New Mandala

25 responses so far ↓

• 1 David Brown // Sep 5, 2008 at 12:24 am

  hmmmm. are you going for the most provocative (and misleading) or … satirical headline?

• 2 ThaiCrisis // Sep 5, 2008 at 1:44 am

  Your title reminds me headlines from NotTheNation.

  http://www.notthenation.com

  
  Well done.

• 3 Glenn // Sep 5, 2008 at 2:22 am

  now there’s real leadership! This is like all of the legislatures in the US who are too afraid to actually make a decision so they put everything up for a referendum.

• 4 jonfernquest // Sep 5, 2008 at 3:29 am

  “…to solve the ongoing political chaos, Samak government agreed on Thursday to conduct public referendum…with three simple questions which the voters could answer by yes or no…2. Should the PAD continue or end its protests?”

  Do they honestly believe this will end the protests? I would wager that they will get 100% of the vote because the other side will boycott the referendum. What does “in denial” mean? It means you have a problem that you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge and thus continue the same dysfunctional behaviour over and over again without end and, guess what, the problem never ends.

  The demographically dominant yet relatively poor north and northeast swing vote, with feelings of inferiority galore, wishing to seize control of the purse strings of the country, and go on a rural shopping spree, buy mobile phones and make a down payment on a pick up truck, will once again vote to “stick it to the man.” We already know that. The idea is ridiculous.

• 5 KV // Sep 5, 2008 at 5:04 am

  Ouch, that is so much going to fail! Give me B. Give me U. Give me Y. VOTE BUYING! Do I hear the crowds cheering? Yes I do! Vote buying!

• 6 Ed Norton // Sep 5, 2008 at 11:51 am

  I think there is something in jonfernquest’s view that referenda don’t solve deep-seated political issues. However his and KV’s statements about vote-buying reproduce the PAD line that most academic research shows is, at best, dated. See the link on Chang Noi’s recent piece.

• 7 jonfernquest // Sep 5, 2008 at 4:51 pm

  “However his and KV’s statements about vote-buying reproduce the PAD line that most academic research shows is, at best, dated. See the link on Chang Noi’s recent piece.”

  Chang Noi’s piece essentially says that rural electorate has come to realise that it does have power.

  Whether that power is being used in a wise manner or not, for long-term investment rather than short-term consumption has not been answered adequately at all as far as I can see.

  I have yet to see a detailed study that shows how village fund money is being used effectively. I would bet that villagers have no clear idea themselves how it is being used.

  Dumping money in villages irrespective of how it is used is going to have a positive Keynesian multiplier effect.

  Handouts and subsidies are not investment. Some Subsidies such as the LPG subsidy have resulted in seriously distorted incentives and behaviour.

• 8 Yin // Sep 5, 2008 at 6:57 pm

  I think referendum is the best solution.

  Let’s the whole country speak out. One man, one vote.

• 9 Ed Norton // Sep 5, 2008 at 10:40 pm

  Yes, jonfernquest, those damned villagers can’t be trusted with votes or with decision-making about their own development. You know, you raise another interesting point. Under TRT, there was a more rapid movement towards decentralisation than under previous governments, and this is one of the early complaints from Sonthi Lim and others – that middle class taxes were paying for rural development and that their money was being wasted. Of course, one of the ASC’s tasks was to root out and prove this wastefulness by way of corruption charges.

• 10 Thai TV // Sep 5, 2008 at 10:57 pm

  To Johnferquest:

  Why do you spit on poor people? Aren’t they allowed to share the growing wealth of the Thai nation?

  I suppose you still believe in the old fashioned saying: vox populi vox barbari. But so far no system has been better than democracy: I hope you’re looking for fairness and not just trying to protect some vested interest of yours or of your friends.

  Really, how sad that you scornfully trash the referendum, which in this case isn’t populism at all, but is a real non-violent opportunity to settle this discord once for all.

  The ‘poor people’ whose judgment you’re spitting on will have the last word anyway. Time is for the people!

  Take care jonny, and have a nice day ;-p

• 11 jonfernquest // Sep 5, 2008 at 11:03 pm

  “One man, one vote.”

  “One person, one vote,” isn’t it?

  But then Greater Bangkok, including the Eastern Seaboard, should contribute 50% (or its contribution to GDP) and the rest of the country 50% to the overall vote total. Why? Because these are the areas that are leading the country economically into the future.

