Premier should get rid of Noppadon for a start

Prime Minister Samak seems to like the eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth mentality.

Can he get past this? Challenging the press that he won't change the Cabinet line-up just to get revenge on whatever the newspaper reported, is completely immature. It even further convinces us Samak's goal as prime minister is to just win over the press.

At least one Puea Pandin MP was brave enough to abstain from voting for Foreign Minister Noppadon in the open vote in the censure debate. Samak needs to act as a prime minister following the debate - clearly, Noppadon must go. As Noppadon could not respond to the questions asked of him, the situation reeks of a conflict of interest. The fact that he was Thaksin's spokesman and lawyer one day, and the foreign minister the next, already harbours suspicions of hidden agendas.

So, Samak, you better make it clear: please put your battle with the press aside and take proper action for the country.

Carolyn

Bangkok

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Judicial process a success in lawyer convictions

I am jubilant that the three lawyers for Thaksin have been sentenced to six months in prison for attempted bribery. It is nice to see the good guys win once in a while. My faith and hope for a better future for Thailand has been somewhat restored.

Outraged Taxpayer

Bangkok

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Democracy is not just about elections and votes

Thailand's fledgling democracy is, and has been overwhelmed over the years by a lack of informed, sophisticated participation. By far the greatest majority of people who vote have never read or understood the most recent constitutions (1997, 2007) nor do a great many people even at the highest levels in Bangkok understand the democratic process. This is not an unusual situation in an emerging democratic system.

When the financial crisis occurred in the late 1990s few, except businesspeople, office workers and civil servants in Bangkok really understood why the country had been bankrupted. Only a few people who were directly affected at the time understood that the country had been looted by rampant government corruption.

When that government, which included Thaksin, was thrown out ten years ago, the Democrat Party in opposition was asked to form a government and immediately set about addressing the stringent terms that the IMF had imposed to bail out the country's economy. The problems with international finances, balances of payments and currency manipulation were extremely complex and difficult to resolve and few, if any of the people in the countryside, understood either the causes of the disaster nor the complexity of the remedy. All they saw was a recession and hard times. So of course they blamed the Democrats who were working hard to clean up the mess, and voted them out of office at the next general election in favour of Thaksin. Thaksin was able to reap the rewards for all the hard work done by the previous administration and take the credit for having saved the country.

This credit, combined with a clever distribution of his personal funds ensured that he could effectively buy votes at the grassroots level and rely on the patronage that the new, mega rich hi-so superstars of the Thai economy inevitably command among Thailand's poorest and most vulnerable.

Democracy is, in the end, not simply about elections and electoral majorities. Elections can be used as a tool by dictators to whitewash the international view of a nation state's political health. Democracy is based on informed public participation in the political system. There are checks and balances, including a healthy justice system which is free from political interference. This is what has been at stake during Thailand's political instability in the past three years.

International reporters promulgate a simplified view of the situation in Thailand, which is based on Western history and cultural platitudes about republicanism and freedom from class restrictions. This is very different from the historical context in Thailand and to presume to judge the situation within a Western historical context is a grave mistake.

J Peter

Bangkok