Yingluck's lawyer hit back at TDRI's Niphon

[473geo]

The follow through of the rice scheme is the big test for the present government. If none of the big shots gets send to prison for long years all will be lost. Corruption in the top then will not be punished as usual. And this after the biggest steal in history. Then the general who started out doing rather well, especially compared to the horrible previous government, will be no real good after all.

So please please please save Thailand. Start the process of really fighting corruption. Lock up lil sis, Tarit, the wino Chalerm and the other top criminals. Then start working on bringing home the missunderstood fugitive, the big bad poisenous spider. Please please please care about the people.

This kind of incoherent post doesn't really merit a response though it's odd that the Yingluck haters appear to be uniformly inarticulate.However my attention was caught by the plea to care about the people.It's worth stressing that the way to achieve that objective is to restore democracy as soon as possible and hold early elections - very much the message that the civilised world had been pressing on the Thai dictatorship.

Indeed. Once the criminal elements have been removed from involvement. No country can or should tolerate a government that allows itself to be dictated to by a non elected criminal fugitive. Or one that seems to condone violence on any who protest against that situation.

The mistake made by many Tvisa commentators on the rice scheme failure, is, to completely ignore the non government high level participants.

The charge against Yingluck of being incompetent appears to be a sidestep to eliminate the involvement of other parties possibly brought into the investigation through a detailed investigation into the financial framework. Alternatively there is no financial irregularity, no corruption, and the farmers did actually benefit.

We have seen the token arrest of half a dozen people shipping rice across the border. What happened guys? 80% of the rice is declared substandard and 6 guys are responsible! The investigation has stalled, possibly only Yinlgluck and 2 more people to face charges, job done, case closed. Loss attributed.

Many of you guys supporting 'checks and balances' should refer to the rice scheme investigation as a prime example of how the legal framework in Thailand can be arranged to pursue only those who are selected to be guilty, and exonerate others by default.

There in lies the problem, the average Thai is only too aware of the continuation of this practice, as the rice scheme investigation is pushing it right in their face!

[candide]

The "good" General has announced they would sell 500 000 tonnes every month, so it should be sold in 36 months.

Now we have this guy talking about 10 years, in order to be able to put forward a 1 trillion baths figure in the media. I don't know about the other figures quoted, but this one clearly shows it's politically motivated.

I am always enlighted by the ability of Thai people to make contradictory or incoherent statements, even if they are on the same political side (well, they even contradict themselves over time... )

Link please.

If not then just another lot of bull.

I found this one. More precisely it's from the Ministry of Commerce, not from the General

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Ministry-to-release-18m-tonnes-of-rice-in-next-3-y-30238232.html

[rubl]

Ulterior motive: try to provide objective figures which had to be painfully collected as the Yingluck Government wasn't into 'administration'.

[Local Drunk]

""And as yet, not probably a baht to Yingluck herself. So""

Is stupidity a defence?? Mai kow-jai!

Good luck. So far, not very much hard evidence and its not like they are sprinting to court is it. Yingluck has them by the balls and she knows it.

Her lawyers will eat them all alive. This is where the yellow desire to keep the status quo hits reality. The shins will not lie down and no cooked up numbers will win.

They need bank accounts and hard numbers. A the rest is talk. Oooh. They lost money. Strewth, thats what politicians do

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think she was charged with dereliction of duty or something similar, not theft. The truth is she was in charge, there are only 3 ways that can explain such a massive loss on her watch. 1. She knew that there was corruption all along the line and did nothing. 2. She was so negligent that she was unaware of anything. 3. She is stupid

Remember this one thing, about one year before the sh#t hit the fan, her finance minister Kittitrat said that the scheme was not financially sustainable and should be stopped. Was Yingluck aware of that. or was she blissfully ignorant of that as well. You do the people of this country a disservice by defending her, at least her lawyer has an excuse....he is getting paid.

You think this system lost money because of corruption?

This thing lost money because of the market.

You are digging a hole deeper and deeper for yourself TaH give it up

Just one of the proven instances of corruption that has lost the country money, linked to guess who :

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/737022-rice-fraud-verdict-on-thaksins-aide-due-today/page-3

Thaksin aide jailed for rice fraud

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The Samut Prakarn provincial court Tuesday sentenced a close aide to ex-pm Thaksin Shinawatra to six years in jail and fined him Bt12,000 after finding him guilty of embezzlement and fraud for his failure to deliver a Bt200-million rice shipment to Iran.

