Fairer elections, more justice, better media 'all offer hope'

[Lite Beer]

Fairer elections, more justice, better media 'all offer hope'
The Sunday Nation

BANGKOK: -- Neither staging another coup nor granting an amnesty to all could provide Thailand with a solution to its political divide, former President of Parliament Uthai Pimchaichon said yesterday.

Uthai made the remark at a panel on solutions for Thailand, organised by the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association. Uthai said Thai politics was heading towards a dead-end if people were not prepared to provide a way out. People were also fed up with politicians, but he warned that staging another coup would send the Kingdom into "a coma".

Uthai urged people to sort out their political differences through parliamentary means. Instead of correcting politicians, the former president of parliament said citizens themselves should improve and not succumb to vote buying and as long as they don't change, the quality of politicians would reflect the quality of voters. If it was too late to change this generation of Thais, then the country would have try and wait until a more responsible generation of people replace old people and this may take 10 years or so, he said.

Uthai said it was a waste of paper to keep on rewriting the charter, as that wouldn't solve the problems either.

Constitution Court judge Charan Pakdeethanakul said the electoral system was neither clean nor fair while improving the "quality" of citizens would be difficult. The most dangerous thing, said Charan, was collusion between politics and businesses.

He said there were more poor people in India, but vote buying wasn't as big a problem as in Thailand.

"They have hundreds of billions [baht]. They can conduct political business," said Charan, stressing that clean elections were the solution. Instead of focusing on distributing wealth, Thailand needed to distribute justice as well, he said, adding that corrupt politicians must be cornered so they had less room to manoeuvre.

Powerful people in Thailand were also "undeveloped", leading to abuse of power. So the media should to try to educate the public more, he concluded.

Meanwhile, former finance minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula criticised the government's handouts and populist policies, such as the first-car ownership scheme, saying it had led to lower consumption of other goods at present. He also questioned the legality of Bt2 trillion in infrastructure projects and asked why the Yingluck Shinawatra administration does not want to borrow from normal budget channels.

Thepchai Yong, Nation Group Editor-in-Chief, said Thailand had spent the past three to four years debating solutions without thinking about the future. He said he couldn't see how the parliamentary system would provide a solution while other mechanisms were also stuck.

People had been politicised through partisan media to hate and want to kill one another due to political differences. However, he expected the 24 new digital television channels to help rebalance the broadcast media landscape through the use of more reasoning in TV programmes.

-- The Nation 2013-09-29

[arthurboy]

Commendable sentiments.

But meaningless.

[NongKhaiKid]

What a wish list " fairer elections, more justice, better media " !

Did he leave the panel location singing ' To Dream the Impossible Dream ' because if he believes it's ever likely to happen he must be on something extra specially good ?

[A1Str8]

Fair elections? That's a weird paradox.

[smutcakes]

Nice sentiments but a couple of comments:

1) I would be interested to see Mr.Charan and Mr.Uthai's standard of living, house, car collections in comparison to their position held salaries and benefits.

2) India is as bad if not worse than Thailand for political vote rigging, voting for the village/clan headsmen etc.

[noitom]

What did he mean - powerful people are "undeveloped?"

[Yunla]

He's right about the main points on justice, elections and media. I also agree that coups don't work, and that amnesty for criminals of any colour is a logic-fail. The problem Thailand has, and indeed the majority of nations around the world also have, is that we occupy a democratic "lower dimension", this is a facade democracy if you will. Elections and so-forth, without the open debates that the concept of democracy was originally built around, is like lipgloss slapped onto a hog. True democracy occupies a "higher dimension" of social consensus, and even the modern Western democracies are only skating the surface of what a true democracy is capable of and entails. For example, coups have not only no place in a true democracy, they are contrary to the very concept of this social system. True democracy is anchored in debate, debate is the beating heart that keeps democracy alive, debate in which all are welcome, and where the most logical and worthwhile arguments inevitably come out 'on top' eventually. In a true democracy, Thailand could have a PM who is a former streetsweeper, but who is gifted with intelligence and the ability to debate in a logical and reasoned way, has the nations best interests at heart, and rises through the ranks because his views are respected by those around him/her. This is of course not true in most nations on Earth including the "progressive" Western nations, where leaders are often groomed for office and bought off as soon as they sit in the big chair. However, the reason Thailand falls behind even those nations in purely democratic sense, is that the forum for debate carries such low currency to many of the politicians here, who should actually be spending most of their working lives engaged in it. The other factors listed in this OP are all resolved on the debating floor, if there is open debate then all the cobwebs and skeletons are cleared out automatically, including media/justice/elections, and new progressive policy is arrived at by disceptation consensus. Currently policy here is arrived at by command, pressure, and yes money, the actual debates are largely avoided by the PM, and the fundamental spirit of free debate is absent too.

