Western journalist humiliated by his own ignorance of democracy - thinks the acceptability of criminal behavior can be "voted" on.
January 15, 2014 (ATN) - With veiled bigotry, overt bias, and an apparently profound ignorance of representative governance, British Channel 4 journalist John Sparks attempted to take on popular protest leader Dr. Seri Wongmontha, on stage in front of tens of thousands of protesters. The idea was to humiliate Dr. Seri and expose his "ignorance" or "contempt" regarding democracy - instead Sparks ends up exposing his own.
Sparks declares boldly and with clear bias, "Yingluck leads a democratically elected government, she's not going to stand down."
Dr. Seri responds by explaining, "Being elected doesn't mean that your corruption will be legalized or legitimized," before insisting that a government that acts unlawful can be overthrown before its term is completed - a concept not entirely alien in Western democracy, enshrined in fact in the US Declaration of Independence.
Sparks would then ask why the protesters don't just agree to go to polls and put the question of legitimacy to a vote. Of course, when a government violates the law, the process is judicial, not electoral. Surely Sparks must know this.
Dr. Seri responds by explaining that the current government of Thailand is a dictatorship - and in this regard he is absolutely right - by the ruling party's own admission, it is ruled by an unelected convicted criminal and fugitive, Thaksin Shinawatra, who manages the country from abroad.
Elections Not an Option Under a Dictatorship
While Thailand is technically under the premiership of Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, by his party's own admission, Thaksin is still literally running the country. The election campaign slogan for the last general election in 2011 was literally, "Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai Does," Puea Thai being his political party. Forbes would report in their article, "Thaksin in Exile: Advising Sister, Digging for Gold," that:
January 15, 2014 (ATN) - With veiled bigotry, overt bias, and an apparently profound ignorance of representative governance, British Channel 4 journalist John Sparks attempted to take on popular protest leader Dr. Seri Wongmontha, on stage in front of tens of thousands of protesters. The idea was to humiliate Dr. Seri and expose his "ignorance" or "contempt" regarding democracy - instead Sparks ends up exposing his own.
Sparks declares boldly and with clear bias, "Yingluck leads a democratically elected government, she's not going to stand down."
Dr. Seri responds by explaining, "Being elected doesn't mean that your corruption will be legalized or legitimized," before insisting that a government that acts unlawful can be overthrown before its term is completed - a concept not entirely alien in Western democracy, enshrined in fact in the US Declaration of Independence.
Sparks would then ask why the protesters don't just agree to go to polls and put the question of legitimacy to a vote. Of course, when a government violates the law, the process is judicial, not electoral. Surely Sparks must know this.
Dr. Seri responds by explaining that the current government of Thailand is a dictatorship - and in this regard he is absolutely right - by the ruling party's own admission, it is ruled by an unelected convicted criminal and fugitive, Thaksin Shinawatra, who manages the country from abroad.
Elections Not an Option Under a Dictatorship
While Thailand is technically under the premiership of Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, by his party's own admission, Thaksin is still literally running the country. The election campaign slogan for the last general election in 2011 was literally, "Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai Does," Puea Thai being his political party. Forbes would report in their article, "Thaksin in Exile: Advising Sister, Digging for Gold," that:
Regarding his behind-the-scenes role in the party and policy, he is not shy: “I am the one who thinks. Like our slogan during the campaign, Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai acts.”The New York Times admitted in an early 2013 article titled, "In Thailand, Power Comes With Help From Skype," that:
For the past year and a half, by the party’s own admission, the most important political decisions in this country of 65 million people have been made from abroad, by a former prime minister who has been in self-imposed exile since 2008 to escape corruption charges.
The country’s most famous fugitive,Thaksin Shinawatra, circles the globe in his private jet, chatting with ministers over his dozen cellphones, texting over various social media platforms and reading government documents e-mailed to him from civil servants, party officials say.The NYT piece would also report:
“He’s the one who formulates the Pheu Thai policies,” said Noppadon Pattama, a senior official in Mr. Thaksin’s party who also serves as his personal lawyer. “Almost all the policies put forward during the last election came from him.”
Image: The New York Times openly admits that Thailand is currently run by unelected convicted criminal/fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra. Clearly any proxy government or elections in which it participates in are illegitimate by both Thai and international standards. Thaksin's foreign ties are what have afforded him impunity regarding an otherwise cartoonish, 3rd world dictatorship.
....
There is no question that an accused mass murderer and convicted criminal hiding abroad from a 2 year jail sentence, multiple arrest warrants, and a long list of pending court cases, is illegally running Thailand by proxy. Being unelected, Thaksin Shinawatra is by all accounts a dictator, and his "government" a regime, however cleverly they try to dress it up.
Such an arrangement would not be imaginable let alone acceptable in John Sparks' home country of England, and it most certainly is not acceptable in Thailand - hence the massive and sustained protests. It is difficult to discern whether Sparks is just ignorant of how true representative governance works, or is an insidious propagandist simply attempting to make Thailand's anti-regime protesters appear "anti-democratic" instead - on behalf of Thaksin Shinawatra's many Western lobbyists and backers.
