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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Somkid Jatusripitak: Thaksin's Number One Crony and Chief Backer of Thaksinomics Now Sells Sufficiency Theory for the Junta

Somkid appointed as sufficiency economy envoy/The Nation

Somkid Story at Bangkok Post

Newly-appointed economic envoy Somkid Jatusripitak vowed Thursday to explain sufficiency economy principle to foreign countries.

Somkid, a former finance minister and deputy prime minister for the Thaksin government was Thursday appointed chairman of a foreign economic relations committee, Deputy PM's Secretary-General Weerachai Weeramethikul announced.


Weerachai said Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont signed an order to appoint the foreign economic cooperation and relations committee.


Weerachai said the committee would be in charge of explaining to foreign governments, media and education institutions about Thailand's key economic policies.


Eight other members of the committee are Weerachai, the director-general of the Public Relations Department, the director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, the secretary-general of the Board of Investment, the director of the Fiscal Policy Office, the governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the director-general of the International Economic Affairs and the secretary-general of the International Economic Affairs.


The order also appointed a team of advisors for the committee. The team members are the PM's secretary-general, Sompol Kiatpaibool, former permanent secretary for Commerce, and the president of the Thai Industry Federation, the chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and the president of the Thai Bankers Association.


Somkid said after his appointment that he would work to supplement the works of government agencies to get foreign countries understand the principle of sufficiency economy.


Somkid said he still had connections with foreign countries so he would use the connections for his works. He would have to make some foreign visits.


Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said Somkid's appointment had nothing to do with politics.


He said Somkid had offered to help explain the idea of sufficiency economy to foreign countries so he appointed him as the economic envoy.


This story sums up the absurdity of Thai politics in many ways. Somkid was Thaksin's right hand man for many years and the chief advocate and policy maker for Thaksinomics. Now he has been hired by the Surayud Government to sell Juntanomics/Sufficieny Theory to the world.


Am I the only one to see the ridiculousness of this?

1. Was Somkid successful selling Thaksinonics to the world? Somkid is considered a marketing genius, yet in many ways he was a total failure in selling Thaksinocracy and Thaksinomics. Failure #1 Thaksin was overthrown in a coup and had millions of Thais who despised him. I would say that was a marketing failure. Failure #2 Outside of Thailand, Thaksinomics was derided and ridiculed by the international press. Now Somkid is going to do the same for the juntacracy and juntanomics?

2. Why would the junta hire somebody who was responsible for marketing Thaksinocracy and Thaksinomics to the Thai public? I think that is treasonous. Like one of the poster said, Thaksin would have been a nobody without Somkid. Seriously, isn't Somkid responsible for creating the Thaksin Frankenstein monster? And how can the junta trust somebody who would stab their patron in the back? I guess there is no honor amongst thieves.

Imagine Hillary Clinton hiring Karl Rove to attack and discredit George W. Bush policies that Karl Rove was responsible for formulating, then becoming the chief guru for selling Clintonomics.

Also, I have said it a million times already. There is nothing wrong with the ideas and concepts that King Bumibol proposes as part of Sufficiency Theory. I have yet to see any foreigner attack King Bumibol's ideas. Foreigners are only attacking the anti-foreigner, anti-liberal economic policies of the military government. To stop the confusion, the Surayud Government should call its economic policies "Juntanomics" instead Sufficiency Theory.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Somkid issue is a bit strange, isn't it?

On the one hand, Somkid was the man behind Thaksinomics. Without him, Thaksin would just moderately powerful politician without any memorable ideas or policies. Remember his leadership of the Phalang Dharma Party? Recall what wonderful policy innovations he came up with? Not a single one. All those controversial but popular programs under the Thaksin government (30 baht health, SML, etc.) were Somkid's ideas. All he's doing now is rebranding his old ideas with the new clothes of "sufficiency."

The yellowshirts certainly attacked him during the 2005-2006 crisis. But although their mouths criticized Thaksinomics, their hearts didn't really criticize Somkid. He was always very high in the popularity polls, and despite the anger vented at his ideas, people thought of him as a much more acceptable Premier-candidate than Thaksin.

Now that Thaksin is gone, the slate is wiped clean. People can support him as much as they want, without the bad taste of Thaksin getting in the way. No need to be suspicious that Thaksin is behind him. And at the same time, you get a certain measure of policy continuity and continued policy innovation.

It's actually a pretty good deal for Thailand. Welcome back, Somkid. We missed you.

Anonymous said...

It certainly is a bit strange. I wonder if this is an olive branch to the non-bannable members of TRT. better inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in I suppose