  The only thing that the Samak administration has done to date that I can see is provide subsidies to groups to protest loud enough.

  Tendencies towards a socialist economy might seem ideal to left-leaning academics, but IMHO in the context of Asian history and development as a whole (Korea, China, Taiwan, Malaysia), a premature welfare state would severely hamper the country’s ability to adapt in the future, in the ways it needs to adapt if it wants to remain a viable force in the world economy. ANU academics are likely to laugh at the following Sondhi quote:

  “Somebody said ‘don’t the poor have the right to vote,’” Sondhi said. “They do have the right to vote. We also have the right to educate them. Give them access to the information. The problem is they don’t have access to the right information now.”

  ANU and other western universities could provide this information in rural Thailand and help rural Thailand better their livelihoods. Where are they? IMHO If they were there, doing the day-to-day grunt slog work of education (not intellectual rent-seeking name-brand-building research publication), their opinions would be a lot more relevant. As it stands, these opinions just seem paternalistic.

• 12 David Brown // Sep 5, 2008 at 11:33 pm

  KV brought up the furphy of vote-buying again…..

  this slur panders to all the worst aspects in people… jealousy of city vs country, rich vs poor, modern industry vs agriculture, central vs northern/north eastern thai, etc…

  I have suggested a research project looking at all the aspects of this but very simplistically:

  a friend of mine suggested that perhaps 100M Baht could be spent, the other day a PAD leader suggested 30M

  going with the bigger number – dividing by 400B per vote gives 250,000 votes max influenced, about 40M voters, margin 2M?
  not enough money

  so my conclusion is that its a beatup:

  buying votes – I dont believe made a significant difference to the
  election results

  its the policies stupid, decentralisation into the country, amazing, the country people voted for them! …. through 4 democratic
  elections in a row!

  as someone said, the losers in elections always have ego issues, its a
  measure of civilisation how they control it

• 13 beth // Sep 6, 2008 at 2:46 am

  we have a problem of attitude my friends, may I quote jon for example,

  ‘…and go on a rural shopping spree, buy mobile phones and make a down payment on a pick up truck…’

  they’re disgusting, aren’t they? They have no right to have a phone and call their cousin, from the back of the pick up truck, asking if the buffalo is doing ok… by the way cousin, you want anything from Big C?

  I wish they all didn’t exist, in my beautiful countryside!

• 14 tum|bler // Sep 6, 2008 at 6:31 am

  jonfernquest:

  1.) Does educating people involve disenfranchising them and establishing a 70% appointed assembly?

  Speaking of education, Thaksin has a PhD, so it automatically makes him so capable and virtuous that he will do everything for the greater good?

  2.) Who gets to judge which kind of information is ‘right’? People like you?

  3.) Even without the ‘one man one vote’ principle, the poor are inherently disadvantaged and unable to match the wealthy’s and the middle-class’ influence and ways of life. Having a government that listens to them rather than excludes them, is one of the few ways in which fairness or something close to it can be attained in our society. Sorry, does social mobility mean anything to you, or do you prefer that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich?

• 15 David Brown // Sep 6, 2008 at 3:40 pm

  hi jonfernquest, thanks for your comments

  actually I think your suggestion that:

  “Greater Bangkok, including the Eastern Seaboard, should contribute 50% (or its contribution to GDP) and the rest of the country 50% to the overall vote total. Why? Because these are the areas that are leading the country economically into the future.” is a good one

  I would like to see a population density map of Thailand and match this with a GDP contribution map…. I think they should correlate fairly well …. because I think, in general, people move to where the jobs are and jobs are created where the people are

  the democratic principle of one person one vote is a good one because it encapsulates the principle that all people are created equal and have the potential to be equal (even in GDP terms)… so the government for these people should treat them equally!

  of course the correlation may not be as good as ideal, because some areas are underdeveloped or low on resources and for many reasons the people have not moved from the area even though their GDP contribution, measured in todays prices, is a bit lower… I just put in the measurement of GDP as an issue, because it could be that in a few years time rice production may be valued higher than concrete and steel or even electronics… beware and prepare for the future… you will look really silly if you undervalue the contribution of people now and find you need them tomorrow!

  hmmmm…. hopefully something to mull on, especially when we consider the attitudes of PAD and their ancient backers

• 16 David Brown // Sep 6, 2008 at 3:44 pm

  I should add that the I presume its the EC that has the job of taking the population density and drawing boundaries of approx equal population so that when elections happen that the number of reps for each quantum of poulation are equal

  I havent seen anything on this but suppose this was a big task after the 1997 constitution changes, and the EC are probably using the same map now

  in Australia there is a periodic review of these boundaries to account for polulation movements… every 10 years or so?

