This is the strategy employed by SET presidents.

When Kittiratt Na Ranong was president of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, it was Patareeya Benchapholchai who came down from the SET building to receive petitions from protesters.

In those days, she had to deal with angry voices from the labour union of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand ahead of the planned listing of the state agency on the Thai bourse. The next big one was religious groups led by Chamlong Srimuang, who railed against the SET's policy to welcome Thai Beverage into the bourse.

As Patareeya is now the SET president, succeeding Kittiratt, she is not in a position to do the same thing.

And so the duty is passed onto SET executive vice president Suthichai Chitvanich.

Yesterday when 50 minor shareholders of iTV arrived at the SET building, Suthichai was there to receive their complaints. While meeting reporters, he said with a sigh that he would need to do this job for some time.

But he should be pleased. Patareeya did this thankless job before and now she is SET president. Suthichai must cling to an inner hope that his destiny will be the same.

Naked emperors

Once, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were such all-powerful organisations. Countries around the world anxiously awaited their financial help, though knowing that they would be required to do something painful in return.

But now both suffer from a credibility crisis, rocked by the scandal that threatens the job of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz and by Venezuela's surprise decision to withdraw from both powerful financial institutions.

Several other Latin American presidents, including Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, do not hide their disdain for the two financial giants. Correa even kicked out the World Bank representative from Ecuador for allegedly refusing to disburse an already approved US$100 million (now Bt3.5 billion) in 2005, allegedly to punish the country for oil sector reforms.

The World Bank and the IMF were founded at the end of World War II as a way to stabilise world finances and fight poverty. Today, however, critics see them as tools of the United States to impose a free-market ideology.

Despite their long history, these two venerable behemoths suffer from a credibility crisis.

No wonder that many institutions here in Thailand, much younger and with shorter proven success records, suffer from the same problem.

achara_d@nationgroup.com