Family Fortunes

Following the ousting of Samak over his TV cookery, parliament today chose a new Prime Minister. Now given that the main gripe of the PAD protestors (still occupying Government House) is that the government was a puppet for Thaksin (currently hiding out in the UK to evade his corruption trial), you'd have thought they might take this opportunity to distance themselves from such allegations. So who have they chosen as PM? None other than Thaksin's brother-in-law. That'll certainly help to bring peace and reconcilliation to the country, eh?

Too Many Cooks...

Thai politics trawls even deeper levels of inanity as the Constitutional Court sacks the Prime Minister - for the apparently unconstitutional act of appearing on a TV cookery show. Given the guy has a track record for Tiananmen Square-style massacres of his own people (see 6 Oct 1976), it seems somewhat ironic to be impeached for such a trivial offence. Still, it got cheers from the crowds who've been occupying his offices for the last few weeks. And what exactly are they doing there? The more you hear their demands, the more you wonder. They style themselves the 'People's Alliance for Democracy', but their manifesto is decidedly undemocratic: 'Western democracy can't work in Thailand, as voters can be bought - the only way is for us to decide on the people's behalf.'

Here We Go Again...

Looks like things are going downhill again on the political front, although nobody here is particularly surprised. Once again, the army is moving on to the streets, but in an interesting twist, this time it's at the request of Samak, whose puppetmaster is the very guy the military coup deposed last time. Needless to say, with a State of Emergency having been declared, media restrictions have been imposed, and I don't have direct access to my blog. Thanks again to Brian for providing the censorship workaround.