New Mandala

8 responses so far ↓

• 1 fall // Dec 21, 2007 at 5:17 pm

  Be careful Andrew, putting royal and politic on the same column.
  I would say that would definitely skirt the lese majeste law to the edge.
  (the law cover incident every where, even outside Thailand, remember?)

• 2 nganadeeleg // Dec 21, 2007 at 5:33 pm

  I reckon he will get a pardon.

• 3 Ward Keeler // Dec 22, 2007 at 8:24 am

  Your commentary is very helpful. But it puzzles me in one respect: you make it sound as though the election pits royalists against democrats. But what I have read about Thaksin (admittedly, not a great deal) suggests that neither he nor his party’s “elected representatives” are democrats in any true sense. Yes, they use a populist rhetoric, and they garner support with certain popular policies. But for the most part they appear to think they know what’s best for people just as much as any royalist or other oligarch does. And what’s best for people usually turns out to line these populists’ pockets. Is that too cynical a view of them? Are they better democrats than I had thought?

• 4 Andrew Walker // Dec 22, 2007 at 11:11 am

  Thanks Ward, yes a little too cynical I think. But these are complex issues on which people hold very diverse opinions. Can I recommend the new special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Asia as a useful, initial, dissection of some of the key issues.

• 5 Wat // Dec 22, 2007 at 4:31 pm

  If my memory served me well, it was June 2006 not December that Thais celebrated his 60 years on throne, right?

• 6 sueksit nanhuay // Jun 10, 2008 at 11:33 am

  Whatever transpires, the Thai people stand to lose in more than one way.

• 7 Hla Oo // Nov 26, 2008 at 4:45 pm

  This excellent article almost foresaw the current political turmoil in Bangkok!

  One thing no experts so far air their opinion about is the distinct racial hue of this long running political dispute in Thailand. They used to say Bangkok is Thailand and Thailand is Bangkok, and Bangkok is Chinese and Thais are the peasants.

  In last few years the rural Thai majority have re-taken their country back by the one-man-one-vote democratic process and, now the Chinese immigrants minority in Bangkok are using violence to take back that ancestral right of indigenous Thais.

• 8 Ralph Kramden // Nov 27, 2008 at 6:09 am

  Hla Oo: the race thing has been raised a few times – see earlier threads here and at Bangkok Pundit. Good point to raise again. But remember that non all the rural folks are PPP/TRT. Look South.

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