Oh lordy, lordy.  We get rid of one buffoon only to see the resurrection of another.

So farewell then, Samak Sundaravej, he of the conveniently selective memory about, for example, how many deaths occurred on 6 October, an event he was heavily involved in.  (One, he says, but it was only a communist student so it was his own stupid fault.).  Samak, whose theory of history was that if you weren’t actually there (because maybe you weren’t born yet), then you have no right to contradict the memories of those dinosaurs like himself who were (no matter how decrepit and deceitful their memories may be). 

And welcome back Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, the Henry Kissinger of Thai politics, the eminence grease of the gravelly voice and the Kermit eyes. 

Forget that it was his hand on the tiller of the ship of state when it crashed onto the rocks of the 1997 economic crisis (when he hesitated long and hard about closing down bankrupt finance houses because the list contained ‘so many friends’). 

Forget his history of Machiavellian politicking that is the epitome of closed-door influence-peddling that the PAD wants to eradicate.  He still reckons he can make up the government’s differences with the PAD, patch things up with Cambodia, and sort out the south. 

But while an IQ that barely reaches double figures is enough to suss out that Samak was often barking through his backside, Chavalit is another proposition altogether.  A master of gobbledy-speak, he could, in his heyday, deliver a speech that the media would report next morning in a variety of different and contradictory ways. 

Posing as an innovative and insightful thinker and gifted with an enormously convoluted speaking style, he could easily blind the average hack with political pseudo-science and benefit from the touching Thai faith in intellectuals.  This believes that if someone speaking from a position of authority, like a cabinet seat or a university lectern, says something that you can’t understand, then the logical conclusion is that you must be the thicko and they must be the genius.  And the less you comprehend, the cleverer they must be. 

However, it is the self-appointed responsibility of this column to expose wilful wool-pulling and duplicitous demagoguery.  Let us start with Chavalit’s interview with the Bangkok Post after his status as Deputy PM elect was announced.

‘There are many types of democratic rule, but two types in particular are popular.  One is the Washington Consensus - a ruling system by the people and for the people.  The other is the Beijing Consensus - a ruling system for the people but not by the people.  It’s the communist system.  But both share the same goal - the benefit of the public,’ says the General.

It is hard to know where to start with this, but perhaps we begin with the two Consensuses.  Neither has a clear-cut definition that everyone would agree on, but the Washington version, which has been around longer, started out as the moniker for a standard package of policies foisted on any developing country unfortunate enough to have fallen into the hands of the World Bank and IMF.  Which live in Washington, hence the name.

The Washington Consensus, or WC, was later expanded to include the US Treasury Department, and stood for a set of economic policies: privatization, deregulation, trade liberalization, labour ‘flexibilities’, faith in the market to solve all problems, etc.  This is more or less the ideology that has just sent the global economy into meltdown.

The Beijing Consensus was touted as an alternative and given a sort of canonical form in a 2004 paper which outlined 3 major features.  It was innovative, where the WC was thought to be hidebound; it gives weight to sustainability and distribution of wealth rather than the WC’s single-minded focus on GDP growth; and it championed some form of economic sovereignty over the do-as-we-say domination of the WC. 

Now it is somewhat beyond me why Principle 2 should have anything to do with a Beijing that is overseeing massive increases in inequality fuelled by an environmentally catastrophic economic policy. 

But there you have it.  The Consensuses are about economics, not politics.  Now you can argue that both have implications for the form of democracy that could go along with each, but they are not themselves anywhere close to being ‘types of democratic rule’, as Chavalit wrong-headedly puts it. 

And it is an even longer stretch to claim that the Beijing Consensus is communism.  Or that communism is a form of democracy, of course. 

But was the General perhaps misquoted?  Or misunderstood? 

I think not.  Look at the bit where he claims that in the past (when a Certain Person was PM?) ‘Thailand was second to none’ in the region.  Now, he warns, ‘we can compete with only Cambodia and Burma’.

Compete at what? 

GDP (at purchasing power parity) per capita: Thailand, $7,900; Cambodia, $1,800; Burma, well, credible data of this kind is hard to come by, but less than Cambodia for sure.

Human Development Index: Thailand, 0.78; Cambodia, 0.57; Burma, 0.58

Infant mortality rates (deaths of infants under 12 months per 1,000 live births): Thailand, 10.6; Cambodia, 62.7; Burma 66.

Minimum wage (annual income): Thailand, $2,276; Cambodia, $1,688; Burma $455.

Corruption (Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, out just yesterday, score out 10, where higher means less corrupt): Thailand, 3.5; Cambodia, 1.8; Burma 1.3

And, for something perhaps closer to the General’s heart, military expenditure (annual, latest figures): Thailand, $1.8 billion; Cambodia, $112 million; Burma, $39 million (at least that’s what they say).

I’m afraid that Big Jiw’s grasp of the facts is as shaky as ever.  I only hope the overworked news desks of the nation’s media can keep up with his fabrications and hold his feet to the fire.