26 Apr 2006

On the Thai elections

Thaksin Shinawatra generates some sympathy fawning from some normally critical local bloggers. It's not easy to see why: he was on the verge of a long historical project to turn the kingdom into a benevolently authoritarian one-party state, replacing unproductive party politics with pragmatic, technocratic business sense, and instituting some control over the nation's independent media. What's there to hate in people who sincerely want to imitate your country?

So newspapers here were the only ones caught out of the loop. Local reporters were fawning and predicting 2006 will be Thailand's 1966, that the decision of the oppposition parties to boycott the election undo them and propel Thaksin's ascension to legal and legitimate one-party rule. That's a national blind spot for you, but surely they should've rmembered that when history actually repeats itself, the second time is always a farce?

What they did not count on (the national blind spot!) was the constitution of Thailand, which was written to prevent precisely these travesties from occuring. In constituencies with a walkover, the unopposed candidate is not confirmed unless 20% of the voters turn up to vote for him anyway. Voters are also given the choice to cast a "no vote", essentially a vote for "none of the above" that in sufficient numbers will invalidate the winner of the election. These are safeguards that prevent the country from sliding into a one-party state with a fake opposition.

Today, Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej gives the best sign that Singapore should be the one emulating Thailand instead. Speaking out at the "complete mess" that Thaksin's snap elections caused, the monarch commented strongly: "The current election is undemocratic. Where there is only one candidate it is not considered a democracy."

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the true senior statesman of Asia.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thailand’s “Silk Revolution” is spreading around the world.

April 22, 2006

Thailand’s people-power movement, praised by a foreign commentator as a “Silk Revolution”, is not yet complete as Thaksin Shinawatra only stepped aside and not down.

Many Thais believe he still wields enormous influence behind his puppet government.

The “smooth as silk” movement is spreading to major cities in the U.S., including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, and San Francisco.

http://singaporeimperialism.blogspot.com/2006/04/san-francisco.html

Anonymous said...

ONE-PARTY state is GREAT?
you must be kidding!!!

TOO MUCH POWER corrupts, and when one party exists for long, they will thirst for more POWER, and will do anything to maintain their POWER.

for example, in China, the CHINA COMMUNIST PARTY can MURDER and KILL to maintain its POLITICAL POWER.

-------------
Most horrible news recently is:

The China Communist Party took out organs from Falun Gong members’ while they were alive, and sold their organs to hospitals for profits!!

http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/6/4/20/n1293233.htm

Falun Gong Teaches “Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance". Fear that Falun Gong will be a threat to their political power, Jiang Zemin Uses the media to nationwide brainwash its citizens that Falun Gong is a evil cult !

And now they are even killing them and selling their organs.

A ONE-PARTY STATE can turn into DEVILS and EVIL CULT!

Gilbert Koh aka Mr Wang said...

Thaksin is trying to imitate Singapore?

Funny. I didn't see Ho Ching's Temasek try to dispose of Singtel, SIA, DBS, SPH, PSA etc in an attempt to remove conflicts of interest.

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

Long Live King Bumibol!

Anonymous said...

".....Temasek try to dispose of SIA....."

the next day, GIC wanted to claim $XXX,XXX property tax from Korea co

SIA raised USD10 airfare surcharge!