Thailand’s government is self destructing

The internal workings of the Thai government are in far worse shape than is generally known by the public. The People Power Party (PPP) and it’s coalition of other parties are at best a dysfunctional family. The Democratic party seems to be the only stable part of the Thai government. With phrases like ‘dissolving parliament’ and ‘military coup’ being heard more frequently, one has to understand that this is just the tip of the iceberg that the public sees.

The PPP has single handedly recreated all the conditions that lead to the September 19, 2006 coup. All the corrupt officials that were routed out by the coup are now warming their old chairs, marathon political protests are underway by the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), and progress in bringing corrupt officials to trial has seemingly come to a grinding halt. The coalition parties have sensed this deja vu and are working at repositioning themselves and this is the root of the self destruction.

With Thaksin Shinawatra the real power behind the scenes in Thailand working to get all charges against him dropped by rewriting the constitution, that attempt has given fuel to the PAD to rally and once again has deeply divided the country. There is no grey area when it comes to Thaksin, he is either hated or loved. People with lesser educations love him simply because they don’t know better. People with higher educations (mid high school and up) hate him because they can see the self serving evil in him. Wanting to rewrite the constitution just to get off the hook for crimes simply shows how arrogant Thaksin truly is.

Thaksin’s personality is of extreme arrogance and totally self serving. Each day he was Prime Minister before being removed by the 2006 coup, he was making enemies faster than most people could count. He never listened to sound advice and did whatever he wanted. These enemies are still around today and their numbers rank in the millions. To give another example of Thaksin’s arrogance, Thaksin wanted to have an audience with Prem Tinsulanonda the president of the Privy counsel. Thaksin feels that Prem’s influence brought on the coup, and has been attacking prem ever since. Prem refused to meet Thaksin and in recent days Thaksin managed to corner Prem at a funeral simply seeking a photo opportunity to be used in someway. That however completely backfired on Thaksin because of the expression on Prem’s face in the photos. Thaksin will do whatever it takes to get what he wants, and that includes drawing blood and or making people disappear who are in his way. That is one of the significant fears the educated Thais have if Thaksin was ever to regain power.

That same arrogance is being wielded by the PPP as they are simply Thaksin’s puppet government. Disregard for what the public wants and needs, and only working for self serving reasons. Thaksin had purchased Manchester United football team as an attempt to stay in the public view, and to project a nice face. That has already fallen apart and he has succeeded in pissing off droves of fans.

At the moment the puppet Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is a bit of a loose cannon for Thaksin. Samak is hot headed and says what he want. His comments over the past weekend nearly cause the government to fall by wanting to use force to remove the PAD rally. Samak even went so far as to suggest the PAD rally was inconveniencing the royal family. To put words in the mouths of the royal family like that can get one put in jail in short order. The rumors are Thaksin is looking to replace Samak with kin as soon as possible. Samak’s personality suggest he may dissolve parliament if push comes to shove with attempts to remove him.

One of the problems the PPP faces is Thaksin has managed to get the Thai people more actively involved in politics by his sheer arrogance. Thais although normally passive do have their limits and Thaksin took them well past that point between 2004 and 2006. Thaksin has been silent more or less for the past month as often anything he says is viewed as a lie and opposite of what the truth is. This is no doubt difficult for Thaksin. Just by talking, Thaksin manages to piss people off.

With the coalition parties looking to re-posture themselves in such a way to survive a coup or what ever else the PPP manages to provoke the Thai people to throw at them, Thaksin has lost some of his behind the scenes internal influence of the government as votes are no longer insured. There is no doubt Thaksin is running major damage control behind the scenes, but with the far less than Steller reputations of the people in the PPP, it seems to be like trying to get a very old car to go very fast. It shakes, it drifts from lane to lane, and it frequently overheats.

In general, it is very easy to understand what is going on it the PPP. They consist of a bunch of recycled corrupt politicians who have been around for years and there personal habits and how they respond to situations are well known by the Thais. Although the PPP try’s it’s best not to be transparent, it is fairly easy for someone who has an interest in behavior profiling to predict what is going on and what will happen next. At the moment they are like a handcuffed man wanting to take a swing at the person who is pissing him off. That lack of control is also contributing to the self destruction of the Thai government. They are use to using force but now because of several court rulings and the new constitution, they are being forced to do things the right way. That is another reason the constitution is not liked by the corrupt.

The Junta in the 2006 coup was widely seen as the good guys, however some countries like the USA had to stand against them because they appeared to remove democracy from Thailand. That however was not the case, Thaksin was hours away from dictator status when the coup was launched. On the surface the USA had to reject the junta, however behind the scenes, they could see that the junta’s goal was to restore democracy, and they managed to do that in just over a year. However the top military brass has changed in Thailand and thus the personality of the military. It is hard to say what will happen ‘when’ and not ‘if’ the next coup comes.

No matter what happens in Thailand over the next several days or months, all sides agree including the military that the tourist industry must prosper. So there should be no need to worry about plans to visit Thailand.


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