Abhisit floats 'minor reforms'

[Valentine]

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I see the PTP keyboard warriors are up early this morning, giving the usual,

we will not listen to any one who does not agree with us

Our Way or No Way

"I'm realistic. I don't think everybody will win everything he or she wants," he said.

I thought this is what we finally want to hear, a compromise, but that will not suit the PTP Keybosrd warriors

He was ready to talk to ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra if his sister Yingluck was not able to make her own decision as head of the government.

This put Yingluck straight into defensive mode as she now must admit who is running Thailand, her or her brother

It my not be the perfect solution, but way ahead of what any one else has put foward

Fact:

Miracles can happen

My Thai Wife has never liked Abhisit, as we live in the North

But this morning I fell off my chair when she said to her mother

He is a good man and loves Thailand

haha so it's ok because your wife says "he's a good man and loves Thailand" lol

Fact:

he doesn't have the support of the vast majority of Thais - don't believe? hold an ELECTION

me GF has never liked Abhisit, as we live in Thailand

This morning my GF still doesn't like him and said so to our cat

"he's still the same sneaky, self-centered and self-serving guy and loves himself first, second and last" - the cat smiled and nodded knowingly

he doesn't have the support of the vast majority of Thais - don't believe? hold an ELECTION

And the only reason for that is because the majority of the population in Thailand is dirt poor and uneducated, and believe in populist policies rather than an economic policies.

People who have been educated should know that populist regimes never work and have failed all over the world.

The Constitution under Chapter V, Directive Principles of Fundamental State Policies, Part 7 - Economic Policy supports populist policies. So will the limitation or banning of populist policies be another amendment to the Constitution, ie., made by the People's Committee?

if the Thai people believe in populist policies to improve their lives and oppoisition parties believe such policies are doomed to be failures, then it is the responsibility of the opposition to educate the people to support a different policy. That is what campaigning is all about. Not to jam ppolicies down people's electorial throats with laws and constitutional amendments made without their consent, and forbiding them to vote until, as Suthep has stated, they become educated according to his standards.

It is not easy for an opposition party to enlighten the voters when candidates are threatened with violent demonstrations in many constituencies.

[khunken]

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"The Election Commission (EC) needed to issue a regulation to limit or ban excessive populist policies, as they would lead to irresponsible election campaigning."

Seems a little odd for the EC to go around telling people what platform they can or cannot campaign on. What would be the point of elections if the politicians were unable to present any ideas? Why would anyone go vote? Perhaps this is his intent?

So you think political parties should be allowed to make promises they can't deliver in order to get votes?

For example (and just to pick one), how many votes did PTP got from their promise to set a flat 20 Baht fare for Skytrain and Metro for Bangkok, only to never, ever mention it again after winning and "realizing" that they didn't have the power to do such thing?

They swindled the votes out of people with promises like that, and then they have the chutzpah of starting the "Respect my vote" Astroturfing campaign.

What the Abhisit/Suthep/PDRC/Democrats want to do is legislate "promises" on the excuse that it will protect people from making the wrong, uneducated vote (aka not vote for Demorcat/PDRC party). Some "promises" will be allowed and some will not in order to deliver the proper or educated votes. Apart that such legislation will not only violate the Constitution "six different ways," but Thailand will probably have a real political war that will make Suthep's Final Victories look like oatmeal.

In a democratic society it is the opposition parties' (Thailand has 63) responsibility to bring to light (what some call 'fact-checking') the falsehoods of campaign promises to turn people's support to the opposition and gain their vote legitimately. That is the nature of freedom of speech and personal responsibility. But everything I hear about Abhisit/Suthep's reforms indicates that they don't want to make that kind of effort because they will have to move away from their Radical Conservative policies to more Centralist policies to gain the majority support of the public. They would rather force public support outside the electorial system through "reforms" initiated by unelected committees and Independent agencies for which the People would have no recourse.

I agree that it is impossible to legislate for populist policies. I also agree that all voters are entitled to vote, no matter what their state of education. The problem is that you insist on speculating on what Abhisit has in store. I feel sure that if his suggestions are listened to seriously by the PTP, negotiations can drop the populist bit.

A far greater reform is the vote buying controlled by MPs, kamnans and party reps as well as the intimidation factor preventing any canvassing in the 'wrong' area.

Yes, it is the opposition's place to monitor the success or failure of populist policies. In the last parliament this was severly curtailed, sometimes prevented and all details of the current state of the rice subsidy hidden from both the opposition's & the public's view. Unlike real democracies, no local government minister took responsibility for serious errors by resigning. Even Korea's PM has the honesty to resign over the ferry disaster.

The system of checks and balances here is just not good enough. Confidence motions are a farce with the whips preventing any real censure of failure or corruption. The Senate should be a check on the government but, even with a half elected, half appointed body, the last Senate failed to do that duty, It took a major protest to convince them that the amnesty bill was really aimed at one person.

