Democrats demand action on solutions to national crises

The Democrat Party yesterday urged the government to tackle the country’s problems head-on and to prioritise urgent tasks.

“So far, the people have failed to see how the government has been handling the four main problems cited as reasons for the coup,” spokesman Ong-art Klampaiboon said.

He said the only apparent achievement of the government and Council for National Security (CNS) was the appointment of new members to some key independent organisations.

He said the CNS and the government had failed to restore unity and the mission to tackle corruption by the previous administration seemed to be going nowhere as only one case had been completed.

The Democrat spokesman said the government must intensify its attempts to solve the country’s problems.

“During the past five months, the government has announced that it would focus on three main issues. That is, it would try to end the rift in society, it would solve the southern border province violence and it would use the sufficiency philosophy to get the country’s economy moving on,” Ong-art said.

“But five months have passed and none of the promises has been fulfilled yet.”

He said the divide between groups supporting or opposing ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra remained, while the southern situation was still volatile and the economic situation had worsened.

“We would like the government to end the old working style used during the past five months and dare to tackle the problems head-on,” Ong-art said.

He said it was good that the Cabinet held a special meeting on Saturday to review its work during the past five months.

But the Cabinet must come up with clear-cut working strategies and must prioritise its tasks.

He said if the government prodded Cabinet members and permanent officials to carry out their duties to their full capacity, the country’s problems should be solved in five or six months.

Democrat deputy spokesman Sathit Pitudecha said he supported the government’s plan to reallocate the country’s budget with fairness and transparency.

He said the Thaksin government had abused the budget allocation for political purposes for six years.

Sathit suggested the government should allocate parts of the 2008 fiscal year budget to revive the economy by increasing the income of the middle-class and launching projects to create consumer confidence so that they would spend more.

Also yesterday, the Campaign for Popular Democracy (CPD) said the CNS had failed to reach its goals of the coup six months ago.

CPD secretary-general Suriyasai Katasila said the CNS had failed to live up to the expectations of the public again and again until people had lost faith in the junta.

“It could be said that the CNS has so far seized only the prime minister’s seat but could not absolutely seize power from the Thaksin regime,” Suriyasai said.

He said the CNS had failed to solve the four main problems cited as reasons to stage the coup, which were massive corruption, social rifts, interference in independence organisations and failing to take action against those who had allegedly insulted His Majesty the King.

Suriyasai said the CNS and its installed government had failed to cooperate in their works and apparently had different goals.

He said the new constitution being drafted under the supervision of the CNS could also lead Thailand to much more complicated rifts as it would allow a non-elected person to become prime minister.

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This post was written by CALD