Show us long-term vision, dear leader

Regarding the floods, for example, she says that when she took office, all the dams were already full. Fair enough; but why didn’t she take the Democrats to task while on the campaign trail, pointing out the dangers of having full dams with the monsoons on the way? 

     Why didn’t she warn voters while campaigning that Ayutthaya and Nakhon Sawan were lowlands, that the Irrigation Department had strenuously warned that heavy industry should not be situated there, and that if elected, show how she would protect the industrial estates or move them? She had two months after taking office to lower the dammed dam levels; why didn’t she? When the water began overflowing their banks, where was her vision? She says that a government has to have a master plan to manage the water in all of our dams, and I agree. If the Democrats didn’t have one, why didn’t she take Thaksin’s plan – if he had one – and go with it or modify it, during her two months in office before the deluge started? What do you call a leader who lets vital decisions on whether to open Klong Sam Wa gate or not be decisively swayed by 500 angry residents? In this, is she any more decisive or stronger than ex-PM Abhisit?

When she made her policy statement to Parliament when taking office, critics said that her policies were all short-term; she did not show where she proposed to take us, let alone how we’d get there. Theodore Hesburgh said, “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”  A leader is often weak or indecisive because she does not know where she is going. Does PM Yingluck know where she’s trying to lead us? What’s her long term vision? When she blows her trumpet, what comes out – if anything?

Best,

Burin Kantabutra