PostBag
I'm getting fed up with seeing letters in Postbag stating that the present government was elected democratically. Everyone here in Thailand knows the elections were bought. The vast majority of Thais are poor people and their vote was bought for a few hundred baht. Many of the PPP politicians have been yellow- or red-carded for vote buying since the election, some as recently as last week. This is fact.
So how can people such as Robby in Dubai say they are well acquainted with Thailand and yet state that the last elections were democratic? Do they not know about the vote buying, or do they think buying elections is democracy?
Had these events taken place in a long-established democracy anywhere in the world, the police would by now have arrested the carded politicians and put them in prison.
So I say to Robby that his 40 years in Germany and his German citizenship haven't really taught him what a fair and democratic election is.
MR MILDEW
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Where is it?
Re: "Keeping the spirit alive" (Bangkok Post, June 29). Once again you write an interesting article, this time about Wat Chansen, without giving a clue as to where it actually is.
I googled Wat Chansen and discovered that it is in Nakhon Sawan.
You do this all the time! Is that the aim of the stories in the Bangkok Post? To immediately send people to other sites via google or some other search engine because you have neglected to mention the most basic information in the very first sentence of your article? What are you thinking?
JOHN FRANCIS LEE
Editor's reply: The article's dateline states: Nakhon Sawan.
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PAD fooling the people
I cannot believe the lunatics at the PAD have actually got the Thai people and the Puea Pandin party fooled over the Preah Vihear temple.
The line was drawn by the French in 1904, the International Court of Justice ruled on it in 1962, and the new line agreed by the Thai and Cambodian government actually brings more land into Thailand than the old map. If the Cambodian government is happy to concede some land to the Thais while retaining the temple that is, and has always been, on Cambodian soil, then it is a win for the Thai government.
This is just another example of the PAD stirring up issues trying to validate its existence. The fact that Puea Pandin party has weighed into it is disappointing; you would expect them to know better.
As for the Democrats, I hope they find the same demise the Australian Democrats recently have. Throwing stones at the government is good fun, but if you are never going to get a chance to run the country then it's a choice you can make without fear of having to prove you can do a better job.
The last Australian Democrats were voted out in November from the Senate and, as of July 1, the Democrats will be dead in Australia. Hopefully, the Thai Democrats will become history in the near future.
SHANNON CRANE
Gold Coast, Australia
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Nationalist bombast a little too late
I don't know what possesses the Thais lately who have started reclaiming the Cambodian Preah Vihear temple, 46 years after an international tribunal awarded it to Cambodia.
Anyone with more than a bird's brain will surely understand that this temple is clearly Cambodian (ever visited the site and compared it to Angkor?) and realise it is rather late to fire up their nationalistic bombast in order to get back the temple, as a spoilt brat would do.
By the way, the disputed 4.6 square kilometres around the site represents less then 0.01% of Thailand's territory.
As if common sense weren't enough to let the issue drop, just imagine the damage this whole issue could do to the relationship with Cambodia and the backlash from the international community, where Thailand already commands very little respect.
Wake up and don't politicise the issue to topple the government. The current administration hasn't done a lot lately, but their handling of the temple issue should probably be the least of the Thai people's worries.
JAMES GREEN
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Snacking in court
One thing I haven't heard mentioned in this attempted bribery of the Supreme Court is why court officials were accepting a pastry box from an interested party in a case. It seems to me that no court officials anywhere should be accepting snacks or anything else from interested parties, other than papers having to do with a case.
In my opinion, if court officials need snacks they should be paid for by people working in the court, not by any outsiders involved in a case.
THE JUDGE
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