The Nation, som knappast brukar anklagas för att tillhöra "den röda pressen" (den del av pressen som enligt vissa MPR debattörer sprider desinformation som t.o.m är mindre trovärdig än konspirationsteoretiska sajter) har idag en skarp ledare avseende de senaste dagarnas debatt om juntans nepotism. Kontentan: juntan har vissa sitt rätta ansikte. Det man är ute efter är att bibehålla den feodala strukturen, och elitens makt över den thailändska befolkningen. Allt annat är hyckleri, enligt The Nation.
"Those Thais who still believe in the junta’s pledge of national reform obviously haven’t been heeding the words of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, his brother Preecha or the draft charter.
Prayut, his clan and his crew have embarked on a mission to re-establish a traditional bureaucratic polity of patron-client bonds and nepotism.
The roots of that system reach back far beyond the establishment of our modern state. The 1932 revolution simply changed the system of governance from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy while leaving the deeper structures of culture and society unchanged.
It is important to note here that current chief charter drafter Meechai Ruchupan has been an architect for more than one military regime. Then and now, he wrote constitutions that empowered the military and bureaucratic elite to overrule elected administrations.
Nepotism is tolerated in the military in similar fashion. The public cried foul last week over news that Defence Ministry Permanent Secretary General Preecha Chan-o-cha had appointed his son as an officer. When challenged, Preecha, Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and a ministry spokesman chorused that there was nothing in ministry regulations to say the action was wrong.
Preecha even added that such nepotistic was commonplace.
"My son has graduated and he has to work. We have a position available, so he can fill in. What's wrong? Everybody does it," he said.
Perhaps the appointment does indeed fulfil ministry and military regulations. It also fulfils the dictionary definition of nepotism as "the action of someone who has power using their authority to get jobs for members of their family".
If it has been decided that nepotism and the patron-client system are okay, why maintain the attitude that Thailand needs reform?"