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  • News & article

    Thai politics' murky tunnel to nowhere

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 07/01/2022

    » Starting out a new year should engender a sense of hope and optimism that tomorrow can be better than yesterday. But the reality in Thailand suggests otherwise. A sense of prolonged malaise and discontent pervades the scene, where politics will likely prove murky with an economy persistently in the doldrums, underpinned by continuing societal divisions and broad-based unhappiness. Unless drastic changes and reforms take place very soon, this year is likely to further solidify the onset of a decade of decay and stagnation.

  • News & article

    PM shows he has political resilience

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 04/06/2021

    » Half-way through his four-year term, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has time and again shown his staying power in the face of popular discontent. Despite a subpar economic performance and persistent controversies from his cabinet's incomplete oath of office and a cabinet minister's past drug conviction and imprisonment in Australia to his own house on army premises after retirement, the former army chief, who led the military coup in May 2014 to take over as prime minister, has proved politically resilient.

  • News & article

    Corruption without a moral backstop

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 15/01/2021

    » For Thailand, Covid-19 has become an unwitting spotlight that has exposed shadowy closets and drawers where corruption and graft have long festered. In the past, Thailand's dirty deeds and illegal wrongdoings operated within certain parameters set by a semblance of moral authority at the top echelons of Thai society. But in recent years, moral turpitude has set in while the sense of moral backstop has faded. As this trend intensifies, Thailand risks suffering political decay, social decadence and economic stagnation, while impunity and immorality reign without boundaries.

  • News & article

    Thai justice system overhaul overdue

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 31/07/2020

    » Thailand's current talk of the country is undoubtedly the scandal centring on Red Bull scion Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya for the 2012 hit-and-run resulting in the gruesome death of a policeman on a motorcycle.

  • News & article

    Coronavirus blues and clues in Thailand

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/04/2020

    » It is unanimous that the novel coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. A common refrain everywhere in the world is "I have never seen anything like it". Its immediate consequences and longer-term transformational repercussions will be felt for years to come. Covid-19 challenges individuals, societies and state institutions to their very core. For Thailand, re-emerging from this devastating pandemic will be tough and tricky, with trade-offs and hard choices.

  • News & article

    Challenges from outside parliament

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/03/2020

    » While it managed to survive the recent censure debate more comfortably that it had anticipated, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's government is now at a new crossroads. While the threat from inside parliament has subsided owing to the opposition's disarray, challenges from outside the legislative chamber, on the streets and in the court of public opinion are likely to intensify.

  • News & article

    Concentric Mideast wars and prospects

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 10/01/2020

    » Nothing captures attention in an age of media saturation like the talk of war. The recent decision by US President Donald Trump to assassinate a top Iranian official, Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, has conjured up the spectre of a wider conflict encompassing not just the Middle East but the broader world, as Iran's top leaders deemed it "an act of war" and vowed "severe revenge". Although Iran's military and its proxy militias and client states in the Middle East and elsewhere are poised to exact retribution for their loss, we are unlikely to see a world war in the immediate aftermath of this killing.

  • News & article

    Govt faces self-imposed bumps ahead

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 26/09/2014

    » Four months after the military coup on May 22, it is emerging that Thailand will either end up with the most benevolent, enlightened and effective military-dominated regime of the country's political annals that will clean up graft and institute reforms like no previous government could, or an inevitable collision course between pro- and anti-coup forces.

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