BANGKOK — In the first detailed presentation of the economic platform of the People’s Power Party, appointed party leader and former Bangkok governor Samak Sunaravej announced a bold initiative to double the average wealth of each Thai by killing half of the Thai population. “It’s easy math” Samak explained at a news conference Tuesday. “If we divide the same assets among half as many people, each will be twice as rich.” When pressed for details of which half of the population would be eliminated and in what method, Samak responded that he would favor “whoever voted for us and endorsed this policy” and that he was more than willing to carry out the executions personally.
Opposition Democrats were quick to attack the policy as “short-sighted economics” as well as “possibly unconstitutional.” A statement released to the press from party headquarters read in part that “the People’s Power Party continues to show itself as an opportunistic group determined to continue the failure of Thaksinomics.” However, a member of Chart Thai commented off-record that it was a possibly clever tactic, playing up Samak’s strengths as a “man of action.” With years of police experience, including personally overseeing the extrajudicial slaughter of dozens of unarmed leftist university students during the October 1976 uprising, Samak’s fascist disregard for human life could play well with voters tired of “stagnant political impasse,” the source concluded.
Political economic analyst experts were quick to highlight flaws in the plan, citing both the severe downturn in GDP that would follow the massacre of half the country’s workforce, as well as the political risks of threatening voters with death immediately before the election. “Thais don’t respond well to confrontation,” explained Jiriporn Siriyathohin, a political academic at Chulalongkorn University. “It’s considered impolite and reflects badly on the populist ideals of the former TRT.” However, an ABAC poll of likely voters in Isaan revealed a generally positive response among PPP faithful, with 74% of respondents certain that Samak would be killing “someone else.”
In additional statements made at the same press conference, Samak also outlined his foreign policy of eating the puppies of nations that he did not like.