[FarangTalk]

People are not allowed to discuss many of the real issues hampering Thai democracy and political change, and face long jail sentences for expressing an opinion.

Long way to go Thailand, long, long way to go.

[ggold]

What did he mean - powerful people are "undeveloped?"

powerful people are undeveloped = the politicians are as dumb or dumber than the electorate?

[Neilly]

However, he expected the 24 new digital television channels to help rebalance the broadcast media landscape through the use of more reasoning in TV programmes.

I liked some of his points, but if he thinks 24 new TV channels are going to help he's obviously smoking something he shouldn't be

[tragickingdom]

How interesting. Bote buying in India is less of a problem than in Thailand?? Did the academic in question even bothered to study the Indian system and the loyalties expected? Fairer elections in the eyes of constant losers mean that people have to be steered to a certain party or even appoint more non elected idiotic senators.

Try to come up with a plan where you do not only win votes from royalists but also from the man in the street. The loyalty to old organization is rightfully diminishing, times have changed and poor voters are less stupid than the rich and well educated voters who annulled so many elections. Get to grips with the fact that you need to say NO more often to the people with old money and royalists if not don't blame the voter.

And for India, I have worked in rural India for two and half years and vote buying is second nature.

[hellodolly]

What did he mean - powerful people are "undeveloped?"

The electorate are uneducated

He's right about the main points on justice, elections and media. I also agree that coups don't work, and that amnesty for criminals of any colour is a logic-fail. The problem Thailand has, and indeed the majority of nations around the world also have, is that we occupy a democratic "lower dimension", this is a facade democracy if you will. Elections and so-forth, without the open debates that the concept of democracy was originally built around, is like lipgloss slapped onto a hog. True democracy occupies a "higher dimension" of social consensus, and even the modern Western democracies are only skating the surface of what a true democracy is capable of and entails. For example, coups have not only no place in a true democracy, they are contrary to the very concept of this social system. True democracy is anchored in debate, debate is the beating heart that keeps democracy alive, debate in which all are welcome, and where the most logical and worthwhile arguments inevitably come out 'on top' eventually. In a true democracy, Thailand could have a PM who is a former streetsweeper, but who is gifted with intelligence and the ability to debate in a logical and reasoned way, has the nations best interests at heart, and rises through the ranks because his views are respected by those around him/her. This is of course not true in most nations on Earth including the "progressive" Western nations, where leaders are often groomed for office and bought off as soon as they sit in the big chair. However, the reason Thailand falls behind even those nations in purely democratic sense, is that the forum for debate carries such low currency to many of the politicians here, who should actually be spending most of their working lives engaged in it. The other factors listed in this OP are all resolved on the debating floor, if there is open debate then all the cobwebs and skeletons are cleared out automatically, including media/justice/elections, and new progressive policy is arrived at by disceptation consensus. Currently policy here is arrived at by command, pressure, and yes money, the actual debates are largely avoided by the PM, and the fundamental spirit of free debate is absent too.

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Good points yes debate is only allowed here when the party in power feels it is dealing from a good and strong point of view. If it is iffy situations they use police to cut off anti opinions.

However, he expected the 24 new digital television channels to help rebalance the broadcast media landscape through the use of more reasoning in TV programmes.

I liked some of his points, but if he thinks 24 new TV channels are going to help he's obviously smoking something he shouldn't be alt=rolleyes.gif>

I liked every thing he said up until that point. the only reason I can think of for him to say some thing like that is to get the Nation to print the article.

It will be a long time before there is enough good programing on digital TV. Even then how many of the poor will be able to buy the TV to watch it on? I went to a friends wedding in a village where they had no TVs.

[timewilltell]

Well then there had better be some action to annul the lese majeste law and if they want to protect the regal then do so with laws specifically for that purpose and which are very narrow in scope - but better to abolish the whole idea really.

Secondly put the defamation law out to pasture - at least for a while until the society has grown up enough to be able to use it justly which it is manifestly unable to do at the moment.

Thirdly bring in a zero tolerance law on corruption with rewards to stamp it out, rewards for social exposure of corruption and huge penalties and imprisonment for officials or police n clouding loss of pension and job - for life.

Fourthly bring in. Law requiring structured debate at election time on a set of specific areas of government so people can know in advance which program to watch relating to their area of concern.

Fifthly grow a set and get international observers in with cameras to supervise the voting process because the Thais have proven themselves incapable of self administering that process without massive corruption.

There some ideas for starters. Anyone agree?