Yes, at the train station, there is a cluster of an increasing number of posters. It started with only one by Thitima/Wuthipong. There is also a smaller sign saying “Space for placing election posters”, obviously erected by the municipality. Same goes for a similar space in front of the Rajaphat University, i.e. the road running along the river that you mentioned, and in front of the bus terminal.

I never really know how to call these election signs. Technically, the ECT distinguishes between “announcements (posters)” that must not be bigger than A3 (to be placed at boards provided bt local governments and government offices), and election signboards, which must not exceed 130×245 cm, to be placed at designated spaces, with or without signs saying so.

As I said, I will have a post on posters later, i.e. when the situation is more consolidated. These things started rather slowly, but have picked up since.

Thanks thst you find my reports useful.

A clarification – this being my first time to Chachoengsao and not so familiar with the streets, I don’t believe it is Thanon Thepsothon that has the posters, but rather the one (I forget the name) that run along the river, past the hospital / park / and down towards the military base. Running around rather quickly, I think I conflated the streets. But basically, I did notice a number of posters up here and there at certain points, seemingly more than you suggested. I don’t remember any small signs on the ground. But clearly there are certain “zones” for poster. Such as in front of the train station, for example.

Thanks for your detailed reporting on one province’s experience with the elections. I enjoy reading them.

You are right–just after I had finished my contribution on “celebrating the King” already, the previously very few small number of billboards of Wuthipong/Thitima were joined by those from the other candidates. There are even those showing Sanoh Thienthong who aims for Chachoengsao’s party list votes. Last Thursday, I went to Ratchasan district to observe an electioneering stage set up by the constituency committee. I was taken there by the constituency director on an involuntary detour through endless rural roads. Apparently, Itthi/Somchai had done their homework well, since we encountered numerous of their small billboards in these rather remote areas, mostly where two or three roads met. BTW, they also have 35 or so advertising pick-ups roaming the streets.

Where you saw the posters (or were they small billboards or horizontal “cutouts”?), did you notice small signs, blue on white ground, saying that this was a place designated to place election posters?

Same goes for the white song taeos, which have long been in the camp of the Chaisaengs. When I went to see the above constituency director, I took a picture of the inside as you described. It also had Wuthipong/Thitima stickers affixed. And when I used a tuk tuk, they had just affixed the PPP stickers–the white cling film littered the place where they stop at the bus station. They also have small stickers mainly showing the PPP logo.

I will contribute a post with pictures of small billboards, posters (mainly attached to boards provided for this purpose by local governments and district offices), and stickers sometime later, because I would like to wait and see how the situation will develop. On Nov. 30, I had to go to Bangkok to prepare for a presentation on Dec. 3. I was surprised to see all the cutouts on electricity poles and trees here, i.e. something you won’t see in Chachoengsao, at least not until last Friday.

Anyway, I will have a look at Thanon Thepsothon after my return to Chachoengsao tomorrow.

I would not attach too much importance to party labels, but rather more to the candidates and their voter bases. In this respect, candidates do mostly have their geographical areas where they are strong, because they have worked in that area for many years. Phanee Jarusombat is rather unsual in this respect, because in the Senate election, she got many votes throughout the province without having worked there more than about one year. In fact, she should have had her main area in Ban Pho and Plaeng Yao districts.

I’ve been visiting Chachoengsao yesterday and today, and I was struck by a decent number of candidate posters up around town here and there, especially on Thanon Thepsothon. Also, I’ve noticed that many songthaew, especially seemingly all of the white ones running out towards Wat Cinprachasamosorn, have Phak Palang Prachachon stickers on their front windows and inside on the back wall panel facing the customers.

What is your sense of the comparative presence of the different parties in public and private space, and are certain areas or occupational groups clearly in support of one party or the other to any significant degree?

Submission to the bureaucracy of course. You’d immediately recognise this sort of thing if you had worked in any hard core bureaucratic institution around here.

This sort of ceremony was par for the course in the university I worked at. Annual Tham-Hua ceremony (everyone prostrates not to HMK, but to the university president, not joyfully and willingly mind you), Brahmanic sprinking of water on teachers overseen by university president reinforcing power in lower levels of hierarchy (boycotted by missionaries, visits by royals (attended eagerly by missionaries, soldiers push Thai ajaans out of seat, ajaan farangs embarassingly llowed to keep their’s), mandatory Mo hawm day, now no doubt yellow shirt day. You name it, the mind control technique need not be associated with royalty or Thai-ness, for instance the four C’s (inherited from Toyota’s automobile plants apparently) with involuntarily committee members taking photos of cubicle work space (thus aggravating otherwise eager conformists) and secretaries making little tape marks on desks to mark where the scissors are to be placed on your desk when not using them, standard number of pencils to keep in drawer, no personal posters or decoration on wall, etc. Yes, it all wreaks of invasion of the body snatchers and solidifies bureaucratic power as per Chang Noi’s new theory:

“Third, ministries and other bureaucratic agencies must draw up long-terms plans and insist upon following these plans in their day-to-day operations so that politicians who are put in charge of these agencies will not be able to implement the policies they promise to the electorate.” (Source)

The ones that don’t believe in the oath must be the new “communists” that the military is fighting the new cold war against (that Chang Noi talks about).

[Note: In the Mon epic Ratchathirat (translated into Thai during Rama I) if someone wanted to avoid the magical efficacy of an oath they left the Buddhist scriptures out of the case they took the oath under. The Mon hero Lagunein also states categorically and rather Machiavellianly that in warfare oaths are to be violated at any time you want, that one is foolish to believe in them. Ratchathirat was suppposedly written about 1560.]

Reading the account, I began to speculate about the real motivation of the organizers–what exactly is this “ritualistic event imposed…by the state bureaucracy” supposed to achieve?

Obviously from the name of the ceremony, one aim is to create unity (or at least the appearance of unity). Candidates are to be reminded that though they are competing for political power, they are competing within the framework of “nation, religion, king” and must remember to act in the national interest; especially now, perhaps this implies that their little electoral exercise is occurring at the pleasure and under the watchful eye of the arbiters of national interest (no prizes for guessing who), so candidates should watch their step.

The threat of divine or karmic retribution also interests me. I wonder to what extent the organizers, and participants for that matter, really believe the threat? Is it seen as simply formula, or is it actually seen as an invocation of potentially potent magic? (Leaving aside for the moment how magic is rationalized in the Thai “Buddhist” tradition).

One potential practical effect of this ceremony is that it could be used to malign certain candidates. If some particular candidate were accused of violating the oath by acting dishonestly in the election, the violation could be presented as evidence that the person is not good and is indeed disrespectful to the nation, religion and presumably king. In addition, perhaps organizers hope that the devout/superstitious (depending on their view of the magic’s efficacy) “grassroots” people would not want to throw thier lot in with someone who is cursed to misery and disaster.

As to why candidates would consent to participate in the first place, and further why they would don their yellow shirts for the occasion, I think that the act is actually very political. Absence would imply guilt. Full participation, proudly wearing the King’s colours, is a rational political act meant to display one’s goodness and fitness for office to both the aforementioned arbiters of national interest and to the people at large, who are assumed to care.