Comments

  1. nganadeeleg says:

    All publicity is good publicity – I see another best seller coming!

    Has anyone read the novel?

  2. amberwaves says:

    Go find your clippings for 1983 and you find an even better historical precedent. The idea comes from factions in the army.

    No clippings available? You can find the same information in The Military in Thai Politics, 1981-86. by Suchit Bunbongkarn. Or see recent articles by Michael Connors in Prachathai and elsewhere.

  3. nganadeeleg says:

    Ed: I am happy to stand by my comments & posts on this matter
    – and you can continue with the partisan approach if you like 🙂

    To help you comprehend how the PPP coalition government has failed in the test of competency, I herewith highlight a few different sections on my original blog post:

    It seems no one wants to lose face, and that is what’s stopping the political compromise.

    PAD demanding the government resign is a ludicrous situation, but at the same time Samak and PPP have shown no sign of backing off the constitutional amendment/PPP/Thaksin exoneration strategy – what will be the end result?
    Once the violence starts it will be hard to stop, and even if it is crushed for now, it will remain bubbling away for ages.

    A reasonable compromise would be for PAD to withdraw the resignation demand, and Samak & PPP to back away from the constitutional amendment rush, and let the matter be debated in parliament and come up with proposed amendments which they agree are to be put to a public referendum after a reasonable consultative period.

    Even if PAD do not moderate their demands, Samak and the PPP need to act in a competent and reasonable manner, which I think means they should do the following:
    – Address all of the PAD concerns in a reasonable manner.
    – Dismiss (with proper explanation) those demands that are unreasonable and outlandish.
    – Agree that the constitutional amendment process be a consultative process with parliamentary debate, followed by a public referendum.
    – Undertake a public education program outlining how they have addressed the legitimate concerns of the PAD, and also outline how the unreasonable demands are bad for democracy.
    – Once the above has been done, the PPP should set a deadline for the PAD protesters to disperse, and if the PAD protesters still fail to disperse then the deadline should be enforced with appropriate/reasonable force (such as tear gas & water cannons).

    Simply dismissing the PAD as an unlawful mob and falling back on its own electoral legitimacy is not good enough and in my opinion is poor governance.

    It is up to the government to act in a competent and reasonable manner, even if the PAD leadership wont!

    btw, I have been trying to be constructive and am somewhat dismayed at the failure of many of the other regular here to do the same (on both sides)

    If it’s all about point scoring then hows this:
    – I am now not so sure the PPP government is merely incompetent, and instead increasingly think they have no concern for real democracy, and are intractably self serving.

    As quick supporting evidence I tender the fact that they have not even been prepared to be more consultative on the constitutional amendment process.
    Further, it seems to me that PPP members have not merely supported and shown empathy for the red thugs, they (some) have actively led them into battle.

  4. Ed Norton says:

    Better go back and have a look at your own blog where compromise is highlighted. By the way, in countries that practice democratic representation, bad governments rarely get overthrown

  5. Ed Norton says:

    Somewhere someone made a point on NM about Chai-Anan Samudavanija and his support for Sonthi Lim and PAD. By chance I was looking through some old press clippings and came across an article on Chai-Anan in the Bangkok Post of 3 Aug 1996. In it he was defending a proposal he made for a constitutional drafting committee where MPs had apparently suggested that the drafting committee should be made up of people drawn from particular occupational categories. He stated that such a proposal was tantamount to fascism. I sort of thought this was interesting given his apparent support for the 70:30 new politics proposal by PAD leaders who are his close associates.

  6. nganadeeleg says:

    Perhaps ‘compromise’ was the wrong word (if I used it) – this crisis has been brewing for a long time and it was never likely that a bargain could be reached.

    If the PPP coalition government had been less intractable in their self serving pursuits the PAD would have been sidelined a long time ago, and the country might finally be on its way to a functioning democracy.

