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To date, I have not called on the government to resign because it would complicate an already bad situation. Elections or a political crisis while the pandemic rages would only lead to more confusion and more casualties.
But after the disastrous rollout of the vaccine and the government’s historic level of incompetence, there can be no other alternative.
The government of Prayut Chan-ocha must resign and now.
The tape doesn’t lie, the government’s blunders has cost lives even as it tries to remind the public what a good job it is doing.
The government, in its most shocking publicity stunt to date, organized a ceremony at Bang Sue Station to kick start its vaccination program.
Seven days was all it took from the government saying there would be no more shortages and that Thailand was on the road to recover to there being shortages. (Read more here)
To make matters worse, different government organizations like the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and the Ministry of Public Health have taken turns criticizing each other in public causing a national embarrassment.
But the audacity of this government is that they are able to be non-transparent, incompetent, and belligerent and still chug along.
This is a government that likes to boast about its limited success (look no further than Bang Sue Ceremony) but when they fail they just keep their heads down and feel no need to answer questions about accountability.
For these reasons, Prayut should do the right thing and resign.
A prime minister that is unable to properly defend his people and unable to keep his ministries under control deserves to be prime minister no more.
A prime minister that seeks publicity at a time of national crisis, when the situation is not yet resolved, that puts people’s lives at risk just for a photo op needs to be consigned to the wastebasket of past mistakes.
I am writing this even without considerations about how Prayut came to power, let us forget the coup for a moment, let us forget the crooked senate, the drug dealing ministers, the allegations of corruption surrounding his deputy prime minister and his brother.
Merely for his performance during this pandemic, Prayut should resign.