.83 expressed agreement, saying that Mr. Sanan was already getting too old for politics, 19.74 percent said that his experience could still prove useful.

--TNA 2005-02-08

[Golf]

"Maj-General Sanan Kachornprasart and Vatana Asavahame" Oh, these two are the worst... I am really delight knowing that they are gone...for good. If you guys know what they did when they were in power, you will want to leave Thailand ASAP for your own safety.

Let see what will happen next. Sriracha John, I am regret for not runing for office!

[darsie]

Ha...ha... Thais have just elected Thaksin dictator for life.

And further, although Thailand professes to be a "parliamentary democracy", the general election that has just passed will surely be the last of it's like; for with the phased introduction of special economic zones in the next four years, which will be fully autonomous and separate from the parliamentary process and the auspices of his majesty the King, the lay of the political landscape will be quite different from now.

These "special economic zones" will be administered by their own respective regional boards, and all executive, political and judicial decisions relating to these zones will be under the control of regional economic boards.

And who, of course, will have ultimate authority and control over these zones?

Thaksin, of course.

There are dark and dangerous days ahead for Thailand and it's people.

[sriracha john]

"Maj-General Sanan Kachornprasart and Vatana Asavahame"  Oh, these two are the worst...   I am really delight knowing that they are gone...for good.  If you guys know what they did when they were in power, you will want to leave Thailand ASAP for your own safety.

Let see what will happen next.  Sriracha John, I am regret for not runing for office!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's ok Golf.... next time na...

[george]

High hopes as Thaksin prepares to pick cabinet

BANGKOK: -- Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's prime minister, has begun preparations to assemble a cabinet for his historic second term in office amid hopes his unprecedented national mandate will allow him to choose a highly qualified team.

In a country where cabinet posts have been awarded to powerful political godfathers to secure their support for fractious ruling coalitions, Mr Thaksin, enjoying popular adulation, is seen as having considerably more latitude than previous leaders to pick an impressive team.

"It is an opportunity for Thaksin to come up with a strong cabinet of people who are experienced, who are professional, who would inspire confidence and get the job done," said Sriyan Pietersz, head of research at JP Morgan (Thailand). "He doesn't have to . . . please anyone but himself."

But other analysts said Mr Thaksin would have a hard job managing and rewarding the powerful factions within his party.

The prime minister, who says he aims to bring some political outsiders on to the team, said his second-term cabinet would be unveiled by the middle of next month.

Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thais) party on Sunday won a landslide election victory, apparently securing about 375 of parliament's 500 seats - enough to form a single-party government.

Counting and re-votes at a few polling stations are still under way and the election commission will not announce final results for several weeks.

The prime minister on Tuesday postponed his scheduled trip to the Muslim-majority southern provinces, where more than 600 people were killed last year in insurgent attacks and security force reprisals. At least another 23 were killed last month. In the latest bout of violence, a homemade bomb exploded on the second floor of an ethnic Chinese-owned hotel in Narathiwat, injuring two people.

Although Mr Thaksin said he needed to recover from an exhausting campaign, analysts suggest he may also be rethinking his approach to the Muslim south, after people there voted en masse for the opposition Democrats in a stinging rejection of the ruling party's approach to the crisis. "The implication [of the result] is that the entire population of the three southern provinces is totally opposed to government policy in the south," said Gile Ungpakorn, a Chulalongkorn University political scientist. "The government should listen to that and find a political, not a military, solution."

Banyat Bantadtan resigned from his position on Tuesday as leader of the opposition Democrat party, which was heavily defeated everywhere except the 13 southern provinces. Sanan Kachornprasart, who led a faction of the Democrats to break away and forge the new Mahachon party, said he was retiring from politics after Mahachon captured only a single seat.

--FT 2005-02-08

[ovenman]

However, a substantial 38.33 percent of respondents said that the TRT party should pull the Chart Thai party into a coalition, in order to provide an internal check on the party’s power.

This 38.33% of those polled are dreaming. I don't see how forming a coalition with a party that holds 28 seats (Chart Thai) to the majority's 376 seats (TRT) provides much of an internal check on the dominant party's power. TRT would always be in a position to tell Chart Thai to take a hike at any time they were to become a nuisance.

[BAF]

However, just look at Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, and you'd have to say that Silvio is worse. (Changing the law to make false accounting a lesser crime, then getting himself declared immune from prosecution while president so that he effectively doesn't get tried for false accounting because he'll be president until after the statute of limitations is up.)

The Italian establishments are all full of leftists who at the end of the WWII would have handed the country over to the Ruskies and would have made our life as miserable as all of the ones of those from the former Soviet block.

The judicial system, the intellectuals, the journalists, the education system and so on up to the President.

