“This conflict has been going on for five years and many people have suffered mentally and physically,” Mr. Thaksin told The Wall Street Journal in an interview in a villa in Dubai. “We should start all over again to help the country prosper.”
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“Thailand’s democracy is at a crossroads,” he said. “What’s happening in the Middle East and North Africa tells you that the whole world, the majority of people, are changing because of the influence of what they see outside of their own country and the impact of the Internet and social networks.”
Among the measures he has in mind if his supporters win is cutting the country’s corporate tax, which, at 30%, is higher than rates in neighbors such as Malaysia, where companies are taxed 25% of their profits, and Singapore, where the rate is capped at 17%.
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Mr. Thaksin also said he is keen to bolster the country’s domestic economy to stimulate more imports. That, he said, would be a good way of curbing the steady rise of the country’s baht currency against the dollar—a trend that threatens the competitiveness of some export-driven industries in Thailand.
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New elections might not be enough to resolve Thailand’s political divides, Mr. Thaksin warned, and he also voiced his concern that polls might not go ahead. He said his main concern is that the armed forces and powerful bureaucrats—whom he calls an “invisible hand”—would attempt to derail the vote or dissuade smaller parties from enabling the For Thais Party to form a coalition government. He pointed to how in 2008 the country’s courts forced one pro-Thaksin premier to resign and forced the fall of another pro-Thaksin government by ruling it violated election laws.
BP: A couple of other quotes and analysis and background by the WSJ are worth looking at. Will we get the Thaksin fever this time around as we got in late 2007 before the December 2007 election?
btw, both the Democrats and Puea Thai propose to increase the minimum wage and decrease corporate rates? The policy differences between the two parties is really in the details on many grounds….