• OPINION

  Clone wars: FFP boss is not Thaksin 2.0

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 23/05/2019

  » The ongoing media shareholding case against Future Forward Party (FFP) leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit may not have come this far if he wasn't ultra rich and moderately successful. But his high net-worth and popularity makes him a clone of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra in the eyes of the anti-Thaksin elite and conservative media, who seem to be on a crusade to stop Mr Thanathorn's rise.

• OPINION

  Political cases may bode ill for democracy

  Oped, Surasak Glahan, Published on 28/02/2019

  » The uniquely Thai way of sabotaging popular political parties and their leaders with surprising ease yielded further progress yesterday, as the fate of the executives at the helm of the Future Forward Party (FFP) and Thai Raksa Chart Party (TRC) were left hanging in the balance.

• OPINION

  PM putting poll on the fast track to failure

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 17/10/2018

  » 'Maybe". That was the most up-to-date hint Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha gave to the press corps yesterday when asked whether he will enter the political fray.

• OPINION

  The faux democracy that Prayut may build

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 19/09/2018

  » When building a house, hiring a contractor whose credentials are more about demolishing structures than building new ones could turn into a nightmare. You could hardly blame such an inexperienced contractor if your house collapsed.

• OPINION

  Hun Sen, NCPO sing the same tune

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 21/05/2018

  » A string of legislative attacks by Cambodia's ruling regime against its critics and the opposition party since last year have baffled me, not only for their senselessness and brutality, but for the similarity they share with political tactics invented here in Thailand.

• OPINION

  An academic shift right will hurt society

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 31/01/2018

  » Part of me wishes the military government had been behind the recent ban on the publication of the results of a poll by the National Institute of Development Administration (Nida). Such state intimidation is not a good thing. But at least it's better than the reality -- self-censorship imposed by Nida's president or, put it another way, his preferred choice to not let public opinion influence an ongoing probe against one of the regime's top men.

• OPINION

  Let's hear it for the year's real heroes

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 25/12/2017

  » With the constant chilly breeze in the evening and nice temperatures during the day, the cold spell this year has been more generous to Bangkokians than the increasingly suppressive political climate (We have been through many rounds of political turmoil for years, but had rarely experienced this kind of pleasant winter.)

• OPINION

  Rights claims fall flat amid cadet scandal

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 27/11/2017

  » Actions did speak much louder than words last week. The government on Tuesday announced its new national human rights agenda for government agencies. It didn't generate any news buzz. Over the following days, the government's top brass publicly endorsed the military's culture of corporal punishment, which allegedly involves rights violations, in the wake of the death of a military cadet. Their endorsement generated national news.

• OPINION

  Moving on from the great escape

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 25/09/2017

  » If it hadn't happened in Thailand but in some other country, many of us in the media might have seen the Yingluck Shinawatra escape from a different angle.

• OPINION

  Govt 'victories' become our nightmares

  News, Surasak Glahan, Published on 27/05/2017

  » Being overly critical of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) may not help if you want to be in a state of sanity while gauging its three-year performance and trying to understand why the regime and its cheerleaders still think it has done a great job and should prolong its stay in power.

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