I am confused am I.

[SebD]

Please could someone help me out with understanding Thai style politics as I’m not very learned in the subject and maybe have not quite grasped it properly.

My current take on the system is that an election is called and the majority of the voting populace (under the generally agreed fairest of democratic principals which is one-person-one-vote) elect Party A over Party B (let’s give them colours to make it easier. So Party A are now “White” and party B are now “Blue”).

Party B (the Blue party) and its supporters are not happy that they didn’t win though and continually protest and behave restlessly on the streets of the Capital city and it all culminates in them employing the top echelons of the national Army to organise a military coup which ousts the democratically elected government and exiles its leader.

After a short period of military rule the Blue party is handed the seat of government, without being elected to it.

Some unrest is (not unsurprisingly) forthcoming by supporters of the formerly elected Party A (the White party) which is quelled when the military start shooting, maiming and killing them on the streets.

After the Blue party has held power for the maximum period of time allowed there is another General Election and the people again show their unhappiness with the Blue party’s running of the country (and possibly the methods they had employed in forcibly wresting power from the properly elected government). This results in the White party being voted in (again) under the one-person-one-vote system.

The Blue party are unhappy again and take to the streets (again – and with no-one being killed by the authorities as had happened to the White party supporters when they did likewise).

Eventually and despite now having been voted in twice in succession but never having been allowed to serve even one full term in office, the leadership of the White party offers an immediate new General Election to the leaders of the Blue party (barely more than half way through their own term of office) which appears still not quite good enough for the Blue party who believe the White party should just resign and allow them (the Blue party) back into power, unelected.

So all votes are measured equally. But some votes are measured more equally than others.

Is that about right?

[cdnvic]

Please constrain political discussion to the news section. There's a topic for everything there.