THAI TALK

Visionary strategies lost on shortsighted politicians

Suthichai Yoon

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Not surprisingly, Premier Yingluck Shinawatra's four main national "strategies" announced last week have caused no national sensation.

It's not rocket science that the country badly needs to find ways to become more competitive, as she declared. Nor is it earthshaking to say that bridging the rich-poor gap is among the government's top priorities. And to put stress on environmentally friendly initiatives won't excite anyone these days. To be quite frank about it, I can't recall the fourth major plank of the "national platform". If it was a call for a serious anti-corruption effort, it wouldn't be taken seriously unless the premier could convince the rest of the country that things are going to be for real this time around.

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The announcement was meant to be a launching pad for a renewal of a genuine national agenda, but most critics took the government to task over the statement that it would triple per-capita income in ten years. The plan to borrow Bt2 trillion to lay down the country's future infrastructure was also challenged for its lack of any real cohesion.

The blueprint was immediately questioned by Nibhond Puapongsakorn of the Thailand Development Research Institute for being ambiguous and unrealistic. He said such a major exercise to map out the country's future should be a joint effort among professional engineers, economists, legal experts, technocrats and politicians, perhaps in that order.

But the big plan, announced with great fanfare by the government last week, is instead seen as no more than the exclusive work of politicians bent on spending huge sums in taxpayers' money without much consideration for effective implementation. Most importantly, there is no suggestion from the government on how the progress of each project will be monitored and measured.

What Thailand badly needs, regardless of who is in power, is well known, but politicians in charge don't seem to be able to come up with any satisfactory plans.

A real national agenda for the future of Thailand should include:

- Overhaul of the education policy;

- Putting the country on the path of innovation;

- A credible action plan to reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots - a gulf that has so far defied any effort to reduce it by all past governments;

- An anti-corruption campaign that works;

- A genuine plan to decentralise power from the Cabinet to the provinces;

- A serious action plan to revamp the bureaucratic system.

The main paradox is that while citizens demand that politicians granted a mandate to rule must get all these initiatives in order, it's precisely these people in power who constitute the main obstacles to the fulfilment of these crucial aims.

All of these national objectives - without the fulfilment of which Thailand won't be able to move forward in any significant way - are necessarily tough nuts to crack, requiring vision, sacrifice and accountability from the powers-that-be. These qualities, unfortunately, are exactly what are lacking among those seeking high office in this country.

Premier Yingluck insists that she is in charge of the government - and that her brother Thaksin hasn't been running her Cabinet via Skype, as suggested by an article in the New York Times last week. Her statement would be made more credible if she undertook to draw up a genuine national agenda that really spells out her own vision of where the country should be headed - and, more importantly, how that action plan would be implemented under her direction.

Nobody expects her to follow her critics' suggestion that she should show her independence and power by ordering the police to have Thaksin arrested - as was the case with Somchai Kunpluem, better known as Kamnan Poh, who had fled court verdicts for seven years before being cornered.

But she can demonstrate her leadership by coming up with a plan to build the nation that she can really call her own. A large number of people in the country are waiting anxiously for that masterstroke.

-- The Nation 2013-02-07

In other words:

"Politicians with glasses understand visionary strategies"

To be fair to Thai politicians it's very difficult to take the long term view when your time is limited at the trough.

The main paradox is that while citizens demand that politicians granted a mandate to rule must get all these initiatives in order, it's precisely these people in power who constitute the main obstacles to the fulfilment of these crucial aims.

In OECD countries its the civil servie that is the usual obstancle that has to be tackled, but in Thailand its the actual politicians.

Partly because they try to either keep the status quo (to retain exisitng levels of kickbacks), or modify them only to increase or at least preserve those kickbacks.

And Partly because (in most cases) only specific cretins (currupt/nepotisitc) become politicians. So they rarely have any skill, vision or intellegence, let alone any desire to change & improve things.

Edited February 7, 201313 yr by fire and ice

The easiest way for a government to reduce the rich=poor gap is to tax the assets of the rich. Capital gains, land and inheritance taxes do this remarkably well - don't expect to see them any time soon.

1st of april ?

Are we asking too much from the premier?

C'mon, we all know she has no brian. Just leave her alone.

To be fair to Thai politicians it's very difficult to take the long term view when your time is limited at the trough.

Absolutely strategies that will be adopted by sucksessive Thai governments need to be implimented. It has suceeded with Thai captital projects from time to time in the past. The Thai Ministry of Education must accelerate the implimentation of initiative 2000 and upgraded version of the Thai 2000 Education objective. Further the Demoncrats must stop wasting their time trying to bring down another government and work with Government as a motivated and committed opposition, that is committed to current objectives and development under a paradime suggest by he writer of the lead article above.

This reporter thinks that Thailand can make meaningful progress without putting environment near the the top of the agenda. He needs to go back to school.

If, as he states, an emphasis on "environmentally friendly initiatives won't excite anyone these days", I suggest he trys asking residents at Klity Creek in Kanchanaburi if they are excited by the lead poisoning that has infiltrated the local ecosystem, courtesy of mining slag runoff, or query residents in the vicinity of Samrong Canal, Samutprakan, about the appeal of the industrial effluent clogging local waterways. Or maybe he should just wander down to his local khlong in Bangkok after a shower of rain, inhale, and ask himself if he feels inspired. For a regional vision of how exciting Thai societal development may get in the future, he could talk to residents of Shanghai and Beijing about their exhilaration regarding recent (un)breathability of their air, resulting from unrestrained industrial expansion.

Environment is foundational and should not be dismissed so callously from serious discussion of national development.

Edited February 7, 201313 yr by bluegum