Watch Satit shoot himself- again

The government was launching “Six Days and 63 Million Ideas: Moving Thailand Forward,” a public-opinion campaign on national reform, and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was waiting to answer some phone calls himself. There were 300 open phone lines, yet the premier was disconnected prematurely when he tried to speak to three callers.
Satit – that little man holding a ministerial position – is supposed to be responsible of promoting the image of Thailand’s 27th prime minister. Yet, he has been nothing but an embarrassment for Abhisit.
Actually, one can’t help but wonder if he makes these mistakes intentionally or if he is just not quite capable. After all, at least six projects he organised have had strange problems.
The first time the PM was left blushing was last July, when he was visiting people in the Northeast. There was tight security during the trip, and the itinerary kept getting changed to purportedly protect the PM from being attacked by the anti-government red-shirt crowd.
Though Satit continued insisting that Abhisit was visiting other provinces, the trips never took place.
Another project that embarrassed the government was when Satit decided to get involved in a television commercial promoting the premier – residents of the sites where Abhisit was filmed complained that the shooting was causing traffic problems.
On August 24 last year, Satit had NBT director Suriyong Hoonthasarn transferred, replacing him with Ratana Charoensak, a public relations director from Surat Thani. The move came after Abhisit’s weekly TV show was interrupted for three consecutive weeks.
The broadcast interruptions were blamed on old equipment, and eventually the show format was changed, with part of it being pre-recorded.
Satit was also behind the national-anthem project, launched at Government House on September 18. He ordered that government officials in all 76 provinces be televised singing the anthem at 6pm daily. However, this was heavily criticised because the national anthem should be sung at 8am when the flag is raised, not at 6pm when the national standard is lowered.
During the red-shirt rally from March to May, Satit ordered that the protesters’ People Channel and their community radio stations be cut off to block their mobilisation to the capital. However, he also managed to get two of the PM’s programmes jammed while broadcasting.
Rumour has it that his constant interference in the state media’s work and harsh comments about media reporting was not appreciated. He also raised a lot of eyebrows when it was found out that he had invited prominent members of the yellow-shirt movement to host programmes on the state TV channel.
These are probably just some of the reason’s why media control was taken off Satit’s hands and he was made responsible of the national reconciliation project.
And yet, in the first campaign for the project, he has shot himself in the foot – again.