PM's Office Minister Thirapat Serirangsan has failed to shore up the Surayud government's popularity in the eyes of the public.

Over the past five months Thirapat's missteps have cost the interim government dearly.

First, the former university lecturer mishandled the

MCOT issue right after the

pro-Thaksin Mingkwan Saengsuwan quit MCOT's top

job following the Sept 19, 2006 coup.

While Thirapat's intent in naming a professional media practitioner as the new MCOT chief was fine, the execution

of that policy was a disaster, resulting in an upheaval, albeit brief, at the state-owned media agency that runs a national TV network and numerous radio stations.

Second, Thirapat, as the minister in charge of the government's mass media policy, could not deliver when the Surayud administration needed a publicity offensive to counter growing criticisms.

In fact, there has been no real offensive over the past two months since the government set up its so-called media "war room" headed by the PM's Office minister.

If anything could be regarded as "offensive" on the publicity front, it was the minister's tacit support for Manager Media Group and its satellite service ASTV.

While Thirapat is understood to have been closely associated with the Manager/ASTV camp during the protracted anti-Thaksin movement, he has miscalculated the ultra-sensitive ASTV issue.

As such, it has backfired, opening the way for remnants of the Thaksin regime to strike back via the attempted launch of a new satellite TV station, called PTV or People's Television.

Once the government chose to practice favouritism, it undermined its capacity to govern under the rule of law. As such, the PTV proponents said the government would face charges of double standards in dealing with the new satellite TV channel and ASTV if the former were barred from going on-air.

Many people know that PTV is simply following the footsteps of ASTV in trying to broadcast their political, albeit divisive, agenda to woo back supporters of the Thaksin regime.

ASTV is still on air simply because a court granted it temporary protection during the Thaksin regime's final days.

The station has no broadcast licence, but circumvented the law by putting its contents - produced in Bangkok - on the Internet and relaying it via a satellite up-link in Hong Kong. This allowed people in Thailand with direct-to-home dishes to pick up its signals.

While the ASTV case is still pending in court, the government should not have sought to capitalise on the situation by ordering the Public Relations Department (PRD), which is under Thirapat's oversight, to air a controversial ASTV programme on state-owned Channel 11.

The minister appeared to defend his move by suggesting that, technically, there was nothing wrong since the PRD is legally empowered to co-broadcast the ASTV programme on Channel 11, even though the legality of ASTV itself is still unclear.

Ministerial defendants also suggested that the programme's contents were produced and

co-broadcast by Channel 11 before the contents were sent to the Internet and the satellite up-link.

Yet, such an argument did not work in Thirapat's favour since everyone knows that ASTV and its programmes come from a company of Sondhi Limtrongkul, one of the anti-Thaksin movement's key leaders.

Hence, Thirapat's critics could easily point their fingers at the minister for attempting to help legitimise what is still "illegal".

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

The Nation