• 17 jonfernquest // Sep 6, 2008 at 4:02 pm

  “Why do you spit on poor people?”

  I do not spit on poor people.
  I have lived with poor people for over a decade.
  I have continually helped poor people. Have you?

  I am intimately aware of their problems and their inability to overcome them.

  I am intimately aware of how they look down on an educational system that admittedly does not serve them very well.

  People in ivory towers who theorize about poor people? IMHO Get your rear end into the field and do some real work. Teach the poor people, for instance. Even if they do volunteer, it will be on some self-promotional project, like saving the AIDS children, derived to elicit maximum sympathy and overseas money. Humble teaching of poor people without academic self-promotion. That would be impressive!

  A rudderless state from empowering the masses.
  Just what Thailand needs.

  “Thaksin has a PhD”

  One of the biggest problems in Thai education right now
  is that people do not want to acquire much needed manual
  vocational skills.

  They want to get a college degree and sit in an air-conditioned office and tell other people what to do.

  Welders, skilled labourers, that is useful education, in my book.

• 18 tum|bler // Sep 6, 2008 at 4:31 pm

  “buying votes – I dont believe made a significant difference to the
  election results”

  I believe you’re right. Abhisit (the Dems leader) has admitted several times that TRT/PPP still would have won all the previous elections even without vote-buying.

• 19 David Brown // Sep 6, 2008 at 8:10 pm

  jonfernquest….

  thanks for you insights….. I think I have some idea where you are coming from.

  I have to say that Australia has woken up that the past decade or two has led to people looking for uni qualifications leaving the country dangerously short of trade qualified people… perhaps worse than that we have a lot of people that would have learned trades that are now more or less confused about what they are doing… so this disease is not only here…

  but meanwhile back onto the main topic….

  I think if country people can vote for governments that foster education, health and decentralisation of public and private businesses this can only be a good thing for the people and should begin as early as possible

  I think its the old traditional bangkok elite that are intentional slow learners, the rural/regional people when faced with decisions involving their self interest will and I believe did and are learning fast

  Do you believe the rural and poor that you are in contact with (in general, maybe not in particular cases) have learnt anything from the past four election processes… did they learn something was different about the central government under taksin from those before and also recently the junta?

• 20 Land of Snarls // Sep 7, 2008 at 7:04 pm

  All this speculation about what the referendum questions should be seems to me to be missing the point: It’s basically a political exercise to give legitimacy to the removal of PAD by whatever means.

  Electoral authorities have given the opinion that a referendum cannot, according to the constitution, replace an election. Confirming an election result is really almost the same as having an election, so it’s out of the question. As has been stated, it’s “unconstitutional.”

  If legitimising the existence of the government were the point, the Constitution presents a clear way of doing it: dissolve parliament & call new elections. It’s obvious that if this course were taken, there would be a boycott by opposition parties, & a possible repeat of the last debacle, so IMO Samak will avoid it at all costs.

  What Samak needs, in the present situation, is a clear mandate from the people to remove the protesters, and absolutely stop their activities. This will obviously require force of various kinds, and it’s very clearly been shown to be not possible at the moment. A referendum, cleverly and very simply worded will give the government indisputable evidence that the electorate is behind them. This could quite possibly lead to the establishment of a ‘police state.’

• 21 Land of Snarls // Sep 7, 2008 at 7:32 pm

  BTW, Suthin’s 3 questions quoted in this blog are not useful: (1) & (2) cannot be given a ‘yes/no’ answer; (1) is unconstitutional; (2) would not prevent further action from PAD; (3) is not simple, and would require a long information campaign.

