• 
• 

Published on July 4, 2007

The August 19 vote on the charter has become a political proxy war, which isn't too bad, actually. If you don't have time to study the draft or are simply too tired or lazy, you may simply toe the lines of the rival camps.

If you have decided to be one of these proxy voters, here are my guidelines:

Vote "Yes" if every time you dream that Thaksin Shinawatra has come back as prime minister, you wake up in a cold sweat and then heave a long sigh of relief after coming to the realisation that Thailand is still under a repressive military junta.

Vote "No" if you cry knowing that dream was just a dream.

Vote "No" if you would be unhappy with such a dream but find reality under the junta sadder.

Vote "Yes" if you think it was Thaksin who doomed the 1997 constitution through corruption, abuse and disregard for its true spirit.

Vote "No" if you think the corruption, abuse and disregard for its spirit were just a pretext for the September 19 coup, which you believe is the real destroyer of the 1997 charter.

Vote "No" if you think the military must be taught a lesson.

Vote "Yes" if you think it's a route back to democracy, no matter how bumpy, so that we can leave it all behind and start anew.

Vote "No" if you think voting "Yes" would serve to rubberstamp military interference and opportunism, thus damning Thailand to live with the whims of the ambitious top brass eternally.

Vote "Yes" if you are praying for Manchester City to be relegated next season and consider the purchase of the British football club to be "Assets Concealment Episode V".

Vote "No" if your bottom line is, "At least he was a democratically elected leader, who should have been ousted through democratic means, no matter how corrupt he was". Politicians' secret wealth, you believe, is nothing compared to the hidden and uncontrolled agendas of men in uniforms.

Vote "Yes" if you think Thaksin caused the unprecedented divide that still threatens to break apart our nation.

Vote "No" if you think a perfectly normal political split was exacerbated by opponents hell bent on toppling him at all costs, thus shoving our country to the brink.

Vote "Yes" if you think voting "No" would prolong our country's plight.

Vote "No" if you think voting "Yes" would keep the real cause of our country's ills alive - the military, that is.

Vote "Yes" if you want to take both Thaksin and the military out of the equation through a relatively early election. Let's get this over with, and quickly.

Vote "No" if you think Thaksin is already out of the equation, and that it's better to square off against the military than to sit back and entertain false hopes that the generals would voluntarily leave the scene after the poll. It's worth waiting a few more weeks as long as the power-hungry military is snubbed and embarrassed.

Vote "Yes" if you are satisfied by the Assets Examination Committee's investigation so far. They have done their best to prove that Thaksin had broken many laws, and a country with a better rule of law could have forced him out based on the evidence they found without the need for a coup.

Vote "No" if you think the charges are nonsense, or if you think that those charges were justified, but the coup prevented them from being brought against Thaksin in a normal democratic atmosphere. The junta gave democracy no chance.

There you go. In fact, these guidelines are based on the who-you-want-to-shoot-first principle. If you are confused by this article, imagine you have a gun in your hand with a helpless Thaksin and General Sonthi Boonyaratglin in front of you and then vote with your heart.

For the record here, I personally will judge the charter draft on its promises, not on its origin, simply because why we have wound up here is not that simple. We have lost a very noble charter created from a noble process and the country has been divided down the middle. So, perhaps giving a chance to a draft constitution that has risen from the ruins of such division may not be such a bad idea.

 Tulsathit Taptim