FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Will elected politicians stick to the ‘25 watches’ corruption standard? 

Will elected politicians stick to the ‘25 watches’ corruption standard? 

Politicians and political parties are citing Deputy PM Prawit’s wristwatch collection in claiming that his boss Prayut is unable to solve Thailand’s corruption problems.

Yet if a few expensive watches are the new standard of intolerable corruption, Thailand has indeed moved forward. The question is, will the politicians and parties now heavily criticising Prayut stick to the 25-watches limit when in power. I am sceptical, especially of the new party that wants to move “Forward” by moving backwards to the old democracy – which was after all a democracy in name only. 
The “crime” of owning 25 expensive watches seems to be on the same level as stealing a loaf of bread if we consider that others get away with millions and even billions through corrupt schemes and policies. But politics now is all about digging up dirt on your opponents. The watch story caught the public imagination but ended up with just 25 watches after weeks of heavy media coverage. Is this all that the parties (most recently the Democrats) are able to come up with? Of course Prayut should be criticised for not practising the principles he voices, but there is also the need to keep a sense of proportions, like 25 wristwatches against the billions lost in corruption in a fake state-to-state rice deal. A sober debate must keep proportions and reality in the equation, not only principles, which can be too easily exploited to fit your biased point of view.
The 25 watches may now serve as a standard of corruption to be referred to in graft cases after Thailand returns to the old “democracy” or achieves a new version. We all hope that democracy and its critical politicians will do better than Prayut.
A Johnsen

nationthailand