TIT - This is Thailand

So Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is out of his job for hosting a cooking show. Now 3 days later his party has nominated him once again to re take the job. And it appears now that the PPP’s coalition partners agree for the most part. Why wouldn’t they? Reports are circulating that if Samak is reinstated as PM, the MP’s that put him back in will receive tens of millions of baht each as a “reward”. And where is that money coming from? I’ll give you three guesses and you probably will only need one. Thaksin Shinawatra continues to pull the strings from England. The plan is to get Samak and his cronies back into power, re write the constitution and allow all of the charges against Thaksin and his family to be dropped.

It’s all so easy, right? Wrong. The PAD continues to occupy Government House, despite a court order to leave and despite Samak’s declaration of a state of emergency. The military has failed to back Samak, knowing full well that if they did full scale violence will erupt and many deaths will result. Tourism in Thailand is already in the toilet heading into high tourism season. And every day that goes by that this conflict isn’t resolved it’s only going to get worse. Most Western countries have already put out travel advisories that Thailand is an unsafe place to travel. Whether that’s true or not (and it really isn’t at this time) people tend to listen to their governments on such matters, figuring they know best. In reality they are just covering their asses in case something bad happens. The Thai baht is going down by the hour. If Samak is reinstated (and it looks like he will be) the PAD will become more militant. And if the PPP is able to get the constitution re written to Thaksin’s liking then the shit will really hit the fan.

This thing isn’t even close to being over. As a dear friend of mine who is a member of the PAD said in his broken English “But for PADs, it means future of the country is at stage. We can not lose the war with those evils. We will fight until only one side standing.” So you can bet that this conflict will turn from a protest into perhaps an all out war. Clashes between protest groups have already happened and they will no doubt continue to happen and get bloodier as time goes along. There is only one thing that could stop it. Samak could choose to step down. That would put a temporary stop to the strife. But then what? Will there be another election? Another coup? Who will lead Thailand out of this mess? The PAD has their ideas, but unfortunately those ideas are in direct conflict with the people in the Northeast, the ones that the PPP have purchased. The PAD is in the minority, but they represent the views of the most intelligent Thais, while the PPP represents ignorant villagers. They are both Thai people and they both deserve to have their views heard. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Until tomorrow, enjoy your day!

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Posted on September 11th, 2008 by webmaster
Filed under: Thai Politics