Where cookery is crookery

The courts sack the prime minister for moonlighting as a television chef

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Readers' comments


P. Y.

I do not see how the viewpoint offered by the Economist is greatly biased towards one side or the other. Perhaps there may be some information that is offered here that may not be as clear as the actual events, but by all means, I do beleive that the Economist has done a great job in summarizing the events that has occured in Thailand from a third, unbiased perspective.
Most of the viewpoints I've read from the comments are themselves biased towards one side of the arguement or another, and I feel that both sides offered, sometimes well supported, are equally valid. Therefore I do not see why a third, western perspective offered by the Economist could not be considered as equally valid.
I do agree partially with "Dreamer-Sg". Thailand in particular may not be ready for democracy. Especially in times where there are so many groups out there taking advantage of the fact that democracy itself is such a world wide popular notion that by just saying that they are "the united allies for democracy", they could deceive the so-called "educated" people into believing that they are actually fighting (fighting!)for real democracy.
I am a thai national, and I do understand the past and present of Thai politics, as I have not been too ignorance in the past 5-6 years of my coming of age to not realize what is going on in my own country. The history of thai politicians was never clean. Whether it was Thaksin, or any other past PMs of Thailand, there was hardly any who did not act in the best interest of their own people. Thaksin was most notable, perhaps, due to the transparancy of his coorperation. But honestly, that does not make other past PMs or other past political parties any less corrupted than Thaksin's, it is merely that it is harder to run a thorough check on their bank accounts without a masking coorperation such as that of Thaksin's family.
Despite the fact that Thaksin's regime was so opposed by the Bangkokians, strictly speaking, in the sense of democracy, opposing a newly elected government who had hardly been instituted for longer than half a year could not possibly be considered a righteous act for the sake of democracy.
In the economical sense, I'd like to offer my humble opinion (which may or may not be valid to others) that Samak is not a suitable candidate as a PM in running the country, but in fighting for democracy(despite of its positive or negative effect for the country), he did his job well enough.
As a born student of world issues,I tend to keep my eyes and ears open for both sides of the argument. As such, I read the news offered from both sides, I watched the channels offered from both sides. I even broaden my view further to discover that there are infact more than just the two sides, that there may be the 3rd and 4th and perhaps up to the nth sides of the argument. All in all, there is one thing I'd like to offer to my fellow countrymen who are at the recieving ends of the information being offered in Thailand or elsewhere. Do note the significance in language usage. If you take out all the decorations, and other subjectiveness, and try to stick to as much objectivity as possible. Perhaps, your view may be more vivid. Just as the saying I've once come across, 'the wisest of men are those who realized that they knew not everything, but nothing'. Because there is one thing I realized about the current Thai political propagandist out there, which is really sad to speak the truth, is that they are ultimately taking advantage of those who claimed to be the most educated of us all through the pride that they have about the so-called better education that they've received. And lastly, to my fellow Bangkokians, there are much to learn about life than just reading out of books or watching it on TV. Try to live your lives as the so-called "poorly-educated" farmers did, and perhaps, you would understand their compassion towards the first government of Thailand to ever (supposedly) cared for them. Do not claim that your opinion is more valid than theirs only because they are the "so-called" less educated. Because really, what measures one's level education? Is it the grades issued by the Thai schools? (Which could so easily be bought if you have enough sum of money) Is it really just the amount of money you are capable of spending on good schools (the same amount of money I am paying for my place of study)? You may claim that you have the access to a higher level of education, but in the sense of humanity itself, to be fair, it doesn't make your vote count more than theirs. I myself did not vote for Samak. But for the sake of the systematic of the election in democracy, I at least am willing to accept the outcome regardless.


Speaking as an Asian,perhaps Asia is not ready for democracy.what most of the Asian nations need is guided democracy-,not as practised by President Sukarno but Singapore style as practised by LKY which has been quite successful until now.


