BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Despite a pledge by the military-led government to return Thailand to democracy by December, it is increasingly clear that the country's political direction will likely be determined not by voters but by lawyers, guns and money. Nine months after the bloodless ouster of elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the military remains
firmly in the driver's seat.
Blog master said... This country is not belong to me anymore.
Politicians of every party have been all but sidelined. Making common cause with a Thai elite that was greatly discomfited by Thaksin's brand of populist politics, the army looks to be stacking the deck for polls due in December by keeping all political parties weak.
«It will be like a directed democracy, in which aristocrats and bureaucrats become more powerful,» predicts Pasuk Phongpaichit, a political economist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
«The new government will be weak, and it has to compromise with and be subjected to the influence of the elite.Not that Thaksin didn't give the elite an excuse. The telecommunications billionaire-turned-politician was widely accused of using the prime minister's office to enrich himself and his family.
Blog master said... She hated Thaksin and ThairakThai party , She had ever againsted Thaksin before 19 Coup. She's not apologise to Thai people for her fool in the past when she supported the 19 coup.
The charges sparked confrontational anti-Thaksin protests and eventually a political logjam that led to the coup last September.A series of moves in recent weeks has underscored the military-led government's determination to get Thaksin, who has been living overseas since the coup. An anti-graft panel ordered the freezing of more than 60 billion baht (US$1.86 billion; ¤1.39 billion) in assets belonging to Thaksin and his family.
This week, the former leader was ordered to return to Thailand to face charges that he concealed his ownership of a company from the stock exchange. And in a dramatic ruling last month, a Thai court ordered Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party dissolved and its 111 top executives barred from public office for five years for electoral law violations.
But Thaksin, who came to office in 2001, remains popular among rural voters who delivered him his two landslide election victories. His populist policies brought financial and social welfare benefits to the long-ignored countryside. The dissolution of his party means that the country's rural majority is likely to be denied a real choice at the ballot box.
In the Thai capital of Bangkok, though, the Sept. 19, 2006, coup had been welcomed by many who had wearied of Thaksin's autocratic style and his alleged abuse of power. An interim government, led by a respected former army commander, was appointed, as was an interim legislature and a committee to draft a new constitution. Military sympathizers and Bangkok bureaucrats heavily dominate all bodies and made known their intention to enshrine responsible rule at the expense of popular democracy.
The new government imposed martial law, which remains in effect in 35 of the country's 76 provinces, and banned all organized political party activities _ a measure lifted only earlier this month.But in recent months, the popularity of the military-installed government of interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont had begun to decline. A series of missteps on the economic front, including a bungled attempt to impose capital controls, appalled the business community.
Blog master said... It's nonsense, they can't manage this country , they didn't have capability but they have just desire. They are thinking that it's honour of their life for this special accident.
Despite good intentions, the government failed to resolve a bloody Muslim insurgency in the country's southernmost provinces.And until recently, attempts to bring Thaksin to justice for his alleged crimes had proceeded at a snail's pace. Criticism grew that the military had failed to prove wrongdoing that had been a major justification for the coup.The sense of drift was shattered by the court-ordered dismantlement of the former prime minister's party.
Blog master said... I'm not sure that the military junta sincerely solves this problem.
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