Poll: The Teflon Premier
HTC has a new Android mobile phone, the Hero, with Teflon coating. Goodbye you oily fingerprints. Same goes for the Hero’s and the iPhone 3GS’ new screens. Oleophobic coatings. Fingerprint resistant. Same goes for our prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva. Kind of Teflon coated, as Reagan back then. Criticism just does not seem to stick.
No trouble seems to trouble Mr. Nice Guy. As if über-Thai, Abhisit so far manages to smilingly deny and reject and oppose and deal with a wide range of troublesome issues – without being seriously troubled. The man may not be good enough, but is still standing tall. The Asia Sentinel went so far to call it a day for the opposition with the headline “Thailand on the Mend?”
The Teflon coating doesn’t make him more transparent. On the contrary. Abhisit veers between patronizing patriotism and Oxfordian serenity. Without ever taking clear sides, he manages to steer clear of what would quickly dismember others. Clearly the opposition’s weaknesses remain his government’s main strength.
Sometimes Abhisit is alarmingly establishment. Next minute he can come across as your buddy. A political chameleon who, at least in private talk as interviewers say, is seriously interested in land reform and disgusted with the same old abuses from top down to bottom. I must admit I was more down on the poster boy at the outset of his premiership.
And you? Or just part of the grander charade.
May I suggest a further option that seems to be missing?
“Good intentions and means well, but hamstrung”
The thing about Abhisit is that he has three things going for him, all superficial, that makes palatable: His pedigree, his temperament, and no massive personal fortune to protect or enhance.
The media loves Abhisit because he is good looking, has a nice English accent and Oxford degree, doesn’t attack the media and isn’t filthy rich. Simply, he is everything Thaksin wasn’t.
In terms of political behavior, I see him no different than Thaksin; actually, in many ways, he is worse than Thaksin.
Take away all personal prejudices and just look at the record.
The very fact that he is spending a trillion and half baht on “stimulus projects” should send shivers down everybody’s spine, since most of that cash is going through the ministries that Newin controls.
The policy that he keeps harping about is his free 15 years of education plan.
It isn’t good enough just to guarantee funding without any major reforms in the education system itself. Is 15 years of horrible schooling superior to 8 years of horrible schooling?
As for other reforms, any person who has analyzed Thai politics for any amount of time can come to the conclusion that Thailand’s problems are institutional. Without any serious reform – namely overhauling the police, the military, campaign finance and bureaucracy – no amount of feel good propaganda will be able to lift the corrupt taint that infects every aspect of Thailand’s political culture.