Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Commission on a mission
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 17/03/2019
» "The Election Commission shall announce the result of the election", and there really hasn't been any more vast difference between the EC and the members of the public. It's not even supposed to be a worry. But everyone's worrying about the scraping of all the foreign votes and the vital gathering of all today's advance votes and the really major assembling next week of every one-person-one-vote.
Fairness needs to be ensured
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 27/01/2019
» In sports, as in politics, they call it a "tilted playing field". One or many tiny modifications to the game area give advantages that don't absolutely guarantee that the home team wins, but help to make it more likely.
The death of vote-buying
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 25/11/2018
» The government announced a brand new and unexpected Big Welfare Aid Programme (BWAP). Cynics, sceptics, anti-regime critics and even honest people wondered if the sudden decision to help the least-advantaged Thais just possibly has something to do with that other government programme -- so tantalisingly unspecified -- of an election that for the fourth year in a row has been pencilled in for, in the highly familiar phrase used by the general prime minister, "next year".
Devout groupies and a band of terrorists
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 23/09/2018
» After a very organised group of terrorists hijacked the Kuwait Airways jumbo jet Flight 422 from Bangkok to Kuwait City for 16 days and killed two of their hostages in April of 1988, there was an investigation.
The good old days
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 09/09/2018
» If you've ever said in support of the coup regime that, yes, it's great that junta and government are dedicated to returning Thailand to those good old days, then you'll be forever grateful to the national police chief and the whole bunch of the unreformed Royal Thai Police.
Inching towards legalisation
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 26/08/2018
» Getting a sensible new law into the books is an extremely difficult task. But it's lightning compared with getting sensible changes to your great-grandfather's laws still on the books "because that's how we've always done it".
Promises, promises
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 19/08/2018
» The general prime minister is off to the South this week. The trip to Chumphon has been planned for a while, so the irony is coincidental.
Punch lines
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 29/07/2018
» If the general prime minister has his way -- and it looks like he probably will -- it won't be politics or police or the justice system that he'll finally reform.
Signs of concern
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 01/07/2018
» The general prime minister said last week that he really doesn't even want to talk about an election before September. Also, there won't be an election until he's able to announce the success of his programme of national reconciliation.
Data security a foreign concept
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 22/04/2018
» You'd think that just about the worst thing that could happen in today's charged smartphone-internet intersection is the theft of many thousands of the most important identification documents and personal details of mobile phone owners. But you'd be wrong.