• THAILAND

  Clip exposes gamut of inconvenient truths

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 19/07/2013

  » The controversial audio clip that has reverberated around Thailand over the past two weeks refuses to go away. On it, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and current Deputy Defence Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapa held a wide-ranging conversation which ran the gamut from mutual acquaintances and personal virility to military promotions and Thaksin's homecoming drive through an amnesty decree.

• OPINION

  Learning from a long history of coups

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/06/2014

  » As Thailand’s latest coup bears striking similarities and differences to its dozen precursors, it behooves the National Council for Peace and Order to learn from the past. The military’s seizure of power on May 22 is now accompanied by daunting challenges and pitfalls that are consequential for all who want to see Thailand regain its democratic traction and way forward.

• OPINION

  Virtual lockdown to spill over into 2015

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 26/12/2014

  » In the wake of a deceptive calm following the military coup on May 22, prospects for next year are characterised by anxiety and apprehension over what is to come.

• OPINION

  Thailand caught in indefinite transition trap

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 22/05/2015

  » Milestones and anniversaries are for marking. But few should overdo the focus on Thailand one year after its 12th successful coup in 83 years under constitutional rule. The past year is merely a large blip on a long political continuum that dates back a decade or even a century in which Thai society has been grappling with the form and content of a political order that is being contested between the forces of tradition and modernity.

• OPINION

  Implications from a divided America

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 18/11/2016

  » In the immediate aftermath of the presidential election outcome in the United States, many Americans are dazed and divided. As Donald Trump has beaten Hillary Clinton against the vast majority of pre-election polls that had forecast otherwise, his supporters are calling it fair and square with a convincing victory in the Electoral College that elects presidents based on the popular vote.

• OPINION

  The time and need for civilians in cabinet

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 16/12/2016

  » In view of the royal transition that has transpired, Thailand's interim period since its military coup in May 2014 has now entered a new phase. When the military seized power back then, the Thai public largely put up with what became a military dictatorship, spearheaded by Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha as prime minister and leader of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). This rough bargain, whereby the military stepped in to be the midwife of the royal transition, has passed. It is time to recalibrate and prepare for a return to popular rule by placing more civilian technocrats in government in the upcoming cabinet reshuffle.

• OPINION

  What the rescue of the trapped boys means

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/07/2018

  » Global news cycles over the past two weeks have been saturated by Thailand's gripping story of 12 boys from a local youth football team and their 25-year-old coach trapped in a labyrinthine and partially submerged cave complex in the Chiang Rai hills in the north of the country. Even after their successful rescue, the story continues.

• OPINION

  Taiwan: a democracy in Asia that works

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/12/2019

  » Ask any Taiwanese who owns Taiwan, and the answer invariably will be "the Taiwanese people" or sometimes simply "the people". That the country should belong to its people should be obvious, but this is not always the case in a place where equality is lacking and entitlement is rife. Thailand is a telling example.

• OPINION

  Misguided myopia of asking the rich

  Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 24/04/2020

  » Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's initiative to seek more cooperation and assistance from Thailand's 20 wealthiest billionaires is understandable. Thailand needs all the help it can get to handle and manage the social and economic ravages of the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. But making an appeal in writing from the top to the country's richest is short-sighted and misguided on many levels. It displays a government at the end of its tether and a leader who is being forced to own up to mismanaging the country for the past six years.

• OPINION

  Thailand's changed coup considerations

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 18/09/2020

  » That coup rumours are swirling again while Thai politics heats up in view of an ominous student-led anti-establishment protest this weekend attests to the weakness of the country's democratic institutions.

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