Although it has not been in the news, there is plenty of back room talk amongst corrupt Thai politicians as to how to counter the military’s push to clean up Thailand’s corruption. Much of their hopes are pinned on the mandatory retirement of the Coup leading General in a few months. However that too seems to be questionable in that signs point to the General picking up the ball as the interim Prime Minister once things get to the next step.
The backroom talk is fairly easy to detect despite limitations on the media imposed by the Junta. In fact anyone with a basic knowledge of psychology could easily conclude old habits die hard. The corrupt politicians that have fled Thailand are making their presence known despite the majority of Thais being fed up with corruption after getting a good taste of Thaksin Shinawatra’s mega corruption that placed the entire country in debt and placed Thailand’s credit rating at risk.
The essential game plan is to work at watering down the new corruption laws in the interim Government stage. How they will do this is yet unknown other than offering blanket bribes. However that has already been countered as the military is keeping the option open to send the watered down proposals back to the drawing board with the just approved interim Constitution. Section 44 allows the Junta to override any legislation it sees as supportive of corruption.
With proposals of anti corruption laws that include the death penalty and suspending the clock on the statute of limitations if the accused flees Thailand, along with making it 30 years inside Thailand, running out the clock is no longer a viable option. In fact some of the proposals offer such severe consequences, only the most foolish greedy and bold would test fate.
Needless to say this is not sitting well with Thaksin and his cronies, and it leaves few options as it seems the vast majority of Thais have had enough with being bled to death.
Considering the options it seems to all come down to targeted violence against those who have the desire and ability to push the new laws through into reality. But that is a tall order to fill as it would be more or less going up against the military as a whole. The plan ‘B’ of that is as it always has been just try not to get caught.
This still is inline with our long term prediction of activities of Thaksin and his cronies outside of Thailand. They are slowly creeping back into the news by piggybacking on other semi-related topics. That will slowly progress to being more on target by leaking tidbits to the media that will attract more focus on Thaksin’s stance.
However for Thaksin it seems his greed has finally cause such negative fallout for him it may take longer than the remainder of his normal life expectancy to develop any significant leverage as he is the primary target of all the pending anti-corruption laws. However one thing is certain, Thaksin will not give up until he is dead and gone from the face of the earth.
