September 3, 2025: When everyone ends up doing what he or she hates, the time bomb will keep ticking.
The Orange cannot be happy with helping the Blue, and vice versa. The Red certainly never wants a House dissolution, especially at a time like this.
But here we are. The People’s Party wants a major constitutional amendment so bad it is taking a previously-unthinkable action of vowing to conditionally support a prime ministerial candidate of the conservatives. Anutin Charnvirakul of the Bhumjaithai Party cannot be pleased if he is to lead, no matter how briefly, with virtually a main enemy pulling the strings.
Pheu Thai, meanwhile, has decided that if the party will eventually shrink further soon, then so be it. Problems with Cambodia will compound the misery of the last election if a new one is held now, but Pheu Thai has gone beyond caring.
In the big picture, nothing changes. Thailand’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms still features three irreconcilable rivals whose constantly-shifting “alliance” is just a dangerous pretense, temporary and self-serving.
On the surface, the People’s Party’s conditions look fair, as they embrace a public referendum on whether the charter should be amended. But they can be a lot better. Nowhere in there are ordinary people’s problems like concern about prevailing graft across the board seriously addressed.
In short, the conditions seem too ideological for comfort.
In calling Thailand’s political situation “twisted”, Pheu Thai’s Acting Prime Minister Bhumtham Wechayachai is right, but as long as he refuses to admit that his camp is a big part of the “twisted” landscape, he once again brings to the fore the reason why the country’s national divide is unsolvable.
Which is that while doing the most wrong thing to the country, everyone believes he or she is doing the right thing. That keeps misguided and clashing aspirations or motives the most influential part of the game. That keeps the time bomb perfectly alive.
West shuns it, but with one eye firmly on it
September 2, 2025: Western powers are too shy to attend China’s current military parade but finding it too significant to ignore.
It’s not the occasion China is purportedly marking (the end of the Second World War) that makes the parade a must-watch, but it’s the high-profile guests and Beijing’s surefire display of its military might.
At the parade, Chinese leader Xi Jinping will be flanked by some world leaders most dreaded in the West – from Russia, North Korea, Iran and Myanmar – and a host of other leaders of the global south. You know who are going to be absent. Of course, most western bosses.
With Donald Trump’s foreign allies frowning on him virtually on a daily basis, Xi’s unspoken message will be that his “guests” look a lot more united. The world will be told, without Xi having to actually say it: “We are a more stable bunch, and check out our weapons.”
It will be one of China’s largest and most choreographed events in years. Set to be unveiled is cutting-edge equipment such as fighter jets, missile defense systems and hypersonic weapons. Newest military hardware capabilities will be shown. The Guardian calls them a showcase of “the results of a long-running modernisation drive of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)”.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will attend the victory day parade. It will be the first time the two have appeared in public together alongside Xi, noted The Guardian.
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected to be on there.
Torn between two enemies
September 1, 2025: The People's Party is making a choice, but why did it have to come to this?
It's simply choosing between an ex who has betrayed you like no one ever did and someone you, with every ounce of your body, have hated the most in the whole world.
Politics gives you that dilemma. Sooner or later, it does, without exception.
And politics' cruelty does not stop at that. The worst part is you can never know whether it will be the right decision this time, and, to be fair to the People's Party, even dumping them both cannot guarantee anything.
Updates of, and opinions on, local as well as international events by Tulsathit Taptim.
