The Thai Prime Minister wasn't originally elected. He assumed power after a coup some years ago before I arrived here. There were mixed opinions about this assumption of power because while Thailand is already pretty well known to be a very corrupt country the people whose leader was removed were unhappy and the people who are associated with the other party were very happy, at least at first.
In this way I feel like Thailand is a lot like my home country as far as politics are concerned. There is a "red" and a "blue" party so to speak and the country is split damn near 50/50 as far as their affiliation is concerned. The reds, or conservatives are based mostly in rural areas and as far as land mass is concerned they dominate the country. However, just like in USA the blues or progressive liberals are mostly concentrated in urban areas like Bangkok and even though they only have small pockets of support they control the population numbers a lot of the time.
The Prime Minister known as Prayut has become increasingly unpopular because of his handling of Covid and there were a ton of protests against him because of this. These protests were even starting to involve a lot of younger voters in urban areas so this didn't look good for the party that he presumed the head of. They, much like the Democrats in USA, depend on replenishing their numbers with younger voters, so when the students started to protest against him en masse, it didn't bode well for the party.
I don't really get involved in the politics of this country outside of wondering which one of the parties is going to be more "cool" as far as visas are concerned. The rest of what they do doesn't affect me a great deal and very few people here are actually going to care what a foreigner thinks of their elected leaders anyway, so mostly I don't bother talking about it or even staying up to dat with it.
It still was a surprise that Prayut decided to leave office rather than be sacked or voted out though.
src
Before assuming office Prayut was a General in the Thai military and was one of the leaders who overthrew the elected government years ago. He was only supposed to be an "interim Prime Minister" but that ended up lasting a lot longer than people expected. Coups are like a national sport here, so having someone with ties to the military kind of kept that at bay for a while longer. Seriously, there are coups here like every 10 years or so. It's strange to me that the country is able to keep running with this happening so frequently.
The announcement was made on the 11th of July, 2023 that he is departing from his office, his party, and from politics altogether.
Unbeknown to me was the fact that there was an election where someone from another party got more votes than him but I don't really understand how the elections work here as this new person, Pita Limjaroenrat, has not yet been confirmed by the Parliament.
src
I don't know a great deal about Pita, but he is not affiliated with the military, is obviously a lot younger than we would normally expect from a national leader and apparently he has an elite education including having graduated from Harvard AND M.I.T. Wow! I think it is great that someone who is actually really intelligent will be a world leader. I have not heard him speak but apparently he is really good at that as well and while I don't like to get involved in USA politics very much we all kind of have to admit that it has been a while since we had a leader that nails the whole public speaking thing.
So I think this will be a good thing for Thailand to step away from a Prime Minister that was appointed rather than elected and hopefully the Thai people feel the same way. I'm hopeful that Pita's experience having lived abroad will give him a more enlightened view on visa policy so that this part of expats' lives can be a lot easier than it is now.
There are lots of politics are resigning specially of the situations is getting bad. Why they did do this kind of act? In my own opinion, It is because they don't want to involve in any problem in the society or in the country they serve.
Or they could be running away from a system that they helped to break and want to avoid being blamed for it. Who knows. I just have heard from many people that they are happy to see this guy go.
That is also a good point. For not blaming them, better to resign. 🤣
😄 I hope!
I also don't know much about politics in Thailand but I feel that Thailand is ruled by dinosaurs. I hope that the winning party will be able to sweep the military out of power and modernize the country - the Thais deserve it.
agreed. Whatever they have been doing clearly doesn't work and if the military is just going to swoop in any time that something goes slightly wrong with the government, that isn't really a democracy now is it?
Having a leader from non military would most likely be more favorable as they tend to be more progressive than an inward thinking general. The age difference is definitely going to bring about change and possibly the visa issue will be resolved which is good news for the country and not just expats.
well as it turns out the new guy's appointment was blocked by Parliament even though he won the general election. I didn't know that was even possible.
⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ ᴀsɪᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ
⋆ sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ
⋆ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ᴠᴏᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ
⋆ ᴅᴇʟᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʟɪɴᴋs 25 ʜᴘ⇾50 ʜᴘ⇾100 ʜᴘ⇾500 ʜᴘ⇾1,000 ʜᴘ