Southern result a ‘wake-up call’

Published on February 8, 2005

Thai Rak Thai’s failure to make headway in the South is a “wake-up” call for the party as wrong evaluations have been made of people’s needs, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday.

“People in the South of the country have sent us a signal to identify what they really want. I admit that the outcome of the elections in the southern provinces fell far short of our estimates,” Thaksin said.

Of the 54 seats available in the South, the Thai Rak Thai and Chat Thai parties could each manage only a single parliamentary seat, while the Democrat Party swept 52, up from 48 in 2001.

Among the Thai Rak Thai losers were four former Democrat MPs who had defected to the party.

Thaksin said the violence in the South had played a part in his party’s failure to gain seats in the affected areas.

“People believed that (those four) MPs had not made any effort to control the situation in their regions. So they wanted to see those MPs replaced.”

Meanwhile, a close aide to the premier said that Thaksin had postponed a trip to the South scheduled to start tomorrow.

“The prime minister decided to postpone his trip because he is ill. His visit will now take place from Tuesday to Thursday next week.”

The postponement was decided following Thai Rak Thai’s failure to gain seats in the region.

Areepen Utarasingh, a Thai Rak Thai party-list member, said southerners thought the incumbent government could not end the violence so they voted for others.

“The crisis in the South has been going on for a long time and people now have negative feelings toward the government and security personnel. They were in sympathy with the opposition’s move against the government and voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Party candidates,” said Areepen, a former New Aspiration Party MP.

Meanwhile, Democrat Party deputy secretary-general Niphon Bunyamanee said his party had achieved victory as planned in the region.

“The Democrat victory was due to the failure to stamp out violence because the government mishandled the problem. We proposed solutions to the government but they were ignored,” he said.

Surachart Wae-arsae, a Democrat Party candidate who won in Narathiwat, said Thai Rak Thai had not implemented an effective policy to deal with the violence.

“The Democrat Party won and Thai Rak Thai lost because people were unhappy with a lack of policies and the increasing violence. Moreover the [southern] region is our traditional stronghold and that contributed to Thai Rak Thai’s failure,” he said.

Panithan Wattayakorn, a security expert, said that now the election is over, Thai Rak Thai should change its policies because people want a government that provides safety for their lives and their assets.

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