Findings show PM doing better than many claim

The fact I haven’t seen Thailand’s scores published in the English language press in Thailand may be because it doesn’t fit the repeated talk about the threatened Thai economy from Prayut’s opponents, opponents you surely also find among editors and journalists and, perhaps even, cartoonists.
Thailand is prosperous and under military rule, with Prayut an honest and not self-serving leader. The Prosperity Index confirms that Thailand ranks 48th globally in the 2015 general/overall Prosperity Index, having risen by three places since last year, and there are 142 countries on the list. That’s not bad for a military-ruled country preparing for a true democracy.
And opposite to what many newspaper writers claimed in their campaigns against Prayut, Thailand is doing well economically too and the future looks bright. Thailand is in the green zone together with 29 other countries when it comes to prosperity in the economy, and is ranked as high as 15th on the economy sub-index in 2015. It is No 15 when it comes to social capital. Who would believe that after all the complaining and grumbling in recent months?
Thailand’s economy prosperities are in line with the countries on the top of the list – Singapore, China, Switzerland, Scandinavian countries and some of the other northern European countries. Thailand is even more prosperous than its Asian neighbours, who also are in the green zone, like South Korea (17), Taiwan (20), Hong Kong (24), Japan (25) and Malaysia (28).
And Thailand is rated as having a more prosperous economy than the UK, France and Saudi Arabia. So where do the doomsday people get their figures from – just taken from the air? – to hit Prayut, who has made Thailand prosperous both economically and in preparing for democracy under very difficult circumstances and in a very hostile environment with self-serving politicians and others doing all they can to sabotage and bring down the ongoing attempt to bring about democracy.
A Johnsen