By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE MUCH-HERALDED, YET-DELAYED, Pheu Thai-initiated digital wallet handout campaign would not help maintain much of partisan popularity, let alone promote it, among millions of people nationwide when it comes to their going to the polls next time around, according to an academic critic.
Pornchai Theppanya, former dean of Ramkhamhaeng University’s Political Science Faculty, remarked that the 10,000-baht populist handout campaign would ultimately fail to have many of the 10 million-plus people who had voted for the Pheu Thai under de facto party boss Thaksin Shinawatra in last year’s election sustain their spontaneous loyalty to the largest coalition partner when the next race to parliament comes around at any given time.
The 10,000-baht digital wallet project and any other Pheu Thai populist campaigns to arise notwithstanding, only a few million constituents throughout the country would continue to vote for the Pheu Thai in the next election, compared to 10 million-plus votes given to Thaksin’s camp in the previous one, the former dean put it.
“Most people would effortlessly consider the digital wallet project as a giveaway campaign which would not keep them reminiscing about it and stay loyal to the Pheu Thai over time, especially when the next election is held,” Pornchai said.
The outspoken academic advised the de facto Pheu Thai boss to look back at the previous election in which the ultra-conservative Ruam Thai Sang Chart under de facto party boss/former coup leader-turned-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had barely won far fewer MP seats than others despite the fact that the military-installed regime had launched varied projects for the poor such as the co-payment and state welfare cards projects viewed as populist campaigns generally similar to the Pheu Thai digital wallet project.
Undoubtedly, the academic pointed out, most people would already know a range of 450 billion to 500 billion baht in government funding for the digital wallet project is entirely coming from the taxpayers’ money which could probably be sort of oblivious to many, if not most, of the next election’s voters.
The former head of Ramkhamhaeng political scientists said Thaksin has deluded himself into virtually living at prime times of his Thai Rak Thai administration over the last couple of decades and failed to notice how today’s people may have positively changed.
More often than not, Thaksin and his men had claimed successes in the 30-baht-cure-all public health campaign to his own credit despite the fact that it had been originally recommended by a group of rural doctors, Pornchai said.
Remarkably, Pornchai said, the de facto Pheu Thai boss was practically outperformed albeit in hush-hush, tacit fashion by de facto Bhumjaithai boss Newin Chidchob whose partisan wheeler-dealers had allegedly manipulated to land many “puppet” candidates victories in a questionable senatorial election whilst Thaksin’s brother-in-law/former prime minister Somchai Wongsawat could not make it.
In the wake of 100-plus, pro-Bhumjaithai senators prevailing over the legislative branch, Pornchai remarked, Thaksin recently scrambled to come to unusually intimate terms with Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul over a round of golf in a desperate effort to make it look as if the de facto Pheu Thai boss could still play a pivotal part in the country’s power play where there are no true friends or permanent foes.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: Representative images of Pheu Thai-initiated digital wallet scheme. Photos: Thai Rath
Insert: Academic Pornchai Theppanya. Photo: Thai Rath
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