Looking at the political climate in Thailand, one has to wonder if Thailand will ever recover after Thaksin Shinawatra is totally out of the picture. So Connecting the Dots will look at the most probable scenario if what it is likely to be like.
To conduct this analysis we must pick an arbitrary date in the future. So for the sake of this post we have decided to project ahead to the year 2020 with what is likely to be the reality of Thailand based on governing factors.
First we must assume succession will have occurred on the throne and the receptiveness of the Thai people to the new King will be a key factor. For only but the very oldest Thais, they have only known one King, and his ability to quench political turmoil will no longer be available. So whoever sits on the throne in 2020 must be accepted by the Thai people as worthy to wield such respect. Although this topic is a bit of a taboo to talk about, we are using life expectancy norms for this factor without any other consideration. No disrespect to they Royal family intended.
The second factor is should any of Thaksin’s children look to follow in Their fathers footsteps, they simply will be in name only talent. In the USA Anyone with the name Kennedy seemed to already have been given a head start in a political race, and the same scenario may still be true with Thaksin’s children. Assuming there was any of Thaksin’s fortune left will govern their ability to win in an election.
The Third factor is we assume that the coup of 2006 was the last coup. The Constitution will have been hacked at and is borderline strong enough to prevent another coup from happening as a new generation of politicians will be in the game. The new politicians will be hindered from amassing such power by corruption and everyone will be roughly equal in political strength.
The forth factor are we are assuming that the anti corruption laws and oversight bodies are still functional like the Election Commission and their legal counterparts.
The fifth factor will be based on the level of corruption that exists outside of the political arena. The police and the companies they interact with will for the most part be unchanged. For that to happen there must be a fundamental shift is the social structure of Thailand. That will take many decades happen as technology works into the lives of the Thai people. All transactions will need to be electronic for any significant change to happen. Perhaps in 100 years paper money will simply be obsolete and that will help to make corruption much more difficult. But that is past the 2020 time frame of this entry.
The sixth factor will be the influence and money from outside of Thailand. To get a piece of that pie Thais will need to park the Thai way of doing things and adapt to western ways.
The seventh factor will be The Thai education system. If Thais are better educated they will simply advance and only a lobotomy would stop that from happening. If that change starts now, Thais in their teens in 2020 will have a good idea of what needs to be done.
Next Part 2
