A penny for your vote
As in US presidential elections, the Thai party that spends the most gets the best result. The Democrats have nearly 3 million members.
This is more than 10 times the Pheu Thai membership. Recent party contribution figures showed that Pheu Thai contributions were 10 times higher than those of the Democrats. Admittedly the Pheu Thai contributions are from certain sources.
Politics is not an issue in Thailand. There are no political agendas. Even the “populist policy” agenda was unknown before the 2000 election. It emerged to hide what really happened. The vast majority of the country is poor and in agriculture. All a party needs to do to get into power is to get their vote.
Two hundred years ago the Scottish poet Robert Pollock, wrote: “With one hand he put a penny in the urn of poverty, and with the other took a shilling out.” In Thailand, this has been brought up to date and is called populist policies.
Richard Bowler
Bangkok
