Wednesday, May 30, 2007
No Dissolution of the Democrats!
The democrats were just acquitted of all charges, including
1) Influencing voter turnout by labelling the Thaksin-regime... erm.. the Thaksin-regime. They found that academics had invented the term, not the Democrats
2) Trying to frame TRT of bankrolling smaller parties
3) Trying to prevent smaller parties from competing in the elections
It took almost 5 hours for the whole verdict to be read. If I were one of the judges, I would have delivered the verdict and posted the justifications up on-line.
The interesting part is going to be what the judges decide about TRT... If they decide to dissolve the party, it will look very biased indeed. If they leave the party undissolved... well, I suppose it's taking a step towards trusting citizens in making their own choice with the vote that they have. That's if Thailand is ready for a deliberative form of democracy. TRT's prior election success is due to pure populist voting.
Corrupt governments are not a uniquely Thai thing. Democracy breeds corruption in many places. Thus, punishing parties in a democratic system for acting the way that the system want them to act is certainly no solution. I'm not in a hurry to see the TRT back in power, but I also don't think going about letting the elite of Thailand dissolve parties is a solution, either.
fon @ 5:49 PM link to post * *