Franny the cat,
obviously Thaksin did not align with those money making machine
of Thai military junta and royal families from day one!!

I like Thai food so long as Mr Samak can pass his culinary test!

Franny the Cat

No Thai leader or VIP has ever been genuinely tried, convicted, and punished for corruption. It simply isn't a real crime in Thai culture, for all the talk of reform. The only crime that merits attention is the crime of screwing with someone else's money machine. Thaksin upset the patronage system by trying to bypass it. Winning elections was his weapon. After his ouster his corruption, human rights violations, and abuse of power were cited as reasons. Samak's ouster was even more absurd. Sure, he was a human pig, autistic and unworthy of any real power position. But again, that never stopped any of the post-coup generals from ruling Thailand. Samak was taken down because he's Thaksin's proxy, and Thaksin is still a threat to other people's money machines. The cooking show is obviously a technicality that no one would get called on except as cover for something else.


SROY949, sj_sk

Economist, biased or unbiased, is really in the eyes of beholders and how you interpret the event/issue thru each
country citizen.
I read many magazines, and found Economist to be truly
international, in-depth reporting, critical, "unbiased" (to certain extend depend on the writer understanding of the
country's culture, history, language situation)
otherwise, Economists will not be in existence for 165 yrs
with 1.3 million readers/week??
Economist, thru many of its "biased" articles, can be sued
for defamation and suspension of circulation in certian countries. They won and they lost too!!
of course, there are FEER, Asiaweek, TIME etc are also fairly
impartial, but none other than Economist!! (Free Ads for Economist)


To sj_sk about the very first comment:I'm not sure for how long sj_sk has been reading The Economist in print as well as the Internet version. However, if he did for more than the last fifteen years as I did, he would have noticed that The Economist is biased towards every country* and not just Thailand!*Which when translated implies that they are among the most unbiased.


Economist's title this time is apt for a beleagued PM.
Thailand situation has gone from military seige to a more comical move now with thousand sitting in to protest?? for what?? Corruption by who now?? cookery or crookery moonlighted by a PM LOL ?? ousted Thaksin??
I think the military generals have nothing constructive to do
but putting their country in jeopardy and shame. who don't they count their own toes!!
Thaksin, in large, a popular PM, he was already a billionaire
before even becoming PM?? his telecommunication deal is purely
a business transaction between his family and Singtel, and
obviously, Hsien Loong's wife would also preferred to deal with an influential family in Thailand. Mind you, such political-cum-business transaction has been traditional, and
not uncommon in Asia, so long as the PM declared his business
asset to the parliament, i think, in such case, the conflict of interest does not arise, it happens to many cabinet ministers in the western democratic countries too.


I would like to thanks The Economist for this article. It's funny that the court's ruling is based on a word it picked up from a dictionary. Now law abiding citizen in this country must look carefully at a dictionary to behave accordingly.

Mr. Samak appeared regularly in his television show long before he took office. He said that he has consulted his lawyer and they didn’t see any problem with that. Once, the opposition cried foul he had stopped it. I do agree with the conflict of interest principle, but moonlighting or not the intent of the person should be taken into account.

Now the court’s decision seems to come back and haunt one or more of the judges themselves. With the equality principle applied, the high judges appear to be more equal than others.
Welcome to Thailand, this amazing country has more bizarre things to reveal.


Politicians should be held to a higher standard as they put a face on a nation. They should not take money from any source while in office other than what is prescribed by law. What they do afterwards is up to their own consciences.


Believe it or not, at least one of the Constitution judges is being accused by the public that he himself is working as a paid lecturer for a few law schools. Formerly, it was believed that a person holding a high office as a cabinet minister or constitution judge is prohibited to work as an employee (being on regular payroll) of any other organization for conflict of interest reason. However, he may accept an odd job from time to time in other organization.

From the conflict of interest viewpoint, the TV chef show obviously was a hobby for Mr. Samak who loves cooking and enjoys showing the audience of his cookery skill. The pay he got was a meager sum of money that may never persuade him to act in conflict with his prime-minister job.