The defendant, 50-year-old Apichat Chansakunporn, alias Sia Pieng, managing director of President Agri Co Ltd, and a close Thaksin aide, was prosecuted by the Office of the Attorney-General on embezzlement charges.

The court was told they took place during the Yingluck government when his company failed to deliver 20,000 tonnes of 5 per cent broken rice destined for Iran.

The court said the defendant violated the contract signed with the Commerce Ministry and embezzled the rice after his company sold the 20,000 tonnes of rice, which his company was obligated to deliver to Iran, to another country.

As I posted elsewhere, his one corrupt action has had ongoing effects for the country as Iran, previously one of Thailands biggest rice customers, has refused to buy Thai rice ever since.

The present administration are trying to get that market back :

Rice exports to Iran may resume soon

PETCHANET PRATRUANGKRAI

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- THAILAND is expected to export more rice to Iran soon after that country lifts an import ban imposed three years ago after a Thai exporter defaulted on a rice-shipment contract, the Foreign Trade Department has said.

The fair sized fish begin to flop... Let's see if they can land a whopper or two.

[Thai at Heart]

""And as yet, not probably a baht to Yingluck herself. So""

Is stupidity a defence?? Mai kow-jai!

Good luck. So far, not very much hard evidence and its not like they are sprinting to court is it. Yingluck has them by the balls and she knows it.

Her lawyers will eat them all alive. This is where the yellow desire to keep the status quo hits reality. The shins will not lie down and no cooked up numbers will win.

They need bank accounts and hard numbers. A the rest is talk. Oooh. They lost money. Strewth, thats what politicians do

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think she was charged with dereliction of duty or something similar, not theft. The truth is she was in charge, there are only 3 ways that can explain such a massive loss on her watch. 1. She knew that there was corruption all along the line and did nothing. 2. She was so negligent that she was unaware of anything. 3. She is stupid

Remember this one thing, about one year before the sh#t hit the fan, her finance minister Kittitrat said that the scheme was not financially sustainable and should be stopped. Was Yingluck aware of that. or was she blissfully ignorant of that as well. You do the people of this country a disservice by defending her, at least her lawyer has an excuse....he is getting paid.

You think this system lost money because of corruption?

This thing lost money because of the market.

You are digging a hole deeper and deeper for yourself TaH give it up

Just one of the proven instances of corruption that has lost the country money, linked to guess who :

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/737022-rice-fraud-verdict-on-thaksins-aide-due-today/page-3

Thaksin aide jailed for rice fraud

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The Samut Prakarn provincial court Tuesday sentenced a close aide to ex-pm Thaksin Shinawatra to six years in jail and fined him Bt12,000 after finding him guilty of embezzlement and fraud for his failure to deliver a Bt200-million rice shipment to Iran.

The defendant, 50-year-old Apichat Chansakunporn, alias Sia Pieng, managing director of President Agri Co Ltd, and a close Thaksin aide, was prosecuted by the Office of the Attorney-General on embezzlement charges.

The court was told they took place during the Yingluck government when his company failed to deliver 20,000 tonnes of 5 per cent broken rice destined for Iran.

The court said the defendant violated the contract signed with the Commerce Ministry and embezzled the rice after his company sold the 20,000 tonnes of rice, which his company was obligated to deliver to Iran, to another country.

As I posted elsewhere, his one corrupt action has had ongoing effects for the country as Iran, previously one of Thailands biggest rice customers, has refused to buy Thai rice ever since.

The present administration are trying to get that market back :Rice exports to Iran may resume soon

PETCHANET PRATRUANGKRAI

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- THAILAND is expected to export more rice to Iran soon after that country lifts an import ban imposed three years ago after a Thai exporter defaulted on a rice-shipment contract, the Foreign Trade Department has said.

The fair sized fish begin to flop... Let's see if they can land a whopper or two.

And this guy went to jail for his con. And.....

[MaiChai]

Time to use defamation laws to suppress the truth? She was in charge and responsible. Thus she should be held accountable?

