Thai opposition under fire for election boycott

[catmac]

So 'Mark' has personally turned his back on Democracy. Under orders from above.

No suprise, he never was anything but a puppet installed by the army and funded by Daddy. Never could understand why Thailand needed an Englishman as its PM.

[catmac]

In a stable democracy, all parties and their supporters have an unswerving commitment to the electoral process which is stronger even than their thirst for power.The Democrats and their supporters do not. Despite their claims to being the mature, sensible party, they have become a party addicted to violence and the promotion of disorder with complete disregard to the rule of law to further their ambitions. In a mature democracy, they would be unelectable - as they're fast becoming in Thailand. In a stable democracy, when political parties become unelectable they change their leadership and their policies. Maybe it's time for rank and file democrats ( if there are any) to get on and stage a coup to change the face and approach of the party. If they don't, the DP is almost certainly on its way to political history.

Totally to the point, retsdon. Such a transition can take place, e.g. the Labour Party in UK had sunk to an all-time low in the early 80's, its conferences were a comedy show of quasi-Marxist Trade Union bosses screaming abuse at each other, mad local councils signing nuclear -free pacts with Russia whilst their local services crumbled beneath waste and incompetence. On to the stage came Tony Blair - love him or hate him - but he pulled the Party and its grassroots membership back to sanity and, eventually, into Government.

I simply wonder whether there are enough people left in the Dems to achieve anything like that, and I certainly feel that the total hatred of Suthep in the North will be so hard to overcome. The Butcher of Bangkok will not be easily forgotten.

[catmac]

The yellows - or whatever they are calling themselves now - look bad to the international community. Rich people telling people not to vote - because they know that their side will lose - are not very sympathetic, no matter how bad the opposition is.

or no matter how bad your understanding of the situation is!! No doubt from CNN!!

[/quote

You really are becoming a pain with your snotty little sneers. You obviously have no idea who you are slagging off. The only problem is....I can't pin you down to which of the dear departed pro-Suthep vermin you are a reincarnation of! (It's the love of numbers that give you away!)

[catmac]

Forgive my ignorance of things Thailand ... I've only lived here 3 years so far .... so please help me understand ...

In Thailand there are clearly more rural poor than all the rich, middle class and fragmented students put together soooo much more. Even with Yinglucks god awful rice scheme losing her considerable votes, there are still more rural poor creating Thailands clear majority. In any election where everyone gets an equal vote, then the way the scales will tip is clearly obvious with or without reform, with or without vote buying, with or without corruption, with or without protests, with or without violence theres only one possible outcome people will support whoever supports the poor.

This is why I really dont understand why the mis-named democracy party doesnt try to appeal to the poor with programs that will actually do something to improve their quality of life and please dont give me the American trickle down rhetoric this is an election. Popular policies are what democracy is all about the majority if you have a problem with that then what you want is not democracy. Thaksin might be many things, but at least he was smart enough to know you had to appease the poor first which at least makes him the first true democrat in Thailand (as begrudged as I am to say that).

The thing that scares me though and I mean really scares me are the very poorly defined changes that Khun Suthep wants. Here is a man who changes his demands and direction on a daily basis, calling himself democratic, but failing to actually put out for public scrutiny the changes he wants to see in Thailand. He has had a phenomenal opportunity given to him in this protest he could have publicised a clear plan forward that would appeal to ALL Thai people (that he assumes he represents) and gone to the election with that and if he really had the peoples support as he claims, then they would have given him the mandate to do as he wishes. But hes done nothing but called civil disobedience (and Im being kind when I say that), in any other country hed be in jail or dead already (which unfortunately speaks more admirably of the caretaker govt). NEVER trust a man who wants you to follow him based only on his hatred of another person.

Thailand if you want a democracy, and I mean a real democracy where all people are considered equal, then voting is the ONLY way forward even if the current system is flawed. Democracy doesnt happen over night; its something the takes time to grow and evolve. You have to play the game to change the rules. You have to learn how to appeal to the people and how to serve their interests rather than your own. The only way forward is to listen to the people and win their hearts. Democracy has NEVER been found in the hands of someone who stopped people from voting using fear, intimidation and violence never. And I hope tomorrow that the people of Thailand are allowed the opportunity to peacefully choose for themselves what they want, instead of being scared off by people forcing them to do what a VERY small minority wants.

Peace.

