What Does Abhisit Mean By 'When It's Done, It's Done'?

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THAI TALK

What does Abhisit mean by 'When it's done, it's done'?

By Suthichai Yoon

He said he was just thinking aloud. But as the Democrat Party's chief election strategist, Korbsak Sabhavasu won't have the luxury of floating a political balloon, especially when it's seen as an attempt to change the rules to benefit the incumbent party.

The opposition Pheu Thai Party was quick to jump on him when Korbsak suggested that perhaps it would be more "democratic" if the next government is formed by the political party that wins the most popular votes, regardless of whether it has more MPs or not.

Korbsak has been quoted as having told a local newspaper: "You consider this fact: One MP gets elected with about 30,000 votes. The other gets 100,000 votes in order to win. Now, how do you measure the people's support: the number of MPs or the popular votes?"

Pheu Thai spokesman Prompong Nopparit sees a different picture. He says Korbsak's proposal simply means that the next government could be headed by a party that fails to win a majority of seats.

"It means even if a party wins the most constituency candidates, its leader would not have the chance to become prime minister if it has fewer list MPs than other parties," the opposition spokesman says. He comes to the inevitable conclusion: The whole idea, which also has the support of the political reform committee headed by Dr Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, rector of the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), has been initiated for no other reason but to help the Democrats return to form the next government.

The Democrats lost to the People Power Party, Pheu Thai's forerunner, in 2007 in both the constituency and popular votes, but some analysts were suggesting that the margin in the latter category was small enough to have given the Democrats the hope of winning in the next poll.

Whether that has anything to do with reports that the Democrats favour an early House dissolution, while their coalition partners aren't too thrilled with that scenario, remains a question mark. But one thing is clear: Prime Minister Abhisit is keeping his cards close to his chest.

Deputy Premier Suthep Thaugsuban more or less "spilled the beans" by telling reporters: "I can guarantee the dissolution will take place before June. We have to address high commodity prices first and go to win the voters' heart."

The next day, Korbsak backed up that claim by offering a similar deadline.

One would have thought that if these two powerful figures in the government gave out identical signals on the election timeframe, things might have been wrapped up already. That, alas, isn't the case. Abhisit apparently wasn't ready to commit himself even to a broad deadline. Confronted with the question, the prime minister simply sported a smile to reporters before delivering that famous non-committal line: "When it's done, it's done."

That ambivalence, to me, underscores Abhisit's plan to return to head the government with a deliberate multi-pronged strategy.

There should be no doubt in anybody's mind that the series of prachawiwat (read, super-populist) policies, offering all sorts of freebies to the voters, will be the foundation of his election campaign.

The timing of the ballot-casting is vital - and if he could choose, Abhisit wouldn't want to commit himself to a deadline, except a broad promise of a possible timeframe after he gets some of the politically crucial tasks done first.

And these include making sure that the 2012 budget and the new military, police and bureaucracy line-ups for the new fiscal year are properly wrapped up first. These are the real "conditions" determining the ruling party's "readiness" to hold a new election. All the other stories, no matter how convincing they sound, are nothing but political red herrings.

-- The Nation 2011-02-24

[animatic]

The whole 'Party List' thing is crap, it totally jiggers the system.

It should be one man on vote:

Each MP candidate runs in his district and either wins or loses

based on an equal percentage of voters as EVERY other candidate gets to be voted for by.

,

The party with the most popularly elected individual MPs, gets first crack at forming a government.

If they can't do it in a reasonable period of time, say 2-3 weeks, the second biggest vote getting party gets a chance.

If no one can get a coalition of 50+% then run a new election.

The people get who they chose, and some arbitrary mechanism to favor political machines is removed from the equation.

Edited February 24, 2011 by animatic

[jayboy]

The whole 'Party List' thing is crap, it totally jiggers the system.

It should be one man on vote:

Each MP candidate runs in his district and either wins or loses

based on an equal percentage of voters as EVERY other candidate gets to be voted for by.

,

The party with the most popularly elected individual MPs, gets first crack at forming a government.

If they can't do it in a reasonable period of time, say 2-3 weeks, the second biggest vote getting party gets a chance.

If no one can get a coalition of 50+% then run a new election.

The people get who they chose, and some arbitrary mechanism to favor political machines is removed from the equation.

The distinguished Thai expert and ex Cambridge historian, Chris Baker has views

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPFYlZ4GQY&feature=player_embedded#at=105

[Payboy]

The distinguished Thai expert and ex Cambridge historian, Chris Baker has views

Like it when he gets a beer at 1:00min.