Ruling is inconsistent Tsunami of change?

I agree with the spirit of the Constitutional Court’s verdict on the FFP’s loan saga: loans should be considered as contributions. But have the Thai Election Commission or courts previously ruled that loans are, legally speaking, contributions? The Bangkok Post’s Feb 21 editorial said: “The EC never ... informed political parties that there are regulations barring them from taking out loans. That’s because there are no such rules.” Also, if we had such specific and clear rules and laws, our EC and CC would have explicitly based their decisions on them, quoting the section — but that’s not the case.

In the same editorial, the BP also stated: “At least 32 parties, including the FFP, have sought loans to fund their activities over the past few years. Ex-EC Commissioner Somchai Srisuthyakorn said that at least four parties had taken out loans in 2013 ... poll officials had advised the EC that taking out loans was not illegal because it had been done by other parties and had been allowed to take place in the past.”

Perhaps other countries were crying foul because the FFP had violated a law which hadn’t been written or had followed a long-established practice that had been allowed in many other cases. If either reason is true, then the EC and the courts have been derelict in their duties and must be held accountable.

BURIN KANTABUTRA

It has always been known to outsiders that the unholy alliance of all the “sacred” Thai institutions will never allow democracy to flourish. Prof Thitinan has rightly put his fingers on the pulse of the Thai “Game of Thrones”. Yes, the sacred Thai establishment with its stooges in the military, police, Election Commission, National Anti-Corruption Commission, and big companies simply would not allow new ways of thinking and doing things.

These entities have a long history of aligning to established centres of power and they remain together with a strong bond of nepotism, cronyism and rampant corruption.

Prof Thitinan is correct that judicial dissolution of political parties has largely gone one way against parties that posed a perceived threat to the conservative status quo. As expected, the Future Forward Party has now been neutralised. Moving forward will require changing the engines of Thai polity. Perhaps, a

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All letter writers must provide a full name and address. All published correspondence is subject to editing at our discretion powerful tsunami that will drown the Titanic can only change the status quo. Sadly, it is not going to happen easily.

KULDEEP NAGI