PAD New politics on the road

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have all the right intentions in mind for Thailand with their “New Politics” proposal. However pushing this idea in Isaan where the heart of the problem lies is about as difficult as it can get.

The general concept behind new politics is to take the people who are susceptible to vote buying by corrupt politicians out of the loop. That way it will keep Thailand from moving backwards (again). But with the underlying sales pitch of ‘We want to take your voting rights away.’, it becomes a difficult sale in any country no matter what the GPS coordinates are.

Add to that they will be facing violence from Thaksin’s private red shirt army just for being there, and even the best traveling salesman would have doubts about showing his demo items there.

So the dilemma is the corrupt will look to draw blood and the undereducated will not want to give up anything. The voting practice of the lesser educated that can be bought is short term gain and not long term. They have learned there is no guarantee and the only time they see things is election time. Remove their voting rights and Parliament will more than likely ignore them, and that does not sit well. Give up your only bit of leverage and they will become about as popular as the people the Thai government is trying to deport. So needless to say all good intentions aside, ‘new politics’ is a bit of a bomb.

The proposal Connecting the Dots had as least leave voting rights in place. Voting rights are not decided by age but by educational attainment. Depending on how educated people are will decide what percentage their vote is worth. This will encourage finishing their education and also solve the problem of tricking the lesser educated into doing the wrong thing for Thailand.


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