Political reform committee pushing for fair, clean elections

[lucky11]

"...clean and effective political system which is deemed suitable for Thai society."

" Suitable for Thai society". So does that mean it's still OK for candidates and their cronies to hand out 300 baht to each voter as they enter the voting sites?

Just the opposite now that the Shins have effectively been purged from politics.

Blatant unaffordable and unwise populism to garner votes will be disallowed to prevent the Pheu Thai party from bribing the voters with lunatic schemes like the rice scam. You only have to look at all their populist policies that they deceived the people with such as the 1 tablet 1 child scheme, the first time car/house buyer schemes, of course the real monstrosity the 'great rice scam' and anything they used to dupe the people, to realise that they were designed for one purpose ie: to gain power (through cheating and then to ram through Thaksin's amnesty) - the fact that this failed and effectively brought the government down was 'beautiful irony'!!

The first time house buyer scheme - and it is indeed a scheme - is a child of the present military government.

Oops!

Yingluck Government Scheme by Wannaphong

บทความโดย วรรณพงษ์ ดุรงคเวโรจน์

Picture Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-30/thai-billionaires-embracing-yingluck-soft-power-for-asia-exports.html

First Home. The concept of first home tax rebate is almost similar to the first car scheme. It’s very controversial and there is the question about who are the actual beneficiaries derived from this project. The first house tax rebate is to cut taxes to support first-time home buyers. A tax reduction at a maximum 10 per cent for property prices will be applied to people buying a flat or a home costing five million baht of less. The tax cut will be applied in the same amount each year for five consecutive years in the calculation of personal income taxes. Tax reduction policy for first time buyers will favor for people whose monthly salary is over 20,000 baht and entitled to pay taxes. But the poor that his income is lowered than first tax bracket and pay no tax who is the one should to gain benefit first but they will receive nothing. Now there is no program about first home serve for the poor who have low income or his income is less than ฿150,000 per year. I strongly disagree with this scheme more than the first car tax rebate. For the first car tax rebate, even though not at all the poor gain but there is still benefit to the poorer in society, this first home tax rebate has no any benefit to the actual poor. I think government should stop it or revise it.

Ooops indeed on your part!!

[Denim]

Waste of time. They should be pushing for fair clean coups. Anything else is just pretense.

[FangFerang]

"...clean and effective political system which is deemed suitable for Thai society."

" Suitable for Thai society". So does that mean it's still OK for candidates and their cronies to hand out 300 baht to each voter as they enter the voting sites?

What stupidity. It would have taken several billion baht to do this for even one election, but like some sheeple, you keep bleeping the party line.

Baah. Baah. I like being stupid.

The rest of us are laughing. At you.

[rubl]

Proposing policies that benefit people isn't vote buying. And is at the very core of the system called democracy. It happens all over the world, not just in Thailand. The key to democracy is acceptance when your side doesn't win. That happens all over the world as well, except in Thailand....

Proposing responsible policies which will be implemented in a transparent accountable manner, you mean?

The key to democracy is still listening to those who didn't win.

ah right you mean those that didn't "win" because the army took over with guns? yes I get it and I can see how the good general does "listen"

You seem to have forgotten that the good general doesn't represent democracy as some would like to see him doing.

[rubl]

Proposing policies that benefit people isn't vote buying. And is at the very core of the system called democracy. It happens all over the world, not just in Thailand. The key to democracy is acceptance when your side doesn't win. That happens all over the world as well, except in Thailand....

Proposing responsible policies which will be implemented in a transparent accountable manner, you mean?

The key to democracy is still listening to those who didn't win.

Responsible policies ? Hmm there aren't many of those around in practice.

The problem in Thailand is, that those that didn't win take the law into their own hands and seize power. I'm sure people were listening to them, of course the balance of power doesn't require the winners to act on whatever they have been told.

Surely in real democracies there is no vote buying and politicians being utterly democratic only propose responsible policies and accept both responsibility and accountability for those policies?

[rubl]

From comments I understand posters here are not in favour of fair and clean elections. How curious.

Mind you. the elections in 2011 were relatively fair and clean. It's just the things around the elections which need to be tackled. Excluding parties controlled by criminal fugitives for instance. Prevent such indirect vote buying as the 'self-financing' RPPS. Now that would already help a lot.

Of course the real grassroot red-shirts may want to setup a political party to look after their interests rather than those of politicians and cronies. That in itself would be a big step in democracy already.

Yeah let's prevent indirect vote buying, there will be no party left to participate in elections of course.

The OP reads like some commercial, a lot of promises but not a single concrete measure was mentioned.

People that pay attention already know where this is going. Elections yes, a government that can peruse their agenda, no way. Democracy 'Thai style'

Well, if all parties participate in vote buying, none of them are really democratic, only social in spreading the wealth around in their own gentle fashion I guess.

It's interesting that many seem to think that the whole vote buying and corruption started with Thaksin.

Interesting article from The Economist, back in 2002, a universe far far away

Funny how their analysis of the pre Thaksin world seems Oh So Similar to the Thaksin world so many seem to view as the originator of all evil..

http://www.economist.com/node/998348

You're right, it has been a problem for ages.

Only an attitude change of the Thai population, proper education and a decade or two will be able to make a difference.

[sjaak327]

Proposing policies that benefit people isn't vote buying. And is at the very core of the system called democracy. It happens all over the world, not just in Thailand. The key to democracy is acceptance when your side doesn't win. That happens all over the world as well, except in Thailand....

Proposing responsible policies which will be implemented in a transparent accountable manner, you mean?

The key to democracy is still listening to those who didn't win.

Responsible policies ? Hmm there aren't many of those around in practice.

The problem in Thailand is, that those that didn't win take the law into their own hands and seize power. I'm sure people were listening to them, of course the balance of power doesn't require the winners to act on whatever they have been told.

Surely in real democracies there is no vote buying and politicians being utterly democratic only propose responsible policies and accept both responsibility and accountability for those policies?

Right, can you point me to this utopia you talk about ?