I don't think you're ignorant, far from it - a rare voice of sanity. But you will doubtless be told you just don't understand Thainess. I would say you haven't been here long enough to be brainwashed, or sozzle your brain. Democracy is not only about elections, of course, but you cannot have democracy without elections. Perhaps some posters would like to go and live in North Korea and see what the people there would say about the idea of voluntarily rejecting the right to vote.

WHo are you lot kidding - a red shirt attempt at giving them credibility from a neutral point of view - you must remember some of us have education beyond the red village green!! AND WE USE IT!!

Sneering again, loveless? Sorry your side has been utterly humiliated by YS's tactics, but no need to descend to the gutter spewing vitriol at all and sundry. As to your final point, I see no evidence that you know how to use anything!

[SamMunich]

And there lays the problem. The Dems don't like coalitions. Hence they keep losing. Do they have a political think tank? ... It is ever so simple.

Who says so? As I wrote, all except the last 2 Taksinite governments were made up from coalitions, and the Dems were part in several of them. Else how could we have gotten a PM Chuan Leekpai or a PM Abhisit? And even before these two, there were others... And other PMs, that weren't leader of the single government party as Anand Phanyarachun (sp), Banharn Silpa-archa, etc...

No politician likes coalitions, as it reduces the capability to act. Coalitions are a necessity, nothing else.

And as long as the Dems refuse to come up with such pork barrel politics like the 15k to 20k Baht per ton of rice, they are always defeated by those, that heap promisses upon promisses without looking into the issue of being able to keep these promisses.

Why is the government bankrupt? Why haven't the farmers received the money for their rice? Because Taksin & Co promise way more than they can deliver. From their point of view this does not matter, as long as the votes come in on their side.

BTW I'm no friend of the Dems either, but a friend of all people, that refuse to be fooled by people like Taksin & Co.

[SamMunich]

And there we go again, Danny the Rook(y) comes up with that old and nevertheless useless lore about the Dem's not winning any elections since God created the world...

Can somebody please, please tell him, that - except for two out of the last 20 elections - no party ever won the absolute majority? There have always been coalition governments in Thailand, that is the rule.

He should pay back his salary for writing such crap!

Your rant might have more impact if you had been able to show just one election in the last 2 decades where the Dems have either won a majority or been sufficiently powerful enough to gather a winning coalition.

Otherwise, much as you and the other losers might hate it, what Danny wrote is substantially TRUE!

Read my previous post (#125).

As to your reasoning about the truth of Danny's text, that reminds me of the person, who said: A dog has 4 legs, a cat has 4 legs, so a cat must be a dog!...

[SamMunich]

There is Banharn Silpa-archa's Chart Thai Pattana party. There even used to be a mighty Chart Thai Party, from which the Chart Pattana Party split off.

Banharn's Chart Thai party was dissolved for electoral irregularities in the 2007 election, and reformed as Chart Thai Pattana.

Thanks for the correction!

Thais are easy on coming up with similar names: Chart Thai, Chart Pattana, Chart Thai Pattana, next might be Thai Pattana Chart...

[SamMunich]

When was the last absolute majority in the UK? You're missing the point here, which is that Thaksin-affiliated parties have rendered coalitions largley unnecessary.To be an effective opposition, the Dems have to stop being intellectually lazy and:

* take advantage of the growing disaffection of the rural poor with PTP and devise policies that promise them a better life (why haven't they already done this?)

* broaden their appeal in the above way and stop relying on the elites and southerners for support - Thailand is not only Bangkok & Hua Hin.

* stop relying on coups (military or judicial) to provide power and consistently use democratic channels to power (not just when convenient)

In this way, they can become emblematic of REAL meaningful democratic values - of course, reforms are necessary to achieve a fair system, reforms which prevent both PTP, Dems and others from abusing politics for thier own benefit (Not only Thaksin but Dems like Suthep have been doing this for years, feathering their own nests).

If the Dems actually did their job as an opposition party then they could deal with Thaksinite parties democratically and, over time, defeat them within the confines of the system of democracy. Thailand would then regain respect from the rest of the world and avoid switching roles with Myanmar.

I agree, that the Dems should have done something about their lack of support in the North and Northeast. But then again, the last time they tried that, they were beaten up by red-shirts, whenever they tried to have a campaign meeting or something like that.

You will have to accept, that making inroads in an area, that is under the rule of hooligans is a very tricky thing.

Without being a Dem supporter I doubt, they are intellectually lazy. I do have the feeling of intellectual shortcomings, when I hear some TRT/PTP or Red-shirt politicians. Nuttawut and Chatuporn are glaring examples... And don't forget our dear ex-DJ from Pattaya, who asked the people to bring gasoline to Bangkok.