| Home > South-East Asia >> Thailand | |
Twenty years of military dominated politics in store
Ugly Truth Thailand - January 1, 2017
Government policies will have to conform to this backward National Strategy, no matter what the electorate desire and naturally the National Strategy is royalist and neo-liberal. Of course the term "elected" is a very impressionistic description, since any future elections will be designed to obtain the "best" result, allowing for a weak puppet government palatable to the military.
But the so-called elections are in the far-distant future because king Pumipon conveniently died a few months ago, allowing the military to spend millions on the ceremonies associated with his death, which are being used to whip-up royalist mania. Pumipon's death will allow the whole political process to be put on ice. There will not be any elections in 2017. They probably will be postponed to late 2018 at the earliest, and if the military appointed rubber stamp assembly doesn't finish its drafting of terrible laws, the election could be rescheduled into 2019.
The junta's draft political party law shows that they want to put political parties in a straight-jacket. Naturally anyone wishing to set up a party will be vetted, in best authoritarian traditions and any party which doesn't fit the junta's requirements will be disqualified.
The law raises the level of punishment for "selling" political positions to ridiculous extremes. People could be executed for doing this!! But naturally, no punishment for wrong-doing applies to non-MPs who become Prime Minister. This is just in case the Generalissimo were to be invited to this top position once again in the future.
What is more, this draft law stipulates that political parties must have a minimum of 500 founding members who each pay at least 2000 baht to the party. This amount of money represents about 25% of what most workers earn in a month. So the poor farmers and ordinary workers cannot possibly found a political party. Once again we see the results of "A Coup for the Rich"!
In 2017 we shall continue to see the grotesque play act of men in military uniform pretending to grovel to the demented king Wachiralongkorn in a pathetic attempt to make us believe that they are "taking orders" from this imbecile.
Word has it that Wachiralongkorn has appointed a number of his women to high-ranking but powerless military positions, which no doubt will have to be funded by the public. However, in an honest moment Wachiralongkorn said that his heart was warmed that General Prem Tinsulanon was re-appointed as head of the Privy Council. Without experienced generals on the Privy Council, the clueless king would not know how to best serve the ruling class. But the Privy Councillors need to be patient as Wachiralongkorn is a slow-learner.
Meanwhile the repression and censorship continue. The new "Computer Censorship and Democratic Crimes Law" has passed the junta appointed parliament and government control of the internet is set to further increase with the future introduction of a "single internet gateway". There has been sporadic opposition to these measures, but the dictatorship needs to be overthrown in its entirety in order to fully achieve freedom of speech.
It has been made "serious crime" to "like" or "share" the BBC Thai service's web post of Wachiralongkorn's biography, despite the fact that most Thais already know the truth. The whole of the ruling class and society are to be set in an official state of denial. "Lese-majeste" is designed to silence the truth about royalty and the military. Loyalty is to tell lies. Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Dictatorship is Democracy!
But there is some good news. His Excellency, Generalissimo Prayut has been awarded the position of "Great Political leader of exercise" by the World Health Organisation, for his participation in outdoor aerobics! Well this is according to junta sources anyway. It is difficult to independently verify the truth about this, but since the junta is made up of self-declared "good people", we ought to trust them, I'm sure.
At the risk of repeating myself, the fact of the matter is that without building a mass social movement to overthrow the military, the terrible state of Thai politics will continue. Remember that the middle-classes and the conservatives are totally responsible for this state of affairs and the NGOs also played their part in the destruction of democracy.
As 2016 changes to 2017, spare a thought for Thailand's lese-majeste political prisoners, especially Somyot Pruksakasemsuk.
See also:
 |