Tamara Loos

In early September, Bangkok witnessed an odiferous spectacle. Kneeling on a white mat and dressed in a full hazmat suit and gas mask, Duangrit Bunnag, a prominent Thai architect and public commentator, invited onlookers to pelt him with cow dung. Many of them obliged, allowing Duangrit to fulfill a promise that he had not expected to have to keep. Earlier this year, he had pledged to his followers on social media that if his preferred political party, Pheu Thai, forged an alliance with one of Thailand’s military-backed parties, he would subject himself to this scatological ordeal. Much to his surprise (and likely horror), Pheu Thai did just that over the summer, reneging on commitments the party had made ahead of elections in the spring.…  Seguir leyendo »

Thailand’s parliamentary elections in May were expected to offer a rebuke to the ruling government, but instead they delivered an outright repudiation. Over 70 parties competed in this historic election in which over 75 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. They expressed their exasperation with the current government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, whose party obtained a meager seven percent of votes cast. By contrast, well over half the votes in this country of 71 million people went to two opposition parties: Move Forward, the new incarnation of the Future Forward party helmed by the young leader Pita Limjaroenrat, and Pheu Thai, the populist party associated with former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.…  Seguir leyendo »