Intimidation and censors

Intimidation and censors

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha waves while on a brisk walk outside Government House. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha waves while on a brisk walk outside Government House. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)

The general prime minister revealed a huge tell about what to expect if you have the good sense to vote the right way and approve of leaving him right where he is at Government House. He will act just like Voldemort and Abhisit and the rest of those (pa-tooey!) professional politicians that put us in this horrible position.

The tell was a threat to sue the irritating (he says) Democrat ex-MP Watchara Phetthong. You see, the author and active political gadfly had the gall to suggest pro-Prayut people were organising a major, expensive (40 billion baht) effort to remake the general prime minister into a prime minister for life.

Lawsuits are the lazy man's way out. Suggest to a powerful politician that he explain his side to the people and, "Nah." The unique Thai Criminal Law book, used just right, can either shut up an inconvenient critic by putting the fear of court into him, or put him in prison for a couple of years for using the free speech promised in the constitution. Or both.

Gen (Ret) Prayut explained he was using the threat of criminal defamation against Mr Watchara "in self-defence". Because, Gen (Ret) Prayut is a victim here. People are saying mean things about him, thus putting national security under threat.

Sounding like some of the cheapest, allodoxaphobic politicians of the recent past and the most abusive military dictators of the past is a hint of what to expect after elections.

What is less revealed is what the general prime minister might do without his most precious power of all. He used Section 44 two more times last week and by a huge, unexpected shock coincidence, both uses favoured him and the completely mythical military-backed movement to keep him in power, not that such a movement exists.

Section 44 now has been used more than 200 times. It still lives because of sneaky Section 265 of the actual, 2016, constitution. It says, "the Head of the National Council for Peace and Order shall continue to have the duties and powers" of the old constitution until there's a new government, next year. Or so.

Last week, Gen (Ret) Prayut put his stamp of approval on yet another two Section 44 diktats which had special consequences. The double deal (no pun intended) awarded billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies to digital TV operators, and it also left in office indefinitely the broadcast regulators who by law should have been replaced many months ago.

Now engaged in a US-length election campaign, the general prime minister with two strokes of the pen has sealed friendship pacts with a hugely influential media group, and with the seven men in charge of censoring all TV and radio broadcasts.

He handed "financial aid" to TV operators. But it was equally good news when he turned all members of the always interesting National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) from lame ducks into preening lions of the airwaves. Those men (only) will continue to earn … (ahem).

A salary of 269,000 baht, an entertainment allowance of 200,000 baht and virtually unlimited foreign travel sitting in the front seats. Per month. Plus 10,000 baht per meeting plus ability hire "advisers as needed" for 120,000 baht each. That's the minimum pay, more than Gen (Ret) Prayut makes with his two salaries (as PM and head of the junta). The secretary-general and the chairman get more.

Surely no one would credit mean-spirited, anti-Thai, possibly non-Thai critics who claim Gen (Ret) Prayut is assuring loyalty via pursestrings. Perish that thought. Go wash your hands, and also your eyes for even reading such a thing. There is no way the NBTC would favour the regime simply because of such a tawdry item as very high pay for a lot longer than they are legally entitled.

Mr Watchara, no shrinking violet in the field of defamation, by the way -- ask Lord Voldemort about it -- thinks there's dirty politics afoot. He should know.

His Democrat Party doesn't own the tactic of offering benefits to political parties and to powerful politicians in order to secure their loyalty (English translation: election canvassing experience and votes in the Lower House).

Gen (Ret) Prayut says, however, that Mr Watchara doesn't know. And he is wrong. There's no military backed campaign to make him prime minister for life after elections.

Of course the general prime minister would say that if it were true, and he would say that if it were equinely excrementitious, just like any politician. Just as he swore that there would never be a coup while he was army commander.

Alan Dawson

Online Reporter / Sub-Editor

A Canadian by birth. Former Saigon's UPI bureau chief. Drafted into the American Armed Forces. He has survived eleven wars and innumerable coups. A walking encyclopedia of knowledge.

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