Long live the Chakri Dynasty!

So who gets to decide on who is “good” to lead the country? (And who decides on who the deciders should be?).

Presumably the uneducated/uninformed who are easily fooled by demagogues are to be excluded. So who decides on who are uneducated/uninformed? Should everybody sit a test?

If you recommend the King as the “Decider”, then I ask you this question: who gets to choose the next King? The present King? What if his decision turns out to be incorrect (say the next decider turns out to be incompetent or just bad)? How do you remove the next “Decider” from office, and who do you replace him/her with? The chairman of the Privy Council? Who chose him/her to be chairman of the PC?

So you see, the question becomes: where does ultimate power lie? Who ultimately has the right to decide? In a democracy, its with the people (uneducated or not).

Surayud & Sonthi et al should have formed a “Good Persons Party” (”Pruk Khon Dee”) and contest the October elections, and let the people decide.

I have to side with Khun nganadeeleg about ‘democracy itself not being the problem but rather the inherent human flaws’.

In Thailand it is nice to have HMK provide a father figure and HMK had been doing a wonder job for decades that the Thai people can really look up to him. HMK has the moral authority to do that, no one else come close.

The Thais are easily susceptible to be swayed by favours .. rurals or urbans alike. And politicians exploit this by vote buying and handouts and the latest craze, populist policies. Populist policies is ok to me, but vote buying and handouts do degrade the poor.

In Thailand, some people are always more equal than others
(including under Thaksins ‘democracy’).

As for the masses voting out Thaksin, who would they vote in instead? – There is an inherent weakness in the democratic system in that it has a tendency to produce demagogues (as recognised by Plato 2300 years ago)

Democracy is not actually the problem, but rather the problem is human weak-mindedness in seeking to satisfy their desires at the expense of doing what is morally/naturally right.

Unfortunately it is rare for an individual to rise above those tendencies, even if it is a Buddhist ideal.

Therefore democracy is flawed, no matter how strong the constitution and checks and balances.

Perhaps HMK recognises this, and that is why he is promoting the sufficiency model.
There is not much chance for immediate improvement under the ‘new’ or ‘old’ regimes that eveyone is talking about, but if the sufficiency model can become entrenched in the education system from an early age, then I can see some hope for improvement in future generations.

Do not think I am singling out the rural poor for criticism as
my comments above apply equally to the rural & urban poor, middle class, rich, military and elite.
(they also apply to so called model western democracies, and not just to Thailand)

26 Bo Bae Market vendors were arrested for participating in an “illegal gathering attended by more than 10 people.” See here.

Because both Marcos and Thaksin were playing really dirty and corrupt politics dismembering the foundations of their countries constitutional democracies to advance their personal interests. Worse both would NOT give up power ethically and both would stifle criticisms of any sort and during their rule democracy was only in name but had lost all substance and credibility.

The only reason Thaksin did NOT succeed to do a Marcos on Thailand was because of Thailand’s revered King who was in the way of the overly abusive constitutional disrespecting Thaksin. The military had always been royalist and Thaksin’s days were numbered from the first royal whisper.

It had never been easy to apply democracy in the Asian countries.

But whatever it is, Thaksin’s version of democracy is NOT what Thailand needs or will accept.

Whatever argument people will pose in the forums, the only democracy that would have any hope of success in Thailand would have to consider the participation of all the many vested interests in play in the Kingdom (royalty, military, business oligarchs, hopeful rurals, assertive middle class, etc.). It had always been a ‘give-and-take’ politics gentlemen, but somehow Thaksin and his TRT party focused on the ‘taking’ that resulted in their disgrace.

Thaksin is still a danger to Thailand only because this megalomaniac is still intent on returning to power, by whatever means.

Happy New Year bang was a reminder of Thaksin’s determination to return to power gentlemen.

It seems to me that Thaksin himself should take much of the blame, along with those who continued to vote for him.
I think you are being a little harsh on those of us who supported the coup (after the event), and hoped it would prove to be a circuit-breaker.

Coup or no coup, this sort of mess was inevitable unless Thaksin changed his ways.