• 22 Jim Taylor // Sep 7, 2008 at 9:27 pm

  I thought this was worth reading for those with an open mind (should there be any out there any more) from an independent journalist Tavivoot talking about the “grotesqueness of Thailand” at this time.. (I have edited this for clarity):

  ‘Today the rich Thais are exploiting the weakness of the poor Thais to such a great extent that the Economist has just called the leaders of PAD, a grouping of rich and influential Thais, as grotesque. PAD is trying to topple the Samak government with its roots in the rural areas and among poor Thais.
  Most of the upper class and rich Thais are on PAD side, and this includes most of the press, academic world, businessmen and those with royal blood. This PAD group has been calling poor Thais a lot of things like buffaloes, stupid and un-educated, and accuse them of not understanding democracy because many of them sell their votes. And thus the middle & upper class Thais support PAD’s new politics, which BBC calls “anti-democratic”, where power of government lies in the hands of a few influential Thais who know best…
  That position may be ugly enough, but what makes it really grotesque is the difference between how the rich and the poor are treated in their respective positions in the recent protest.
  Rewind Thai history back a few years when the rich supporting 2006 coup was in power, and you will see NorPorKor (anti-Dictatorship, pro-government group) –made up of democratic minded folks and lower class Thais go marching on the privy council house who is believed to have engineered the “good” coup (sorry Kevin and Duncan!), and the military and police just attacked the marchers at the house with such force that it left hundreds bloodied, including old men and women. The press, and the complacent middle and upper classes just stood there and condemned the march welcoming the crack-down with comments such as “how dare you march on the house of such a high ranking Thai” (General Prem- the Puppet Master).
  Then fast-forward Thai history up to a few days ago, when NorPorKor clashed with PAD guards killing a NorPorKor man (yes it WAS a pro-government marcher who was killed and not as reported in the media a PAD thug!), and then the grotesqueness appears in all its glory. The upper classes, academics, businessmen and middle class Thais (especially those who sit in front of Sondhi’s ASTV soapy with its 24 hour brainwashing), came out in droves to condemn NorPorKor and the government of PM Samak (which represents the interests of rural and poor Thais)-for resorting to confrontation and violence!
  And if you wish to just see how really grotesque the whole thing is in Thailand, PAD is occupying Government House illegally and with arrest warrants for its leaders. Now the elites and middle classes just say “we are the good and righteous people and thus the law doesn’t apply to us”. At the same time academics and the media saying things like-“protesting is a right under democracy”!
  Compare all this to Thaksin who was booted out of office by these elites and conservatives just because he was suspected of being corrupt (mostly trumped up charges) despite unsubstantiated evidence. As well, his whole Party was forced to disband. And now Samak is under the same accusation as happened to Thaksin: that he is corrupt and that he must go. When Thaksin went, there was not a single case or court ruling against him. And Samak today keeps asking “what have I done wrong?” Again there is no ruling against him whatsoever.
  Or, again compare it to how NorPorKor was treated at the house of Prem-with tear gas and batons and how the military and police now say dislodging those illegally occupying Government House and arresting the leaders under the warrants “may just hurt too many people”! The grotesqueness of Thais at this time is sad. Maybe foreigners should change the slogan from Thailand is the land of smiles, to Thailand the land of the grotesque.’

  http://thaiintelligentnews.wordpress.com/

• 23 Ed Norton // Sep 8, 2008 at 12:12 pm

  jonfernquest said that ANU academics are likely to laugh at the following Sondhi quote:

  “Somebody said ‘don’t the poor have the right to vote,’” Sondhi said. “They do have the right to vote. We also have the right to educate them. Give them access to the information. The problem is they don’t have access to the right information now.”

  I doubt ANU academics are laughing. I’d hope that readers would be dismayed or even angray. Here we have the basic issue of PAD’s politics laid bare. Sondhi and his colleagues think it is their right to decide what poor people should be able to do and what kind of education they can have. Arrogant, elitist, neo-fascist. It’s all there in that quote. Thanks for that.

• 24 nganadeeleg // Sep 8, 2008 at 1:36 pm

  Reminds me of another quote:
  “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.“

• 25 KV // Sep 9, 2008 at 6:49 pm

  Ok, just came to clear something up: my comment was totally sarcastic. It was meant to point that what ever happens, I am 110% sure that there is yet again groups screaming VOTE BUYING and protesting on streets.

  I dont try to neglect the problem of vote buying but just saying that it is such a stick to throw at, even without any proof. And happens everytime someone does not like vote results, true or not.

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