Good, bad or indifferent he was what he was, what's your take (no pun intended)?
Good, bad or indifferent he was what he was, what's your take (no pun intended)?
"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
Surely it depends on the perspective you take. When he was elected, the country had been through a horrendous economic upheaval. It certainly seemed he might be able to get Thailand back on its feet and start to do something for the mass of the people in the countryside. To begin with, that is what happened. The universal health scheme was a huge benefit. The Bt. 1 million to each village head should have been had not inevitable corruption resulted in the average Thai seeing precious little of that. Soon the stock market was rising and the economy was finally going somewhere.
But then power went to the guy's head. Maybe it had been there all along. After all, it was known only too well that candidates for parliament had to declare their assets. Subsequent to his election, his gardener and housekeeper were found to own vast quantities of shares in his companies. Excuse me??? The constitutional court came within one vote of stripping him of his post (that vote almost certainly having been bought). His anti-drug campaign was a disaster; yet after 3 months and around 2,500 extra-judicial killings, he had the gall to stand on his soapbox and tell the world that Thailand was "now" drug-free. The Tak Bai incident in the South when 1,300 protesters were stripped to the waist, ordered to crawl to nearby trucks as they were kicked and beaten (seen by the world on television) and then 78 were found dead after being driven like cattle for 5 hours in open trucks in the gruelling heat, resulted in Thaksin merely expressing regret and insisting his military cronies had done no wrong.
The idiocy of his camping overnight at Suvarnabhumi because he said work was not being completed fast enough. The strict clampdown on reporting of his activities with, for one, the dismissal of staff from the media for reporting cracks on runways at BKK. These and other shenanigans were then followed by the blatant theft of state funds when he sold his shares in Shin Corp. to Singapore's sovereign wealth fund for US$2 billion, having first changed the law both to raise the percentage of state assets which could be sold from 25% to 49% and then to ensure his family paid zero tax on its vast profit. Add to this his wifeтАЩs lawyer handing a lunchbox filled with Bt. 2 million in cash to one of her prosecutors in a land case. He was an out-and-out crook.
For the gay community, I believe Thaksin was a disaster. His first Social Order campaign in 2001 was headed by old Thaksin friend and Interior Minister, Purachai Piumsombun, with the aim of cleaning up the countryтАЩs image as a sex haven and halting the moray decay of its youth. By all accounts a religious family man of strict morals who, unusually for Ministers, stuck rigidly to the law, Purachai went about his campaign as if with a vengeance. тАШEntertainment venuesтАЩ were zoned and strict closing times implemented, times for the sale of alcohol were regulated, raids in the bars became common . . . Even the General Manager of the famed Oriental Hotel objected in the Bangkok Post to the effect this would all have on tourists. Yet upcountry the campaign was popular. I believe this was the start of the slippery slope which will culminate eventually in the end of most of today's nightlife. What it has also done is drive much of it underground, accessible to Thais but all-but closed to foreigners.
All this is generally known. What is known by very few are ThaksinтАЩs behind-the-scenes machinations at very high levels regarding a certain family and a certain event likely to occur sooner rather than later. ThereтАЩs little doubt that these were largely the reason behind the the most recent coup.
A fair assessment. I always thought that ensuring his family paid no tax on the Shin Corp sale was his biggest political mistake. The PAD protest, leading to the coup, was triggered by that. Of course, from a moral point of view the extra-judicial killings in the drug war and the Tak Bai incident and other killings should already have made clear his unsuitability for office in the eyes of civilised people.
[i]There is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach,
But alas I cannot swim.
[/i]
- From an early-19th-century Pashtun marching song
Agreed! But I had hoped this topic would ask how your life was effected.
"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
Well, in that case MFAS, as someone who spends just five or six months of the year in Thailand, I don't think my life has been affected one jot. In strictness though, I think the question is best addressed to Thai nationals and not to passing sex tourists, or even passing happy sex tourists. Unless, of course, someone can point out his policies had an effect on the gay sex industry. I'm afraid I don't have enough knowledge on the before and after situation to make any meaningful comment and leave it to others with greater knowledge to offer an opinion.
Remember: Coughs and sneezes spread diseases
Fair question! I can give my views as a regular visitor since 1979 (average 4 times a year) and as a Bangkok resident since Thaksin came to power. Four examples of the Thaksin effect on me -
1. Thailand has become a less polite society towards foreigners. That is clearly relative and maybe Thais are also less polite to each other in the capital, but I can cite many instances where the small courtesies always shown pre-Thaksin have disappeared.
2. Thai bureaucracy and red tape is as bad as before when I had expected a technocrat like Thaksin could and would have instituted far-reaching reforms. I keep my business based in Hong Kong when I had hoped eventually to move it here.
3. The range and timing of entertainment and nightlife for gay men has suffered. Purachai's "reforms" were too drastic and many just don't work. Restricting the sale of alcohol in retail stores to certain times of day was pure idiocy and has done nothing to curb teenage drinking or deaths from drunk driving.
4. Corruption has become pervasive, much more so and at much higher percentages than pre-Thaksin. Living in a society which accepts corruption at all levels of society is something that is difficult to ignore. It has only directly affected me a couple of times, one personal and once in a business matter. But it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Not much effect on how I lead my life in Thailand. Pictures of him in the media (that smug, greedy, gangster mug of his!) were guaranteed to bring on an urge to do violence, preferably via a punch to said ugly mug if possible. Also, come to think of it, there was all the fun of endless vitriolic exchanges with the head-in-the-clouds Thaksinistas on the old Bahtstop board. Yeah, I kind of miss those.
[i]There is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach,
But alas I cannot swim.
[/i]
- From an early-19th-century Pashtun marching song
It is pervasive but I think it cuts two ways.Originally Posted by fountainhall
"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
Fountainhall has summed it up very well in both replies.
I would add that the gentleman stepped out of his amart community with consessions to the poor such as the health card scheme and old-age pension. He remains popular in the countryside as a result but cynics would say he did it for ulterior motives.
He's a sly fox and I think he feared a movement towards, let's say, more equal wealth adjustment and planned to be astride two horses if and when he needed to choose. His old friends didn't like it and so he's banished.
In the meantime they're back at the trough again.
Meaning it takes two to tango, as it were?
I believe it is far worse than that. It is now endemic in a society which expects it. The public's view on Thaksin's robbing the state through the Shin Corp deal seemed to be. "Well, everyone does it. Why single out Thaksin?" When corruption gets to that level of acceptance, it literally rots the infrastructure of society, undermines institutions and thwarts efforts to reduce poverty and catalyse sustainable growth. Everyone loses except a few at the top of the tree.
More than 20 years ago, a business colleague of mine was asked to quote for a project here through a middleman. After the quote was submitted, the middleman said it had to be revised - upwards. He wanted 30% added to it which would be split evenly between him and my colleague. My colleague did as he was told and won the contract. Now the rather toothless anti-Corruption Commission estimates that the level of bribes has risen to 30% - 50%.
We've all heard tales of motorists stopped by police because of a broken tail light which happens to be working perfectly. Either a few red notes are slipped into the accuser's hands or the accused has to go to court. It's Hobson's Choice. Who in their right mind will consider the time and expense of taking such a trivial issue to Court? So yes, both parties are complicit. And that again illustrates the problem. Nothing is going to stop it barring a total crackdown with, as happened in Hong Kong in the mid-1970s, a totally independent law enforcement division and a separate judiciary. That trapped a lot of the big players, including a top Police Commissioner. Hong Kong retains that Anti-Corruption Commission which is much admired by the public, and has become one of the least corrupt territories in the region.
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