197

Thailand's prime minister, who seized power in a 2014 coup, quits politics after losing election (apnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by HowRu68@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who served almost nine years in office after seizing power in a 2014 military coup, said Tuesday that he is leaving politics.

top 6 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] thisnoworkie@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

I am more surprised that he is stepping down and leaving rather than trying to fight and stay in power.

[-] Lumun@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 year ago

Here's an NPR article I found on one of the major opposition parties that is succeeding this year.

... 'its charismatic, Harvard University-educated candidate for prime minister told NPR: "Demilitarize, demonopolize and decentralize — that's how you democratize Thailand. That's the endgame,"' ... ... In the past two decades, [the establishment] has staged two coups while Thailand's courts have brought down three opposition prime ministers and dissolved several opposition parties. ... "You have to imagine a lot of Thais, powerful Thais, elites, they have a lot of stakes in the system that were set up over the last seven decades ... they bought into the system. And Move Forward is a direct challenge."

[+] NotAPenguin@kbin.social -6 points 1 year ago

Anyone familiar with Thailand politics who can say how he's been as a prime minister?

[-] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wouldn't say I'm familiar with Thai politics. I've tried to understand but it's just so... foreign.

Coming from a western democracy, I think some of the happenings while he was PM are quite progressive, but were quite unpopular with the Thai people.

For example, Tourism is a huge deal in Thailand.

In the first several years he changed the direction of the Thai tourism engine to try to attract Chinese tourists rather than western tourists. IMO not a terrible idea. You already have western tourists, so attracting Chinese tourists and investment as well can't hurt. Anecdotally this was unpopular because Thai's... and I'm struggling to phrase this delicately... tend to dislike Asians of other ethnicities, particularly Chinese.

Recently they legalised weed, which spawned a booming industry and will inevitably drive tourism to new heights previously never dreamed of. Again anecdotally, this is pretty unpopular with Thais because while they like tourists generally they do not want to be perceived as a "drug country".

Finally, the manner in which he rose to power left a stink on him that he couldn't rid himself of.

Again, I don't have a good understanding of all of this and I'm sure a Thai person would see the situation quite differently to myself. Hopefully someone better informed will be along shortly.

Edit to add... here's a bonus video of Prayuth disinfecting journalists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCYx-v96j4Q

[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

From what I've seen, there seems to be several waves of the people electing a popular prime minister, then the elites of the country overthrowing that prime minister and declaring an "emergency" for a while to put a government more friendly to elites in power until there is pressure for new elections. Then, the cycle continues.

It is a continuation of the Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt fighting.

load more comments

this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023

197 points (99.0% liked)

World News

38632 readers

3571 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.