    To those who solely blame the PAD for this mess: Say all you like about PAD being unreasonable/fascists/supported by third forces or whatever, but the fact is:- Good governments rarely get overthrown.

  7. saay says:

    hrk

    A very good point, although I would stress that it’s always individuals who act on – and influence – the basis of those structures you are mentioning. Both are mutually dependent: in a society in which individual power holders are still highly respected (also due to structural and historical factors) and thus have a relatively free hand to influence history and structures, it is IMO justified to focus on these elite actors, their personal characters and morals.

  8. Ed Norton says:

    Well done Prae, very fascist of you. Hope you are down there with the PAD boys and girls ready to attack the nasty foreigners and Thais who are not real Thais.

  9. Ed Norton says:

    I was just going back to the idea of compromise and the generally accepted position that compromises are two-sided bargains.

  10. nganadeeleg says:

    Ed, I think you (like many others) have missed the point of my posts:

    – The government could have nipped the current protest in the bud if only they had acted competently & reasonably (irrespective of whether the PAD leadership co-operated or not)

  11. Ed Norton says:

    Maybe the silence has ended with Tej Bunnag’s resignation. Samak to follow.

  12. Krid says:

    HMK has openly endorsed Samak a few times now. This means he has dissociated the monarchy from the PAD and their protests and it also means that Pa Prem is not pulling the strings in the background and thus the PAD can’t claim backing from the highest institutions. This means that the PAD has hijacked the monarchy elitist vs. civilian populist divide to further their own agenda. This agenda remains obscure regarding the source of its backing/financing and its political objectives. Seriously, what do Sonthi and Chamlong want, really?
    The fragmentation of the “Bangkok elites” might mean that there is some positioning going on for the time after the eventual succession but who is pulling the PAD strings unclear. Is it Prachai?
    Anyway, the biggest failure in all of this is, as usual, the Democrats, who could have offered a sound political middle ground for moderate voices to gather, and a moral guidance against lawlessness and violence in the fierce division. Reminiscient of their performance against TRT, the Democrats are a spineless, pathetic, tragic failure!

  13. hrk says:

    There is a slight tendency here, as well as in some other blogs, towards personalization. Is it really that just a few selected strong (rather old) men shape the fate of Thailand and Thai-politics? Even though history is made by humans, what they do, even the most powerful, depends on established structures and power-differentials. In other words, the power a person has has little to do with this persons characteristics, but a lot with those structures that define the person as powerful. Even though the tendency is to olook for charismatic leaders, one should keep in mind that charisma is a social relation, not something a person owns! Thus, what are the structures and relations by which Sondhi, Thaksin, Samak etc. seem to become charismatic?

  14. Khun Stillwater says:

    PAD strategy can be monitored by viewing their live streaming media and archives.

    It’s not hard but you need to know the language folks—plain and simple.

    There are people who masquerade as political commentators who can hardly wade through of simple modern Thai. That’s the truth—this is directed at so-called “scholars”!

    But you need to follow it all in Thai and see with your own eyes the kind of people who are on stage. What you get is a large spectrum. Allegations of PAD trying to EXCLUDE the poor and being elite is a nasty smear.

    If anything I got tired listening to unionized labor leaders who are hardly elite.

    I’ve listened to announcements of mosques donating food to the hundred of muslim PAD protestors and to the band “Hammer” a favorite among people of that faith.

    Specialists in the area of Isan would be SHOCKED to see the number of people from that region joining PAD.

    PAD is many things but foremost it’s a movement which encourages Thais to exercise their free speech peacefully. Not enough credit has been given to 90+ days of protest destroyed by HIRED Pro-gov gangs and police who oddly use batons and tear gas against PAD.
    Worst yet is PPP members who love Samak/Thaksin being in the area (or were they leading the mob?)
    http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/read.php?newsid=30082352

    What a way to visit your constituents—AT NIGHT during a confrontation.

    You can target Sondhi’s past in the world of business but the balance in PAD comes from the balance provided by other PAD leaders from different sectors.

