It seems the Pheu Thai Party (PTP) is starting to undertake what looks to become an iconic signature for all their future political campaigns. Imagine if you would the new slogans of other political parties in Thailand along the lines of ‘Bail free politicians’. Once you see that you really begin to see how monumental the PTP blunder is likely to become by selecting someone in jail to run for the highly respected position of Member of Parliament.
To say the entire world is not watching this would be a bit of a lie. If Thailand was not a Buddhist country, the biblical reference of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden would well describe what this is on the order of political blunders.
Before we even start, Connecting the Dots has not a clue where this will end up. As far as we can see this is a first anyplace. Because of that there is no point of reference we can look at for some sort of base line. It is a bit like the scientists trying to figure out how bad things will be with global warming. This is a first time event at the human attempt at self extinction, so both darts and Ouija Boards are just as scientific it would seem. The one thing that we are certain about, is this PTP self inflicted wound will be lifelong.
Once again it is difficult not to poke fun at this, so we will bite our lip the best we can. The closest thing we can find to this is closely related in more ways than one. That was a convicted fugitive by the name of Thaksin Shinawatra running around with a Thai diplomatic passport. That generated more than a few frowns from other people who held diplomatic passports from other countries. The fact that a convicted fugitive had a diplomatic passport simply degraded that entire elite group that includes heads of state and royalty.
The other closely related political parallel was in the USA with Marion Barry. The difference was Marion waited until after his legal problems were over before seeking office again.
It is very clear the PTP has not thought this out and are only looking at this particular election. But the simple fact is this will carry from election cycle to election cycle as their political opponents most certainly will take as much political advantage as they can from this. Imagine someone from another party pointing out that people outside of jail did not meet the prerequisites of the PTP, and only people in jail did. That one fact alone could very easily toss future elections. People in jail guilty or not have more pressing personal problems to deal with before thinking about serving in an elected office.
The fact that the PTP did not select someone outside of jail suggests this looks to be an in your face vote, but the question is who’s face. As for saving or gaining face, the PTP has already proven they care not for their own face as they are well involved with their dance with the devil. But in this case they will damage the faces of all Thais until this election is concluded. The world will want to see by proof what is going on in the heads of the Thai people before they render judgment on Thais as a whole.
There is no doubt people from other countries are lining up for popcorn as you read this. It does have the excitement and the drama of Harry Houdini looking to escape his bonds suspended by a burning rope over a pit of hungry crocodiles. There are a lot of undefined variables that need to be sorted out on this before more dots are seen and if Harry will survive.
