Decentralise power: Saneh
Future political reform must be geared towards supporting the needs of the rural poor to enable them to function as a check and balance against the central power in Bangkok, National Human Rights Commission chairman Saneh Chamarik said yesterday.
"There's no balance of power at the moment," said Saneh. "The key must be decentralisation of power, which is actually unstoppable."Saneh was giving the keynote speech at a symposium to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Foundation for the Promotion of Social Sciences and Humanities Textbooks Project, of which he is the president. He said the change that came with Thaksin Shinawatra in terms of rural people's awareness of their role in politics was now unstoppable. "Populist policy led to structural change in the Thai democratic system. For the first time, the government [under Thaksin] had a clear policy that addressed the existence of rural people. Whether it was right or wrong is another matter," Saneh said. "So the political reform process this time must cater to the awareness and movements among rural people, who will act as a counterweight to central power, because the balance of power was lost under Thaksin," he said.
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