December 3 , 2005 - Media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul said during a recent interview in his Thai Day newspaper that freedom of expression was his only motive in his ongoing confrontation with the government. But it is no secret that Sondhi once blacklisted a number of critical intellectuals and NGOs from speaking out against the government in his newspapers.

Regular critics such as Thailand Development Research Institute researcher Somkiat Tangkitvanich, Senator Chirmsak Pinthong and economist Ammar Siamwalla were barred from expressing their views in Sondhi’s papers when he enjoyed a healthy relationship with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

These critics are now more than welcome to vent their anti-Thaksin rage in Sondhi’s newspapers, but most of them are still understandably suspicious of him.

Between 2001 and the middle of this year, Sondhi’s Manager Media Group acted as a cheerleader for the Thaksin government. But Manager Daily is full of anti-Thaksin rhetoric nowadays.

On February 3 a back-page column written under the pen name Siang Sao Lung was full of praise for Thaksin’s leadership. The column is alternately written by a few of the paper’s senior editors, mainly Khamnoon Sithisamarn.

The following day, Sondhi threw all his weight behind Thaksin’s election campaign as the country’s voters considered whether to give Thaksin a full mandate in his second term. Sondhi proclaimed during his now famous “Thailand Weekly” television programme on Channel 9 that he hoped the Thai Rak Thai party would win 400 out of 500 seats in Parliament.

“This is a chance to use the situation to turn Police Lt-Colonel Thaksin Shinawatra into a hero,” said Sondhi, whose remarks were then published word for word in his flagship newspaper, Phujadkarn Rai Wan (Manager Daily).

Thaksin’s TRT went on to win 377 seats.

Support for Thaksin in Manager Daily goes all the way back to when he first became prime minister under the shadow of a Constitution Court assets-concealment hearing. Despite being legally bound to declare his assets prior to taking office, Thaksin allegedly hid millions of baht with various domestic servants.

As a result the nation was divided over Thaksin’s honesty in April 2001. If found guilty, he would have been banned from taking public office for five years.

Speaking on radio FM 97.5 under the assumed name of Payap Vanasuwan, Sondhi brushed aside concerns over Thaksin’s conduct.

“The matter is in fact not important. What is important is how we will solve our country’s problems.”

Again, the remark was quickly published in his newspaper on April 18, 2001.

On May 9 a front-page editorial attacked foreign media and English-language newspapers in Thailand for playing up the asset-concealment scandal.

“They are foolish, like those at the Democrat Party,” Manager Daily stated.

On October 24, 2002 Siang Sao Lung claimed in a back-page commentary that Thaksin had “a high IQ and is intelligent”. The column went to great lengths to highlight the intelligence of Thaksin’s executives at telecom giant Shin Corp and his cronies in the government. It concluded that this was how the government was able to be creative in its work.

That same month Manager Daily columnist Saeng Daed praised Thaksin’s CEO style of leadership and his foreign policy.

“Who knows?” the columnist wrote, “In the near future our leader may become the leader of Asean. But for sure, when the leader whose name is Police Lt-Colonel Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister, reaches that stage, his ‘statesmanship’ [status] will not be far away!”

Those who read Sondhi’s papers today would find many ironies in what he published in the past.

One of those ironies concerns the privatisation of Egat Plc. Many people who oppose the scheme because it might put a vital public utility in the hands of politicians and profit-hungry investors are now rallying behind Sondhi’s anti-Thaksin campaign.

But in December last year Siang Sao Lung wrote that the privatisation was “a process where people will be allowed to become the real owners of Egat and make Egat’s management transparent and accountable”.

On the issue of conflicts of interest, Siang Sao Lung defended Thaksin on August 2 last year when academic Thirayuth Boonmee criticised him. The columnist asked why people questioned Thaksin’s alleged conflicts of interest when nobody asked about the possible conflicts of interest of people like Bank of Thailand Governor MR Pridiyathorn Devakula, who also has business interests.

The biggest irony was the issue of loyalty to the monarchy. On page 16 of the October 2, 2002 edition of Manager Daily Siang Sao Lung attacked the Democrat Party for spreading a rumour that Thaksin was trying to run the country in a semi-presidential fashion and was competing with the royal prerogative. The columnist condemned such tactics as an “evil craft” (“vijja mara”) like that which brought down Pridi Banomyong, a leader of the 1932 coup that ended absolute monarchy.

Today Sondhi uses that very same tactic against Thaksin. His change of heart came after a series of conflict-of-interest issues such as the sacking of Viroj Nualkhair, former president of Krung Thai Bank, and the axing of the “Thailand Weekly” programme.

He now holds mass rallies every Friday in Lumpini Park urging tens of thousands of people to “fight for the King” and save the Kingdom from Thaksin’s growing abuse of power.

Now most of the columns, news reports, articles and analysis pieces in his newspapers are devoted to corruption and abuses of power on the part of the Thaksin government.

Manager Weekly is currently examining how Thaksin and his cronies amassed Bt200 billion during the past term.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation