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The see-saw jostling over a new police chief wreaked political havoc for months this year, and alternated between keeping everyone on the edge of his seat and boring him to tears. Would it be Pateep Tanprasert or Jumpol Mummai? How would the Police Commission vote? Would a potential revolt doom Abhisit's premiership? Would the Democrat-Bhum Jai Thai alliance break up? Was Suthep Thaugsuban playing a Brutus?

The irony is that the more intense the standoff, the more obvious it became that qualifications hardly make any difference in the choice of a police chief. It is all about connections, debts of gratitude, or who can help whom in elections. Amid the high tension, Pateep and Jumpol both kept low profiles, although their names dominated the headlines for weeks.

2009 thus saw firsthand the real "significance" of the police chief position, that is, how meaningless it is to crime suppression. For the sad dawning of this truth, Thailand's police chief, regardless of who he is, who has become something mostly irrelevant to thieves, burglars, robbers or gangsters, is The Nation's second runner-up for Person of the Year.