[mikemac]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

[AleG]

The "good" General has announced they would sell 500 000 tonnes every month, so it should be sold in 36 months.

Now we have this guy talking about 10 years, in order to be able to put forward a 1 trillion baths figure in the media. I don't know about the other figures quoted, but this one clearly shows it's politically motivated.

I am always enlighted by the ability of Thai people to make contradictory or incoherent statements, even if they are on the same political side (well, they even contradict themselves over time... )

The "good" General has announced they would sell 500 000 tonnes every month, so it should be sold in 36 months.

Brilliant deduction, and you only had to ignore that Thailand is still producing, and will still be producing rice that will be sold as the bulk of that 500.000 tonnes a month figure in the next ten years to arrive to it.

[Robespiere]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

[robblok]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

Winning an election does not mean you can cheat and break the rules (voting for others is illegal, voting on strange times is too, not letting the other party have their say) These were some of the many things the PTP did. They broke the law.. got the country close to civil war (not only in the south). They would be still in power if they had not try to get their criminal leader off, and in the process of that they shafted many low key redshirts still in prison. But hey.. they are good to keep in jail to keep the masses angry besides Taksin is what its all about.

Also if you don't budget for a rice program (saying its cost neutral) and your budget is already stretched to the max deficit your doing things wrong. Then when others (international organisations and local ones (everyone with a brain)) tell you its not going to work they get bullied and threatened.

All in all if PTP plays by the rules then they can't get deposed. So let them up their game and dump that criminal they see as a leader.

[Robespiere]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

Winning an election does not mean you can cheat and break the rules (voting for others is illegal, voting on strange times is too, not letting the other party have their say) These were some of the many things the PTP did. They broke the law.. got the country close to civil war (not only in the south). They would be still in power if they had not try to get their criminal leader off, and in the process of that they shafted many low key redshirts still in prison. But hey.. they are good to keep in jail to keep the masses angry besides Taksin is what its all about.

Also if you don't budget for a rice program (saying its cost neutral) and your budget is already stretched to the max deficit your doing things wrong. Then when others (international organisations and local ones (everyone with a brain)) tell you its not going to work they get bullied and threatened.

All in all if PTP plays by the rules then they can't get deposed. So let them up their game and dump that criminal they see as a leader.

[robblok]

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

Winning an election does not mean you can cheat and break the rules (voting for others is illegal, voting on strange times is too, not letting the other party have their say) These were some of the many things the PTP did. They broke the law.. got the country close to civil war (not only in the south). They would be still in power if they had not try to get their criminal leader off, and in the process of that they shafted many low key redshirts still in prison. But hey.. they are good to keep in jail to keep the masses angry besides Taksin is what its all about.

Also if you don't budget for a rice program (saying its cost neutral) and your budget is already stretched to the max deficit your doing things wrong. Then when others (international organisations and local ones (everyone with a brain)) tell you its not going to work they get bullied and threatened.

All in all if PTP plays by the rules then they can't get deposed. So let them up their game and dump that criminal they see as a leader.

Ah shoot the messenger when you dont like the message. That is like how the PTP threatened the Democrats that came with sacks of rotten rice for theft and how they threatened the person who came out with the bad rice figures on accounting.

Hmm you are truly a farang redshirt .. i don't like the message so i attack the messenger.

Your laughable.

[Valentine]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

Here is an example of how the Dems "cheating" policies have worked in the past. They came into power after the financial crisis of 1997 which was mainly caused by the reckless policies of the Banharn & Chavalit governments especially when they embarked on a course of action to defend the Baht against the currency traders. A certain person in exile was very close to Chavalit & he along with others surely benefited to the tune of a huge amount of money by buying USD before the devaluation. The Dems were left with an empty kitty but put policies in place to quickly repay the loan to the IMF most of which was done during their administration. When Mr T came to power he made the final payment on the loan & claimed full credit for lifting the country out of the financial mess.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Valentine

[Robespiere]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

Here is an example of how the Dems "cheating" policies have worked in the past. They came into power after the financial crisis of 1997 which was mainly caused by the reckless policies of the Banharn & Chavalit governments especially when they embarked on a course of action to defend the Baht against the currency traders. A certain person in exile was very close to Chavalit & he along with others surely benefited to the tune of a huge amount of money by buying USD before the devaluation. The Dems were left with an empty kitty but put policies in place to quickly repay the loan to the IMF most of which was done during their administration. When Mr T came to power he made the final payment on the loan & claimed full credit for lifting the country out of the financial mess.

