Some twenty years ago, in the infancy of democracy, a rich person bought votes using his own money and was elected into parliament. During the twenty years, more and more people bought votes using other people's money. Money from their friends, money from their backers and later on proliferately money from the dishonesty from their job in the Government. Sometimes the first one at other times the first three wins, but it never stipulated how the race should be run and there was no mechanism to control the competition and make the election basically honest. People who bought their ways into Government expected to be re-paid when they are in the Government and salary could never do this.
Parliament is the highest of all activities.
When parliament fails, the cabinet fails, the civil service fails and the private sector thereupon fails. This was essentially the state of our affairs in the middle of last year. The financial bubble in Thailand at its peak last year was indeed not as bad as in many other countries. But the situation was ripe for the hedge funds to launch an attack since we also had a precarious political situation to complement it, whilst other countries in the area seem to be in firm political control. Attacks after attacks were made on our currency without seemingly the political leaders cognizant of what was happening.