The constitution judges expanded the charter wording and interpreted it in order to sack Samak. And now this silly court decision boomerang one the judges. He will have to answer the public on his extra jobs using the same standard.


I agree with tanky18, that Thailand should try it best to adhere to democracy, and even to election (even if it is by no mean the best way to get MPs who really represent the population). That's why I did not suggest overthowing PPP and Samak simply because they were elected by 'uneducated' farmers. In fact, I doubt the notion that those farmers did not vote out of their best interest. My only point was that even the elected MPs must obey the rule of law, (and the PAD too, in fact everyone). That's how the system work to prevent 'popular' politicians to get all they want, and prevent the vicious cycle of vote-buying, corruption, then vote-buying again.

I disagree with Big_Gold that the court dicided on trivial matter against Samak. The so-called Taksinism was so opposed (and is the main source of the current conflict) becuase it practiced conflict of interest so much and so often that 'Bangkokians' could not tolerate anymore. It's not because Taksin's populist policies in providing cheap health, cheap credit that get opposed (as the Economist seemed to believe). So any attempt to prevent conflict of interest should be encouraged.

Mind you that the prevention of conflict of interest was in 1997 constitution too, not only in this 2007 'Junta' constitution. It's just that Taksin got away from those simply because he managed to impair its enforcement.


It was the Thai military junta who crafted the latest constitution which allowed Samak and his party and allies winning the recent election which in turn led to his appointment as the prime minister.

It is constitutional (never mind it is frequently thrown out and replaced)and it is democratic (never mind the farmers are not as educated as the middle class). Period.

If there is any violation of election law. It is the court that should adjudicate (never mind it makes a mockery over cookery). This is called the rule of law. Otherwise, the country might as well revert to absolute manarchy or just anarchy instead of feigning to be a democracy.

The action by the unruly mob occupying the government building and airports are undemocratic mean tyring to bring down the popularly elected government. This is beyond legitimate civil disobedience.

The King held in awe by most Thai is eerily silent. This is a big surprize to most observers. The King is known to be interventionist when the country is in difficult time. No wonder that the western media believes in royalist' involvement in this anti-Samak/Thaksin conspiracy.

Thailand cannot allow a determined minority to thwart the will of the majority. Let's the rule of law and democracy prevail!

Big Gold

I have different opinion from sj_sk.First,I would like to thank the Economist about this news report.Thailand like other countries should have sound system for govern and run the country.Now we are looking forward to establish and maintain democracy.But since September 2006 coup there have been so many strange things happening in our country.Then since the end of last year we had another election and and Mr Samak came in as the prime minister.But the bizarre attempt from the opposition party and gangs wasn't finished.The keep on staging another protest to topple down the government and chase away the PM.They had done the coordinationg attack from every direction they could.The constitutional court took so trivial matter into account.You can never tell anyone on earth that you can topple down the head of state because he did some cooking show on TV.It's like a joke opera,very funny but sad in deed.I (and also many Thais I'm sure) feel so sorry for the PM that he had been unfairly treated.Now in the parliament they are considering who will come to position after mr Samak.Many MPs from the government side still believe Mr Samak is still the most suitable so far,and I also agree with them.Why?Because,in this tough time of situation Mr Samak has prooved he is the toughest to fight for the right thing.I would like to thank again the Economist for reporting many things about Thailand straightforwardly.I would like to encourage you to keep on your ethical deed.I'm optimistically sure that the truth and the right will prevail and win at last.


This is just another biased piece from the Economist about Thai Politics. The moonlighting clause in Thai constitution and the prevention of conflict of interest by public figures were in fact originated from the West. Any prime minister who shows no respect to this principle should not run the countries, Thailand or others. The Economist has proved itself to be too consumed to the idea of 'Bangkokians conspiracy theory' to ignore other important elements of Thai politics. Do more research before you write, please.



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