Updated: Democrat Party sinks to new low

How low can you go? How debased can a “political party” get? How ludicrous can Thailand’s (anti) Democrat Party become?

A report at the Bangkok Post suggests that the (anti) Democrat Party has sunk so low that it is now subterranean. For a party forever defined by its electoral defeats, hopeless leadership and other lows, its recent behavior is, quite simply, despicable.

Virat Kullayasiri of the party’s “legal team” has requested, indeed pleaded, for the military dictatorship “to file lese majeste charge against a red-shirt activist for wearing black in the ‘auspicious month’ of December.”

Normal people in most of the world will need a “translation” of this nonsense. December is the birth month of Thailand’s ailing and aged monarch and the country’s military dictator declared that everyone in the country should wear the king’s birth color – yellow – this month to “celebrate” the dying king. As would be expected of a royalist dictator, this was also a political statement.

Why a political party with a the word “democrat” in its name should take up a dictator’s call says much about the debasement of the failed royalist party.

This despicable lot claim that when “Suda Rangkupan posted with photos on her Facebook she was dressing black this month ‘in memory of the FRA case’ even though December is the auspicious month when Thais wear yellow to extend best wishes to … the King…”.

Suda is a former Chulalongkorn University lecturer and leader of the Declaration of Justice group that seeks the release of political prisoners, including some held on lese majeste convictions.

The loathsome Virat said her choice of clothing was a “in breach of Section 112 of the criminal code…”.

Khaosod reports that “Suda was referring to the case involving the Financial Sector Restructuring Authority, set up to clean up bad debts after years of reckless lending that culminated in the flotation of the baht and, subsequently, the 1997 financial crisis.”

The FRA was set up just before the Democrat Party was able to gain government (as usual, without an election) and sold “bad debts” for less than a third of their value [downloads a PDF], mostly to foreign financial firms, some of which had local branches controlled by Democrat Party members.

A case based on the FRA “was submitted to the National Anti-Corruption Commission and its statute of limitations ended on Nov 30, 2014 without action from the NACC.”

As readers will know, the NACC is a hopelessly politicized agency that spends most of its time trying to bring down parties and people it considers opposed to the current social, political and economic order.

The (anti) Democrat Party considers Suda’s actions an attack accused of its role since it led a government which auctioned off the bad assets. It is reported that the “party … would [also] press libel charges against Ms Suda for accusing it of ‘selling the nation’ for its role involving the FRA.”

Just to add to its lese majeste spite, the (anti) Democrat Party demanded that the Defense Ministry “take action against Weerawat Valaisathien, a son of former commerce minister Suwan. Mr Weerawat was charged with lese majeste by his estranged ex-wife but police dropped the case for lack of enough evidence.”

The (anti) Democrat Party is aware that it has no political future except by making itself hyper-royalist and a by trying to have the military support it (again).

Update: More on the disgraced Democrat Party at Prachatai.