You have that unaltered foreign political mindset that seeks to define local parties in the mold of the UK. It is seriously flawed as there is no left of centre party here unfortunately. The rice scheme that was supposed to target poor farmers was designed to give those at the top the cream and those at the bottom the dregs. 18% of the amount spent benefitting poor farmers is one figure that I've seen with the poorest of the poor - those growing rice for their own consumption - getting nothing. Classic right-wing trickle-down economics.

Best wait and see how Abhisit's talks go - at least he's trying.

Edited April 28, 2014 by khunken

[Payboy]

Abhisit floats 'minor reforms'

My buddah, what a creative headline.

Someone forgot to flush.

[AleG]

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"The Election Commission (EC) needed to issue a regulation to limit or ban excessive populist policies, as they would lead to irresponsible election campaigning."

Seems a little odd for the EC to go around telling people what platform they can or cannot campaign on. What would be the point of elections if the politicians were unable to present any ideas? Why would anyone go vote? Perhaps this is his intent?

So you think political parties should be allowed to make promises they can't deliver in order to get votes?

For example (and just to pick one), how many votes did PTP got from their promise to set a flat 20 Baht fare for Skytrain and Metro for Bangkok, only to never, ever mention it again after winning and "realizing" that they didn't have the power to do such thing?

They swindled the votes out of people with promises like that, and then they have the chutzpah of starting the "Respect my vote" Astroturfing campaign.

What the Abhisit/Suthep/PDRC/Democrats want to do is legislate "promises" on the excuse that it will protect people from making the wrong, uneducated vote (aka not vote for Demorcat/PDRC party). Some "promises" will be allowed and some will not in order to deliver the proper or educated votes. Apart that such legislation will not only violate the Constitution "six different ways," but Thailand will probably have a real political war that will make Suthep's Final Victories look like oatmeal.

In a democratic society it is the opposition parties' (Thailand has 63) responsibility to bring to light (what some call 'fact-checking') the falsehoods of campaign promises to turn people's support to the opposition and gain their vote legitimately. That is the nature of freedom of speech and personal responsibility. But everything I hear about Abhisit/Suthep's reforms indicates that they don't want to make that kind of effort because they will have to move away from their Radical Conservative policies to more Centralist policies to gain the majority support of the public. They would rather force public support outside the electorial system through "reforms" initiated by unelected committees and Independent agencies for which the People would have no recourse.

I don't know where you get what Abhisit wants that; but I repeat my question, do you think it is acceptable for a political party to promise patently unachievable things, as the example I gave, to swing voters?

Yes opposition parties can campaign against those policies... and be branded as venal mud slingers with no ideas of their own, as the Democrats were in the previous election. Then it all becomes a matter of who can afford the biggest, most successful propaganda effort, propaganda doesn't care about facts, ethics, sound arguments and policies, whatever works to swing votes goes, usually boiling down to elicit an irrational response on the target audience.

There is also the issue of the opposition being prevented from engaging the electorate freely, as it is clearly not the case in PTP strongholds were intimidation and outright violence against the opposition is well established, I could dig up citations of Abhisit or other Democrats being hounded and attacked when showing up on those places.

As I said, I believe mandatory public debates among the candidates would be the way to separate the chaff from the wheat and let the people make real informed choices between competing parties.

That PTP in general and Yingluck in particular stayed away from debates on the previous elections speak volumes about the quality of their policies, for example the Rice Scheme, that wouldn't have survived the most cursory debunking during a debate.

As for Abhisit's "Reactionary Policies", seriously?, which ones would those be?

[Torkmada]

The re-emergence of Abhisit is an acknowledgement by the coup mongers of the failure of Suthep.

[Thai at Heart]

"The Election Commission (EC) needed to issue a regulation to limit or ban excessive populist policies, as they would lead to irresponsible election campaigning."

Seems a little odd for the EC to go around telling people what platform they can or cannot campaign on. What would be the point of elections if the politicians were unable to present any ideas? Why would anyone go vote? Perhaps this is his intent?

I noticed that as well. It is not feasible as it allows an unelected entity to dictate as to what a political party's platform will be. It is up to the voters to decide. The example given was a sly slap at the government's Rice subsidy program If the Abhisit notion was applied it would be anti-democratic because it denies the voters the right to decide and instead has a select few decide what will be good for the population. The poor chap still doesn't understand that he is not a part of a military dictatorship structure.

Nuts isn't it.

However, what they could do, is have something like in the UK with the office of fiscal studies. Then every party should HAVE to produce a manifesto.

Then, the office should estimate the impacts.

Problem with that, is that when they are all politicking and the numbers are crunched, maybe some of these populist policies aren't quite so horrendous.

More worryingly, is Abhisit saying he's perfectly OK with the wealth distribution in the country and would nor change it?