PM pens new song urging Thais to join hands
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PRIME Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday released the lyrics to a new patriotic ballad, the second song he has written since seizing power in 2014, as his New Year gift to the Thai people.
“Because You Are Thailand”, includes lyrics like “If we join hands ... the day we hope for is not far away” and “Because you are Thailand, you will not let anyone destroy you.”
Speaking in his weekly press conference at Government House, he said: “The ‘I’ in the song means ‘we’ because we are ‘one’. We need to devote our hands, hearts, breath, and lives to help move the country forward. This is my intention. [With] only my [hands and breath] the dream won’t come true.”
“Thai society is now extremely polarised [in politics], [people are] either right or left and it’s not good. So I try to figure out how we can join forces to solve the problem. That’s why I wrote this song,” he said.
The song was released one day prior to [today’s] government’s one-year performance presentation at Government House in order to make people have more understanding of what his government had done, he said.
Prayut, who as Army chief led the May 2014 coup, first wrote the song “Return Happiness to Thailand”, which is played constantly on television and radio stations as part of a public relations campaign by the junta to win over Thais.
The tune has racked up more than one million views on YouTube but has been mocked by critics of the junta.
Government spokesman Maj General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said the premier wanted to convey a message of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) which is easy to understand - that the NCPO wants all Thais to join hands to help develop the country.
“It can be unreachable sometimes to always communicate with people in a formal way,” Sansern said. “That’s why the premier wrote the lyrics – to convey that people of all sides need to work together, by our two hands, for our own country.”
Meanwhile, the premier rejected a proposal of a national unity government with Prayut as PM, which was proposed by Preecha Rengsomboonsuk, a leading Pheu Thai member.
The coup leader said he did not want to be head of a unity government because he expected that no one would obey him.
“Never! I won’t be the prime minister for any politician. I hereby affirm that I won’t,” Prayut said.
