Thailand’s Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej presented himself to the Senate Monday June 23, but little more. During what was to be questioning about the government and it’s failures thus far, Samak turned it into a verbal assault on the Senate in an attempt to avoid answering questions.
In what was to be a day of enlightenment turned into a day of verbal abuse all coming from the person on the hot seat. From the word go, Samak accused the senate of a variety of procedural errors, and piled on rhetoric to respond to senators. There was also a lack of sincerity in the questions that were answered.
Samak has been accused of trying to change the constitution to whitewash Thaksin Shinawatra, who faces a raft of corruption charges, and the senators brought that up as well. When challenged by senators on to comment on charges he was a puppet of ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej simply denied it as Thaksin is now a poison pill and open association with Thaksin means political death at the very least.
All of these events were easy to predict knowing how Samak operates. When Samak is confronted with questions that truthful answers would be damaging at the least and damning at the worst, he simply goes on the attack and diverts attention from the original question with the hopes he will not have to answer. However in this case he further embarrassed himself as not being able to answer the simplest questions without going off on some sort of tangent. Add to that Samak disappeared from the hearing before it was concluded. This left senators to feel that the government ignored the inquiry.
Once again this was all to be expected from a government who has been self serving and avoiding the issues of the Thai people. It will be a few days as the senate ponders what if any action will come of this disrespect. So essentially Samak and his People Power Party are not only ignoring the people of Thailand, they are also ignoring the senate in a bid to take care of themselves.
The House takes up the censure motion of the opposition party Democrats on Tuesday June 24. The environment is expected to be friendlier to Samak, however in the past few days there have been some violations of the constitution by the government that may tip the vote against Samak.
This is an ongoing story.
