Matter of decency

e: "PM term limit proposal blasted" (BP, January 14, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Senator Seree Suwanpanont, one of those 250 senators appointed at his behest to help Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha impose his sincerely believed in road map on the Thai people's nation, demonstrates a dubious understanding of the issues involved in the senate committee's proposal to swiftly amend section 158 of the current latest permanent constitution foist on the Thai people by those professing themselves to be "good" (= "decent"?) people with the most virtuous of intentions.

Perhaps the sole actual improvement written into the 2017 one still in force over previously trashed Thai constitutions is that it does impose a two-term limit on serving as prime minister. This is a very good thing.

One supporting reason proffered by Senator Kittisak Rattanawaraha is consistent with that of his esteemed colleague. The claim that "if we get a bad prime minister, the people will decide what action should be taken," rings hollow. Just because Thaksin Shinawatra was, and remains, the most popular prime minister that Thailand has ever had is not in fact a compelling argument for someone much like him to remain at the head of the government indefinitely so that he can entrench his power and sincerely believed in road map.  

Senator Kittisak's other argument, that "a decent person should be allowed to serve as prime minister for more than eight years," is more seriously misguided. The obvious obstacle is that what counts as "decent" is open to irreconcilable debate. There are even those being so radical as to argue that committing a coup that overthrows the Thai people's popular form of democratic government might be the act of a "decent" person, while others think that "decent" people might accept the use of undemocratic law to suppress peaceful free speech merely because it offends some allegedly popular narrative about the Thai people. Could actually decent people really do such things? 

Setting aside that problem of vagueness unto murky opacity, even if someone were agreed by all to be the epitome of decent, being as benevolent and righteous as could possibly be imagined, they should still not serve as prime minister for more than two terms. It is not necessary to go to the ancient Athenian practice of annual ostracism with ten years exile to protect their democracy from the high and mighty, and their loyal fans, from blinding hubris, but a two term limit does protect both themselves and politics from the errors and entrenched mindset of even the most genuinely best-intentioned of "decent" or "good" women and men. 

 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 January 16, 2023, under the title "Matter of decency" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2483400/matter-of-decency