Dear editor,

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was no saint while in office. But at least he was there via the democratic consent of his own people and the public legitimacy that his two electoral victories brought him.

By contrast, once the Thai military staged its September 2006 coup ― thereby overturning the 2005 election and deciding it knew better than the people it was charged to protect ― it doomed the fate of anybody who was to thereafter seemingly grab power in the coup's name.

Well read urban elites and soldiers with guns can never know better than any country's population at large. Thailand will only rest when it's once again ruled by a government that's in place at the behest of its own people's stated will.

Sean King
Vice president
Park Strategies, LLC
New York
sking@parkstrategies.com