During his visit to the UK, Gen Prayut had talks with Speaker of the House of Lords, Lord Fowler, about promoting trading opportunities between the two countries through the “Global British” policy and the “Thailand 4.0” policy, with the Thai-UK Business Leadership Council playing a key role in the matter, NNT reported on Friday (June 22). (See story here.)
Gen Prayut also confirmed that the general election would be held in February next year and that local elections might take place three months after the general election.
The issue of Thailand returning to elections to select the nation’s leaders has played in international and local headlines for years, with many confusing reports accusing particular people of attempting to delay the return to democracy as well as a plethora of recently re-registered, and new, parties – including the age-old entrenched power brokers – already chomping at the bit to get their hands back on the levers of power.
The coup of May 2014 was staged in the name of stabilising the country from wave after wave of political – and physical – acts of retribution that most people agreed were slowly tearing the country apart.
It is now more than four years later and people are still divided as to whether the main aims of the coup have been fulfilled, and whether new objectives were now the primary goal of the current administration.
To all this, The Phuket News asks our readers the simple question, “Is Thailand ready for elections?”
Responses available in the poll are:
1) Yes, Thailand is ready and elections should be held as soon as practicably possible.
2) No, Thailand is not yet ready for elections, which should be delayed until the political climate is ready for them to be held.
3) It doesn’t matter whether Thailand holds elections or not.
Please note that due to the nature of the question, and the current state of laws in Thailand regarding defamation and the Computer Crimes Act, comments to this post have been closed.
To cast your vote, click here.
To see the results of our previous poll, which asked “Should marijuana be made legal?”, click here.