BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who served almost nine years in office after seizing power in a 2014 military coup, said Tuesday that he is leaving politics.
Anyone familiar with Thailand politics who can say how he’s been as a prime minister?
I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with Thai politics. I’ve tried to understand but it’s just so… foreign.
Coming from a western democracy, I think some of the happenings while he was PM are quite progressive, but were quite unpopular with the Thai people.
For example, Tourism is a huge deal in Thailand.
In the first several years he changed the direction of the Thai tourism engine to try to attract Chinese tourists rather than western tourists. IMO not a terrible idea. You already have western tourists, so attracting Chinese tourists and investment as well can’t hurt. Anecdotally this was unpopular because Thai’s… and I’m struggling to phrase this delicately… tend to dislike Asians of other ethnicities, particularly Chinese.
Recently they legalised weed, which spawned a booming industry and will inevitably drive tourism to new heights previously never dreamed of. Again anecdotally, this is pretty unpopular with Thais because while they like tourists generally they do not want to be perceived as a “drug country”.
Finally, the manner in which he rose to power left a stink on him that he couldn’t rid himself of.
Again, I don’t have a good understanding of all of this and I’m sure a Thai person would see the situation quite differently to myself. Hopefully someone better informed will be along shortly.
Edit to add… here’s a bonus video of Prayuth disinfecting journalists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCYx-v96j4Q
Thanks for sharing what you know!
From what I’ve seen, there seems to be several waves of the people electing a popular prime minister, then the elites of the country overthrowing that prime minister and declaring an “emergency” for a while to put a government more friendly to elites in power until there is pressure for new elections. Then, the cycle continues.
It is a continuation of the Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt fighting.
I am more surprised that he is stepping down and leaving rather than trying to fight and stay in power.
Here’s an NPR article I found on one of the major opposition parties that is succeeding this year.
… ‘its charismatic, Harvard University-educated candidate for prime minister told NPR: “Demilitarize, demonopolize and decentralize — that’s how you democratize Thailand. That’s the endgame,”’ … … In the past two decades, [the establishment] has staged two coups while Thailand’s courts have brought down three opposition prime ministers and dissolved several opposition parties. … “You have to imagine a lot of Thais, powerful Thais, elites, they have a lot of stakes in the system that were set up over the last seven decades … they bought into the system. And Move Forward is a direct challenge.”