    Keep believing every keyword from Thaksin or Samak’s mouth “Democratic election” and you just missed the point of PAD: People’s Revolution

  15. TEFL/TESOL Trash says:

    IAN
    “Perhaps the only way to express dissatisfaction with the PAD actions is to boycott the economic interests 0f those at the top of the PAD. Does anyone have a list of the companies controlled by the PAD leaders?”

    Well if you were to boycott all the oppressive organizations here such as the PAD, PPP and CPB, you would very soon run out of anyone to do business with. That said, I would definitely opt for a bit of good clean healthy socialist right0nism. It can’t be any worse than the current bunch of incompetent buffoons who have nothing better to do all day except send out their programmed drones to do battle for them.

  16. amberwaves says:

    >My question to you is, do you have any better alternative to PAD? If you don’t agree with me on “Thaksin on the Dark Side”, then lets simply agree to disagree, to save NM debate space.

    Well, I agree we should agree to disagree.

    As for an alternative, the answer seems obvious – how about the courts?
    They certainly aren’t part of the Thaksin power structure, and were acting against Thaksin even before the PAD put the pressure on.

  17. karmablues says:

    Bangkok Pundit, there are also links between PAD and the Dems. I think NM readers know about those links already. However, kuson didn’t know any details about the NPK-PPP links, so I gave some to her.

  18. matty says:

    I am not sure how to call it Fonzi – but eating with them, bathing with them, and then corrupting them with straight cash handouts? Eating with them and bathing with them would have been enough to secure Thaksin his votes . . . the cash handouts was to propagate (expand maybe a better term) the culture of vote-buying that Thaksin could certainly afford and the best way for him to be sure (of winning).

    I just won’t buy Chang’s Noi faith that even with blatant and pervasive vote buying going on, those village voters “have learnt to use the vote only too well.” Oh yeah?

    The contrived conclusion from the premise just doesn’t make sense.
    Until somebody can explain this to me well, ‘Rural Constipation’ best describes the village vote-buying politics to me.

  19. saay says:

    If this rumour is true, one could interpret that HMK really meant: “Go and face the mess the PAD is making in my name. If you abandon me to follow Thaksin here’s what you get. You should know by now that I prefer to support coup makers who tear up the constitution, and sometimes courts if they wipe out the remnants of the first broadly popular elected government in decades, but never elected governments. Me and my military friends enjoy watching the demise of democracy, since this proves once again that we are indispensable. This is Thailand, stupid! Don’t expect me to defend institutions – other than mine – people could put their trust in if they were only allowed to blossom in this country without interference from my followers within the military and the Bangkok elite. Democracy will never reign in Thailand. Never! Never!”

    Meanwhile, one of the king’s men is jumping the ship: FM Tej Bunnag.

  20. Amata says:

    For those who wanted the King to come out and say something, be careful what you wished for. History shows that the outcome of his intervention is not necessarily on the side of democracy and its rules of the game.

    His silence can be interpreted in many ways, e.g. that he did not want to interfere in politics (the line which many have used to defend his inaction), that he did not feel his intervention was needed (the PAD and the judiciary have been doing a good job in keeping the (corrupt/proxy) politicians in check), or that he thought the way the situation was playing out was not threatening to the monarchy, etc.

    I disagree strongly with PAD’s actions and its uncompromising demands. I was even more furious with the double standard being applied to PAD by the media (how many days did the BKK Post keep the wrongly reported article of the death of a PAD supporter on its website?) and the supporters of the old establishment (sorry for the lack of a better word). In my view, their prejudice is a major obstacle to the institutionalization of democracy in Thailand. I have been disappointed with the King’s position with regard to Thai democracy. I think his silence in this recent turn of events said it all and do not wish to see him intervene. At least right now the government still has the legitimacy to deal with the ever more showing insanity of PAD. Let’s not see this political struggle ends with yet again a royal intervention.