Showing 1 - 10 of 70
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.
The hand that feeds them
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 03/03/2019
» When the columnists and panjandrums and degree-clutchers come to analyse the state of Thailand in mid- and late May, it's probably this past week that will fascinate them.
Indictment of the innocent
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 17/02/2019
» It wasn't a good week for those who claim the March 24 general election will be free and fair. The "gateway to resumption of government accountability and democracy building" seemed firmly closed.
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.
Out of the box
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 20/01/2019
» For kakistocrats who have failed for four years-plus to organise reconciliation, bring back happiness, fight pollution in the air and on the beaches or even to organise so much as a date for an election, our all-male green-shirt regime sure has a lot to criticise about the rest of us.
Military firepower
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 06/01/2019
» There are certain people who have stayed quiet for four-plus years who now are emerging with little bravado.
Easy choices made difficult
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 23/12/2018
» Lucius Edward William Plantagenet Cary, aka Lord Falkland, went to his death in the English Civil war, leaving little of note except a rule that could be the official motto of libertarians.
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".
Two hats not good
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 07/10/2018
» When Bangkok got too noisy because of all the criticism about cabinet ministers taking advantage by openly playing politics unfairly, the general prime minister escaped to the North on another scrupulously non-political trip to give away money and be photographed with every local personality and housewife within 20 kilometres.
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.