As everyone in Italy knows, Berlusconi (the biggest taxpayer in Italy) has started to have problems with the justice the day after he announced the beginning of his political career.

All kind of investigations (which have found NOTHING really worth of mention) started on his (very succesful) businesses, left alone until that very day.

During the first year of Berlusconi's first term, the opposition (communists, ex-communists and other leftist scums) managed to trick part of the coalition led by Berlusconi into abandoning him and taking over WITHOUT passing again through the voters (possible and legal with the approval of the President).

At the next election the voters put him back into office and he won by a bigger margin than before.

Since in Italy votes are not bought nor conditioned by the use of any force, the key to establish how free and "democratic" an election is, is to see if the voters have access to all the informations needed to express an "educated" vote.

In Italy you have just to browse any TV channels to be informed of how bad and evil Berlusconi is, particularly on the three state owned channels, on Canale5 (one of the three, the biggest, Mediaset -i.e. Berlusconi's- channels!) and La7 (owned by the former biggest competitor of Berlusconi in the movies production biz).

The fact is that western 1st world countries' citizens have freely access to any kind of sources of informations and plenty of facts on which base their opinions on if they ever bother to make any effort and not just stick with the crap the mass media feed them with (and they in Italy are mostly AGAINST Berlusconi, to get back to Italy's situation).

In short, your opinion of Berlusconi, coherent with that of the typical European leftist, is just normal intraEuro-politics (harsh discussions, scandals etc do happen everywhere, especially in democracies) and your statement below:

Italy makes Thailand look squeaky clean in comparison.

sounds a lot like the ones the leader of the opposition who took over from Berlusconi stealing the voters' choice (and who later got heavily punished by them) used to make...

But Italy looks bad compared to the governments in the countries around it.

By whose standards, apart yours?

Germany's former historical leader has had his big scandal and the current govt is having is fair share as well, France's current president has had several big scandals in the recent past, UK's premier is called by its countrymen Bliar and so on and on...

Thailand looks good on a democracy basis compared to it's neighbours.

Of course, confronting it with a military junta and two former communist countries Thailand sure "looks" like an advanced and fully realized democracy...

BAF

Edited February 9, 2005 by BAF

[chingy_]

the people have voted, its over, they chose their destiny.

[george]

New govt urged to support women in politics

BANGKOK: -- A leading woman parliamentarian has urged the new government to support more women in politics.

The senator from Sakon Nakorn and leader of the woman’s parliamentarian group, Maleerat Kaewka, urged the ruling Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party to assist any woman parliamentarian who volunteered to be deputy House speaker.

More than fifty women are expected to win parliamentary seats in last Sunday’s general election, seven more than at the last election, Ms Maleerat told TNA on Tuesday.

She also urged the ruling party to consider selecting more women as ministers in the new government.

“Every woman who was elected is very experienced and capable. By appointing

them to important positions, they will help the government to seriously tackle women and children’s problems,” she said.

It would also be good for the new government’s image internationally to take action to improve the status and position of women in Thailand.

There are only two women ministers in the current government -- Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan and Labour Minister Uraiwan Thienthong.

--TNA 2005-02-09

[The_Moog]

There are dark and dangerous days ahead for Thailand and it's people.

Honestly this is just nonsense and scaremongering. Yes, TRT will move towards granting their own businesses monopoly rights, - and probably do so quite openly without fear of contradiction.

Special Economic Zones? well, in China, such zoning brought jobs for a lot of poor people.

Ha...ha... Thais have just elected Thaksin dictator for life.

...doesn't sound like you take Thailand very seriously anyway.

[george]

The rise and rise of Thailand's Amway phenomenon

The sweeping victory by the ruling Thai Rak Thai party in Thailand's general election has been hailed as a one-man victory for Thaksin Shinawatra.

The image of the Prime Minister is everywhere: here in ceremonial dress, there with shirtsleeves rolled up. The man has become a phenomenon, by far the most recognised political face in the country. The party credits its victory to Amway-style grass-roots development and scientific polling, but analysts call it the Thaksin supernova.

"Thaksin's personality became very much intertwined with the Thai Rak Thai brand, or even superseded it, with the PM himself becoming a super brand," said the newspaper The Nation in its post-election analysis. In his victory speech, Thaksin compared himself to the formula one champion driver Michael Schumacher, saying he had "a full tank of gas" for the next four years.

"We have been conducting polls regularly, about once a month. That's why we knew we would win at least 350 to 360 [out of 500] seats," Thaksin told reporters. "It was not a big surprise for us."

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He listed economic change and combating poverty as his two main agenda items for the coming term. But his critics say Thaksin is the party and the 370-plus candidates who won election on Sunday came in on his presidential-style coat tails.