The wonderful administration of PM Chuan Leekpai of which you speak......

A little bit of wiki:

Chuan's government found itself plagued with corruption scandals and rumors.

Key cases of corruption included:

• Rakkiat Sukhthana, Health Minister, was charged with taking a five million THB (125,000 USD) bribe from a drug firm and forcing state hospitals to buy medicine at exorbitant prices. After being found guilty, he jumped bail and went into hiding.
• Suthep Thaugsuban, Minister of Transport and Communications, whose brokering of illegal land deals caused the fall of the Chuan 1 government, was linked to abuse of funds in setting up a co-operative in his southern province of Surat Thani.
• The "edible fence" seed scandal, in which massive overpricing of seeds distributed to rural areas happened. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture was forced to resign.
• The Salween logging scandal, where up to 20,000 logs were felled illegally in the Salween forest in Mae Hong Son. Some of them turned up in the compound of the Democrat party’s office in Phichit province.
• Sanan Kajornprasart, Interior Minister, as well as 8 other cabinet ministers were found to have understated their declared assets. Sanan was later barred by the Constitution Court from politics for 5 years.
• Chuan himself was found by the National Counter-Corruption Commission to have undeclared shareholdings in a rural cooperative.

Chuan stepped down as the head of the Democrat Party in 2003.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Robespiere

[Thai at Heart]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

They need to clarify how governments carry out their business, such as off budget financing limits and use of super majority to change the constitution.

But, there is a reason why the constitution was written the way it is. Its because it suits both sides to have it written that way.

[candide]

The "good" General has announced they would sell 500 000 tonnes every month, so it should be sold in 36 months.

Now we have this guy talking about 10 years, in order to be able to put forward a 1 trillion baths figure in the media. I don't know about the other figures quoted, but this one clearly shows it's politically motivated.

I am always enlighted by the ability of Thai people to make contradictory or incoherent statements, even if they are on the same political side (well, they even contradict themselves over time... )

The "good" General has announced they would sell 500 000 tonnes every month, so it should be sold in 36 months.

Brilliant deduction, and you only had to ignore that Thailand is still producing, and will still be producing rice that will be sold as the bulk of that 500.000 tonnes a month figure in the next ten years to arrive to it.

I am not the only one to make this brilliant deduction, the title of the following article clearly states:

Ministry to release 18m tonnes of rice in next 3 years

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Ministry-to-release-18m-tonnes-of-rice-in-next-3-y-30238232.html

It clearly refers to the 18m of pledged rice in stock.

[Robespiere]

On the face of it you appear to be the perfect voter, a true cynic. No expectations of honesty, accountability, performance or value for money. At what point would you complain about the loss of tax payer funds, when it's all gone, 50% gone or never, just write it off as "that's what governments do", unbelievable. I expect your personal slogan would be " The government can piss away all the money there is and leave the treasury bare. I pledge to never complain".

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

They need to clarify how governments carry out their business, such as off budget financing limits and use of super majority to change the constitution.

But, there is a reason why the constitution was written the way it is. Its because it suits both sides to have it written that way.

The 2007 constitution was written by one side to benefit one side, much the same way the 2015 constitution will be written by one side to benefit one side.

The problem these usurpers have is that they are so on the nose with the voting public that any constitution that would enable them to remain in power would be such a gerrymandered steaming pile that it could not pass the smell test of even the simplest most backward red buffalo peasant you Yellows so deride.

[rubl]

Well whatever.

Ms. Yingluck might be impeached and assuming there will be a court case she'll get a chance to clear her name in which case the impeachment will probably be declared null and void, including the five years ban on standing for elections. Now surely some should be happy about that ?

Edited November 9, 2014 by rubl

[tbthailand]

The charge her lawyer is going to have to defend her against is almost impossible to defend... Criminal Negligence. She can't say... "Yes, I was the head of the government and therefore the head this rice pledging policy. However, I never attended the meetings so I never knew what was happening." What's she gonna do, blame her cabinet? For every finger she points at them a hundred will be pointing back.

