The Bangkok Bus Problem

For a number of reasons I haven’t been keeping up on Thai politics as closely as I normally do.  Mainly I’ve been travelling a lot for the past two months and that means managing with a slower and more expensive internet conneciton, so I’ve devoted less time to the news.

Yesterday at lunch, a Thai man in his mid-50’s who is a mid-level manager in a government department expressed the opinion that the current government, headed by Prime Minister Abisit, is unlikely to last more than a month.

This seemed to me to be an extraordinary statement.  Abhisit seems to be at the crest of his personal popularity, and since the red shirt demonstrations ended in mid-April things have seemed to go fairly quiet. 

There was a cabinet re-shuffle very recently, and that is often a sign of a leader who is forced to demonstrate action and leadership, and therefore can be an indication of rocky political days, but I haven’t had the impression that Abhisit was in any particular trouble.

I asked the commenter and lunch companion to tell me the basis for his prediction.  He answered that it was due to the bus scandal and it’s associated corruption.

I had seen a couple of news stories on line about some flap over city buses, but frankly I had skipped past them.  But the thought that it could lead to the downfall of the governement made it suddenly seem a more critical issue. 

I didn’t ask my lunch companion to explain the issue – I figured I could get a quicker and more coherent explanation online — but I did ask him how confident he was about his predicted change in government.

50/50 was his reply.

Oh.

Those odds are hardly worth talking about.

Still, my interest was aroused, so when I got home last night I did a little reading about the city bus issue.  Rather than recount everything to you I think it’s easiest to refer you to this Bangkok Post opinion piece that gives a fairly concise description of things, along with some understandable opinions on the matter:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/17743/a-busload-of-questions-on-rental-scheme

The relevant minister expects to discuss this matter at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, and has said that he will make a fuss if it isn’t on the agenda. There have been a flurry of articles posted on the internet about this today, giving almost hourly updates, and it has appeared to me that the minister is being outmanoevered and isolated on this issue in the press. I’m guessing — based solely on news reports I read today — that the Transportation Minister is gonna lose this fight.

As far as local politics go, it’s an interesting issue. People abroad might not find it particularly fascinating reading, but at least one of my lunchtime companions today thinks it’s possible that the future of the current government could ride on the outcome of this relatively small local issue.

Politics can be like that in any country, I think.

I’ll be interested to see the outcome of the debate, and I may need to stay a little more focused on the state of Thai politics in the near future.

The other mildly interesting political news today was that the former PAD (people’s alliance for democracy — also identified as the yellow shirts) announced it’s intent to register as a political party this week, adopting a new name, The New Politics Party, and a modified color scheme.

Here are some excerpts from an article that appeared in the Bangkok Post online todaÿ:

“Our policy is to support good, honest people with accountable track records who hate corruption,” said Somsak Kosaisuk, a PAD core leader who was chosen on Tuesday to temporarily lead the new party.

In its new incarnation, the party had also changed its signature colour scheme — worn as a sign of loyalty to His Majesty the King — to a mix of yellow and green, he said.

“Yellow stands for upholding the monarchy, while green is for clean politics,” he said.

He did not say whether the new party supported the old PAD’s controversial call for changes to the one-person-one-vote system, which had delivered victories for populist tycoon Thaksin and his allies.

In the country’s colour-coded politics, rival red-shirts mostly loyal to Thaksin forced the cancellation of a major Asian summit in Pattaya April and then rioted for two days in Bangkok.

They have announced plans fresh for demonstrations at the end of June.