It wasn't a good week for those who claim the March 24 general election will be free and fair. The "gateway to resumption of government accountability and democracy building" seemed firmly closed.
To be fair the princess-as-prime-minister affair was an SIW -- a self-inflicted wound by a few people at the top of the Thai Raksa Chart Party. But what then followed in retribution came from the "independent" Election Commission nominated by the military regime.
The stealth passage last week of six new cyberlaws including the unimaginably intrusive cybersecurity bill came straight from the regime-appointed National Legislative Assembly. And that all followed the sudden and even more opaque decision to quit Thai Raksa Chart and politics by Gen Yosanant Raicharoen, the former deputy supreme commander after an invitation for a cup of coffee that lasted weeks.
Then came the amazing order by the regime-designated broadcast censors for Voice TV to shut down, censorship absent even a scoff-worthy explanation.
The censorship was announced by Lt Gen Perapong Manakit, PhD, whose public record and media statements make it seem like he spends a lot of his working time watching the Voldemort-friendly, Oak-owned station. Voice TV is or isn't to your taste, but it is a leader of the surviving clutch of outlets providing views of both the loyal opposition and alternative civil society and academics.
What severely troubled mainstream, foreign and pro-regime figures alike is that commissioner Lt Gen Perapong (PhD) and his fascinating National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), the regime-appointed TV censors, couldn't articulate an actual reason for censoring Voice TV other than "Thai people are so slow, Voice TV might mislead them." (Note: paraphrasing)
The Administrative Court slapped down the NBTC and kept the station on the air through the election campaign.
The short bus ride to prison by the Yellow Shirt 6 delighted or depressed most people. But our point is that the Court of Justice took 10-plus years to properly and fairly conclude the first big case of violence and intimidation after the 2006 coup to unseat Voldemort -- the 2008 seizure of Government House. One hopes justice will also visit those involved in sometimes murderous events that followed, starting with occupations of the Bangkok airports.
After that on the timeline one craves judgement of the red shirts. They blackened the nation with a despicable and violent siege of the Asean summit at Pattaya in 2009. Then came the Bangkok bus-burning and other violence that ruined Songkran about the same time. The 2010 street violence, killings and arson -- red shirts vs possibly culpable government and military -- haven't been fairly adjudicated.
So one case down, others to go chronologically, including pending Bangkok Shutdown cases, currently five years-plus in the past. But when an anti-regime political party committed a thought-crime, the Election Commission was off to Constitutional Court with an indictment in four days! And asked for judgement inside 34 days.
Without justifying or pretending accountability -- that democracy stuff -- the seven investigators, accusers and prosecutors of the EC urged the court to take away the political rights of more than 100 potential members of parliament and also strip hundreds of thousands of even more innocent citizens -- none of whom were involved in any manner in the Princess Ubolratana affair. The EC and the people that commissioners swore to serve know full well that only a tiny few core members of TRC were even aware of the plan.
Wiping out at a single stroke the Thai Raksa Chart Party, its entire slate of election candidates and the right to choose of its members and supporters is a magnitude of escalation of the moral and legal rule that the sins of the father must not be visited upon the family.
Accepting the debatable assumption that some action is vital, election laws dictate that the executives who directed the "inappropriate" plan should pay the price. If it occurred to the EC members they are responsible for voters' rights, they didn't mention it.
Next, it's in the hands of the court responsible for enforcing the regime's constitution.