What was the response of her government when questioned about the rice pledging scheme? Everything is hunky dory.

She should just be honest and say... "I'm not very bright. I am totally unqualified to read a speech teleprompter, much less lead a nation of 60 million people. I got to where I am because of family connections and nothing more. My understanding of how a Democracy and my own government works is limited to what my brother and the cabinet he told me appoint said. I'm so very sorry... I'm shedding public tears."

For it to be criminal, she has to have broken a law.

When a public servant distributes ANY service for free the government is by definition losing money.

You are talking about criminalising government.

When a public servant distributes ANY service for free the government is by definition losing money.

like for a blimp?

Could be. Or an aircraft carrier, or a bomb detector. As I said, prosecuting this type of thing has to be done to a high legal standard. Govts all over the world have subsidy programs.

They are pleading damage. How much damage is criminal. What was debt to GDP before and what is it now?

right, governments all over the world have subsidy programs - agriculture, energy, manufacturing, R&D, etc etc etc.

And then there is defense spending in a country with no siginificant outside threats. jeez.

The rice program may not have been a great program, or it may not have been well run. But it is not the only subsidy and it is not afaik even the largest subsidy which should be the energy sector. In any case, it seems to be suitable for political exploitation.

[Valentine]

Apparently ramrod, being democratically elected gives any government a license to squander.

Being a democratically elected government gives that government the right to implement the policies it took to the election.

The size of the mandate given will determine the amount of compromise that government will have to make to get its policies through parliament.

The root cause here is that the Democrats are so woeful, they lose by so much and don't even bother trying to improve because they just rely on boycotting elections and military of judicial coups to get into power.

How many elections must Abhisit lose before they realise he's not the man to take the Democrats forward?

You want a government with more accountability, tell the Democrats to lift their game, stop cheating, take the role of parliamentary opposition seriously and develop a decent set of policies that, should the PTP falter or "piss away all the money", the public will see as a viable alternative and so elect the Democrats.

Coup after coup does nothing other than retard Thailand's political development.

Here is an example of how the Dems "cheating" policies have worked in the past. They came into power after the financial crisis of 1997 which was mainly caused by the reckless policies of the Banharn & Chavalit governments especially when they embarked on a course of action to defend the Baht against the currency traders. A certain person in exile was very close to Chavalit & he along with others surely benefited to the tune of a huge amount of money by buying USD before the devaluation. The Dems were left with an empty kitty but put policies in place to quickly repay the loan to the IMF most of which was done during their administration. When Mr T came to power he made the final payment on the loan & claimed full credit for lifting the country out of the financial mess.

The wonderful administration of PM Chuan Leekpai of which you speak......

A little bit of wiki:

Chuan's government found itself plagued with corruption scandals and rumors.

Key cases of corruption included:

• Rakkiat Sukhthana, Health Minister, was charged with taking a five million THB (125,000 USD) bribe from a drug firm and forcing state hospitals to buy medicine at exorbitant prices. After being found guilty, he jumped bail and went into hiding.
• Suthep Thaugsuban, Minister of Transport and Communications, whose brokering of illegal land deals caused the fall of the Chuan 1 government, was linked to abuse of funds in setting up a co-operative in his southern province of Surat Thani.
• The "edible fence" seed scandal, in which massive overpricing of seeds distributed to rural areas happened. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture was forced to resign.
• The Salween logging scandal, where up to 20,000 logs were felled illegally in the Salween forest in Mae Hong Son. Some of them turned up in the compound of the Democrat party’s office in Phichit province.
• Sanan Kajornprasart, Interior Minister, as well as 8 other cabinet ministers were found to have understated their declared assets. Sanan was later barred by the Constitution Court from politics for 5 years.
• Chuan himself was found by the National Counter-Corruption Commission to have undeclared shareholdings in a rural cooperative.

Chuan stepped down as the head of the Democrat Party in 2003.

Pick any government in this country & you will easily find multiple corruption issues.

Rakkiat was sentenced to 15 years in jail & actually served quite a lot of time before being released.

When Sanan's ban was over he had to find another party to take him in unlike some other parties who welcome back their banned members & give some of them influential positions.

I have never liked Suthep but at least he was able to highlight corruption to a much larger portion of the population.