"Thaksin does not know how to build an organisation," said Kavi Chongkittavorn, a long-time Thaksin critic. "All the Thai Rak Thai party identify with him, so he has no one who will come and take his place. Remove Thaksin and there is no one. The question four or five years from now is, without Thaksin, will this party hold together?"

In the wake of the most comprehensive poll win in Thai history, Thai Rak Thai campaigners revealed the secret of their successful direct-sales techniques.

"First Thai Rak Thai created 20 loyal voters in each village, then each voter was asked to bring at least another 10 families into the fold," a party source told The Nation. "Since most families have at least two eligible voters, that brought them at least 400 eligible voters in each village."

The party has also kept a database of detailed demographic information since 1998, when Thai Rak Thai was founded. In analysing the Bangkok data the party realised only 5 per cent of the city's voting population - the upper and middle classes - were core Democrat supporters. So they tailored policies to appeal more to low-income earners.

The south was the only region where Thaksin failed to gain any traction. There, despite a vigorous campaign, the opposition Democrats swept all but one of the 10 Thai Rak Thai sitting candidates from power.

In a post-election poll, voters listed corruption and violence in the south as their primary concerns. An Abac poll found 81 per cent thought these issues were what the Government needed to tackle most urgently.

---smh.com.au 2005-02-09

[ovenman]

"First Thai Rak Thai created 20 loyal voters in each village, then each voter was asked to bring at least another 10 families into the fold," a party source told The Nation. "Since most families have at least two eligible voters, that brought them at least 400 eligible voters in each village."

I like that, was asked. How about, was paid, being more likely.

[IsaanAlex]

"First Thai Rak Thai created 20 loyal voters in each village, then each voter was asked to bring at least another 10 families into the fold," a party source told The Nation. "Since most families have at least two eligible voters, that brought them at least 400 eligiblevoters in each village."

Not just a clever system to get power, but also one to maintain power.

I can't recall the name of the system, but do know that the Gestapo had a system of control in places they occupied where one 'house' in a neighborhood was responsible for reporting on 10 others (for example); then 10 of these reported to one. Then 10 of these reported to another.

*And everyone was responsible for those under them*

A perfect system of control.

Not unlike how the Mafia gets the job done.

Not unlike how biker gangs get their shit done, albeit in a much more informal (and smarter for them) way.

[Every 'member' has 10 associate; each associate has 5- 10 associates of their own (due to overlap),...and thats how a relatively small number of people at the top can call on so many to do their bidding...]

Not all Thai; but most everyone still a scumbag nevertheless.

IA

[Sphere]

A perfect system of control.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In other words - A pyramid scheme!

[RDN]

From here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1106436.stm

[strawberry]

Its taken me an hour to go through all of this stuff. I can't change anyof it after all TIT and I'm not.

I'm determined not to loose any sleep over the elections. I ride my bike down the village and there is more building going on than I have ever seen in the past nine years I've been living here, from new homes being built to alterations to old. That seems to be a good thing. My wife tells me that her mother is receiving 300 baht a month ( only since Thaksin came into power). And that seems to be agood thing. I think that is like the start to an old age pension.

The main thing that concerns me personally is that I get to stay here in this country because I receive enough to allow me to be here, but only just enough. I just make the grade. What happens for me and my family if the baht ever goes back to the pre-collapse days.

As a family man I would not choose to live here and only do so because my wife wants to be near her family.

Regardless of the 30 baht scheme the medical system (here in the provinces) stinks.

The education system has much to be desired.

On my trips back to Aust. I have met many Thai's all working and all sending monies back here to their families in Thailand. Through out the world there must be many Thai's working in other countries and sending money back here That must be a fair amount of money coming in to this country. our governments ought to be seeing that we get as good a go as Thai citizens get in our countries.

Just as most of you people I'm doing my bit for thailand I'd like a fair go. The only way we are ever going to get that is if our governments start to fight for us. Get the bloody beaurocrats at our embassies to get off there lazy butts and start negotiating for us.

This won't happen because our governments don't give a ###### about us, They continue to take my tax but don't give ######

Joe

[RDN]

.... our governments don't give a ###### about us, They continue to take my tax but don't give ######

Joe

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When a person leaves the UK with a UK old age pension, the pension is never increased - as it is back in the UK - for people living in Thailand and certain other countries. There are now people living in S. Africa, for example, on about a £10 pension - because that's what the pension was 20 or 30 years ago when they left the UK.

There is absolutely no logical, financial or moral reason for the UK government to do this, other than that's the way it has always been done and they have no reason to change it. They certainly don't need the vote of ex-patriots to keep them in power, and anyway, all UK parties don't give a ######. So ###### 'em all, I will doing my damnedest to make sure I pay zero tax on any money derived from the UK - legally, of course.

Edited February 10, 2005 by RDN