Resist govt pressure, southern Democrats told

“We have seen the government’s attempts to use power and money to suppress the thinking of the southern people all along – from the Thaksin Shinawatra government, when he said he would develop only the areas that voted for Thai Rak Thai, to this government, whose Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi said the government would not build the convention centre for Phuket as it did not want to,” Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said.

 

“But our brothers and sisters here did not bow to the unrighteous. This is important as you don’t yield to the government because that’s what it wants,” he said during the party’s seminar at a hotel in Songkhla. 

 

Chief party adviser Chuan Leekpai pointed out that the problem of violence in the South stemmed from errant policies during the Thaksin government. 

 

The current government is going in the wrong direction in solving the problem of low rubber prices as it used incomplete information and the situation of farmers in the North and Northeast to address the crisis in the South, he said.

 

Abhisit asked party supporters in the South to be strong and help his party fight against “unrighteousness”. The seminar was aimed at developing the potential of administrators of the party’s branches in the South. 

 

“Businessmen criticising [the government] must face the Revenue Department [tax audits], local administrators speak out and they face government officials from the Interior Ministry. Even the donors to flood victim relief [via the Democrats] faced probes. We all face intimidation, then we talked and agreed we need to restructure,” he said.