Thailand Since Thaksin!

[marquess]

I am now entering my sixth year here in Thailand, having had the privilege of living here before Thaksin came to power; The question I would like ask those of you who have been here for that length of time is: What has Thaksin achieved?

[chanchao]

Cool.. still 50-50.. :-)

Most likely most Thais would say it's far better.. For sure there's also things they don't like about the man and his ways, but hey.. overall Thailand is doing well.

[Ulysses G.]

I have a one year visa, a work permit and an import licence.

I can remember when it was VERY difficult to get any of them.

[ilyushin]

I have a one year visa, a work permit and an import licence.

I can remember when it was VERY difficult to get any of them.

Don't think Doc Tox had much to do with the ease of your WP, Visa and IL being issued. If your paper work is in order and you know the process there isn't a problem nor has there been in the last 20 yrs.

If that is all you can claim he has done to improve the country then he really hasn't done much.

Edited January 7, 2006 by ilyushin

[Ulysses G.]

Before Thaksin, everyone I knew was going on visa runs every few months and not happy about it. Now almost everyone I know has long term visas.

I suspect that his government had something to do with the changes.

[Oishi]

Before Thaksin, everyone I knew was going on visa runs every few months and not happy about it. Now almost everyone I know has long term visas.

I suspect that his government had something to do with the changes.

This will often happen to a visa. You will start with many visa runs and eventually get long term…that is time not Thaksin, nor Thai Ruk Thai.

About the question asked…about time before and after Taxsinner.....sorry put you just triggered the button

My first arrival was in 1996 during the Chuan Lekpai period and the fall of the Tiger economy.

Coming from the media industry I wasn’t really surprised that Thailand had their own Rupert Murdoch and I do admire people who can build empires out of almost nothing.

I came from a country where people like that would always be titled as criminals or fraudsters because other people simply envied them.

But democracy is and was still new in Thailand so they guy would have to prove something. Being a CEO and used to manage corporate affairs is fine if you are a finance minister, but this guy was to be a Premier Minister in a country with thousands of people who couldn’t read didn’t have money to food or access to clean water.

He quickly turned the economy back on track, but so did the rest of the world in that period. The real challenge was to see what he could do for the people and the country.

He failed miserably.

He introduced the 30 baht insurance idea…is simply doesn’t work, the hospitals are overworked and instead they prescribe medicine by the pounds to people and kids with serious illnesses….the idea was brilliant but he never followed it though…or maybe he doesn’t know what is going on in the real life.

True, before the 30 baht idea, there was nothing. But at least people weren’t given false hopes.

Remember the war on drugs? Well I am sure the families of the more than 2000 killed does. No I don’t support those who where killed if they did sell they stuff, but a trial would be in place since most are considered innocent until proven guilty, also in this country…or they used to be.

The press started to see things that sounded wrong others did too but kept their mouth shut because the guy had bought most of the media in the country or replaced management on several posts within the media, military and police. Something we have seen before in the Middle East.

Those who wrote stories with negative images of Thaksin would either loose their jobs or some foreign journalists where close to be deported.

When the APAC meeting was to take place in Bangkok, Thai Ruk Thai wanted the town to look “clean” so most food stalls had to be closed…wonder how they got money to live during those days. To make sure George W. Bush couldn’t see the slum outside his hotel window a big banner was hanged from one of the highway bridges with a nice welcome on the “good side” and total darkness to the people on the “bad side”. Is that the people’s man doing something like that?

Along with Thai Ruk Thai came things like new closing hours for restaurants and entertainment business. Which might be fine if you are from the UK and used to government control like that, but for other tourists it was awful, just when the party was getting started you would have to go home.

The interior minister at the time had many other stupid ideas like he didn’t want women to be able to walk alone after 22.00…a stupid halfhearted attempt to cut don’t on prostitution or at least the freelance site of it.

The problem was, what about all those Thai women who actually where CEO’s, executives or just normal women going home from a late meeting at the office or going to 7 or simply talking a walk.

He also wanted the kids away from amusement karaoke boxes, don’t know why…cant see the harm in that, after all I have never seen another country with so many people into music.

But luckily even Thaksin had his limits to controlling the public when the interior minister purposed that you should be 18 to have a mobile phone…so goodbye to that guy….speaking of AIS…Thaksin did do something nice, he raised the share that foreigners could have in a telecom company to 49%…I thought that was a good thing, until yesterday when we heard about the sell of shares in AIS to a Singapore investor, now I know why that law was passed trough.

The war on corruption, have you heard about it?

I have, so far several websites are closed, websites who would monitor things like that…and that is the only thing I have heard.

Not paying tax…I know according to the law he or his family didn’t have to. But if you are selected by the people and you work for the people and this country you should at least give something back to the country…like tax.

What would have happened if this was in another country and a PM would pull a stunt like that...well it would last for a few days until the government had dismissed the PM on count of mistrust.

At least he is good with running Thailand as a business, the problem is that when you think you can do the same with foreigners it becomes a problem and the world will laugh again about the PM who will try to make contracts, building mega projects and pay with frozen chickens.

The problem is he runs the cabinet like a Chinese board meeting. Remember these people are elected by the people; they are not hired by Thaksin.

But if you are still here…I don’t have a problem about Thaksin, his politic or his way of doing business…I think it is one of the best thing that could happen to this country.

Because the people will learn and remember this…until someone flashes a 500 baht note in front of them at the next election.

But I kind’a like the fellow, what else could we talk about and read in the Thai English newspapers? The Nation would be crosswords only if he wasn’t around.

And yes he should learn to listen to critics, we all should, so should newspapers like The Nation…they don’t deliver serious journalism on political issues, they are man hunting…how many articles doesn’t have the sentence “Thaksin’s Thai Ruk Thai…”

Even if the story is about a Thai Ruk Thai member in the North?

I enjoy this country more than the one I came from where everything is neat, clean, put in a system and so boring. I love the people more than any of me old mates…so if he’s a part of that I can live with it…as long as is doesn’t get worse.

The only problem is they elected him twice…now that is the mistake the people did…

And at the moment I can’t really see anyone else capable of running the office.