nonthaburi

My own personal take on the recent protests is that you can't take them too seriously . They want to replace Yingluck with an unelected ' People's Councils ' . Whatever that means ??

We've been here before and if the reds lose another democratically elected PM ( whatever you say about Thaksin , he did win at the ballot box twice ) they will be out in much larger numbers than have been seen in BKK in the past couple of weeks . It could end up nastier than a few years back if that happens .

Glad the army is staying out of it thus far . If they stepped in it would escalate to something worse .

I'm hoping things will fizzle out in a while .

On the plus side for me , the Baht has gone down a bit recently .

I kind of look on this as Thailand being a fledgling democracy , but a lot of folks haven't quite got the concept yet .

I know Thaksin was corrupt, but , so was the guy before him , and the guy before him ect ect .

So , any thoughts anyone ?

bakedbean

Just seems to be Same old, same old, doesn't it?

wwinit

The bloody politics in Thailand is so so boring. It is all concerned with the royal family. Suthep is simply a knight on a chessboard and his mob followers are crazy pawns. Last week Khun Foo Foo has succeeded to the throne, as Khun Thongdaeng that is a very old royal dog already stepped down. If this happens to somebody soon, everything will certainly get better. C'mon just make it clear!

Bluenose1

I may be wrong, but is 'an unelected People's Council' not Communism? or at least I think it leads to Communism.

My own view, for what it's worth, is that, as you say, Thaksin Shinawatra was elected twice, and both times with a big enough majority not to have to rely on coalitions. However, his party was eventually outlawed by the last military government. Then, of course he, and I think also his wife and a few other family members, were found guilty of a combination corruption/nepotism. Then he took exile.

IIRC the military then arranged for an election at which none of Thaksin's supporters stood, and what had been the opposition were elected, and couldn't run the country properly. That led to a new election, and Thaksin's sister, Yingluck then won by another huge majority. It strikes me that the opposition, for all they are supported by the so-called 'elite', do not like democracy when they do not win. Personally, I think Yingluck is quite right to refuse to step down to allow "an unelected 'People's Council' " because, as she says, that would be illegal, but of course it would also be undemocratic. Of course, she could always just call another election which I am convinced she would win again. Then it comes back full circle to where we are now!

I have to confess that I do not have an answer as to what will happen - it's anyone's guess as to how far the yellow shirts will actually go and, as you say, if the red shirts come out in force again.......... I think then the army would have to intervene yet again, and probably end up with yet another interim military government.

Bluenose1

I may be wrong, but is 'an unelected People's Council' not Communism? or at least I think it will lead to Communism.

My own view, for what it's worth, is that, as you say, Thaksin Shinawatra was elected twice, and both times with a big enough majority not to have to rely on coalitions. However, his party was eventually outlawed by the last military government. Then, of course he, and I think also his wife and a few other family members, were found guilty of a combination of corruption / nepotism. Then he took exile.

IIRC the military then arranged for an election at which none of Thaksin's supporters stood (or even had a political party at that time), and what had been the opposition were elected, and couldn't run the country properly. That led to a new election, and Thaksin's sister, Yingluck then won by another huge majority. It strikes me that the opposition, for all they are supported by the so-called 'elite', do not like democracy when they do not win. Personally, I think Yingluck is quite right to refuse to step down to allow "an unelected 'People's Council' " because, as she says, that would be illegal, but of course it would also be undemocratic. She could always just call another election which I am convinced she would win again. Then it comes back full circle to where we are now!

I have to confess that I do not have an answer as to what will happen - it's anyone's guess as to how far the yellow shirts will actually go and, as you say, if the red shirts come out in force again.......... I think then the army would have to intervene yet again, and probably end up with yet another interim military government.

Bluenose1

Seems I was right about the new election. Mind you, that has probably been forced given that all of the opposition MPs resigned yesterday!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25252795

It also seems that, as I suspected, a new election will not placate the leader of the protests.

nonthaburi

She'll win again . One thing that Thaksin got totally right is that he played the numbers game . 30% of the population comes from Isaan . add the people in the North and it doesn't matter about any BKK centric power base . They have the numbers as overall majorities in elections have shown .

I just hope that the opposition accepts the result .

Like you say , democracy is great except when you don't get the right result !

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Aristotle

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt