Time to lead by example

re: "'Team Thailand' to save nation" (BP, April 18, 2020)

Dear editor,

Really? The man who first made himself prime minister, after promising not to, and who then had himself made prime minister after repeatedly insisting he wanted only to retire, has now "stressed the need for unity and cooperation from all parties during the current hardships." He might consider doing what good leaders do: leading by example.

He could start by respecting justice and the rule of law: It is not too late to finally take the oath of allegiance that section 161 of the Thai constitution explicitly requires. He could start by respecting the wishes of the Thai people for fresh young people who might lead the nation forward to a better future. He could start by encouraging the Thai nation to understand Thai affairs, such as what their national leaders have done to help in the emergency, and how they conduct themselves in their daily lives. He could start by cleaning out his cabinet: Does he really need a convicted international heroin dealer? He could start to do so much to allow Thai nation to become what it could be and what the Thai people deserve it be.

As for his notion of issuing "an open letter to 20 of the country's richest billionaires to ask them to join Team Thailand," Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha might first consider how they came to be the richest before inviting their input. They might have good business sense if they are young and self made, but if they are the sort of rich people who made their billions by, for example, buying state monopolies on alcohol or mobile phones, they most likely have little of worth to offer for wealth creation. Even worse if they merely inherited billions. The prime minister would do better to ask Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Jeff Bezos: they have proved themselves in fair, open free markets, unlike the communist-like protections that made too many Thais unjustly rich at the expense of the Thai nation.

Would Thailand's richest be so patriotic as to insist on greatly increased taxes for the rich, and high death taxes? That might actually help address the social malaise that sees the greediest 1% of Thais owning an indefensibly whopping 67% of the nation's wealth.

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on April 19, 2020, under the title "Time to lead by example" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1902700/time-to-lead-by-example