Where cookery is crookery

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Sep 11th 2008 | JAKARTA
From The Economist print edition

The courts sack the prime minister for moonlighting as a television chef


SOME Thais have been looking to the courts to resolve the country’s interminable political conflict. So far, however, they are only making things worse—and making the country look rather silly in the process. On September 9th the Constitutional Court ordered Samak Sundaravej, the prime minister, to step down for breaching a ban on ministers having outside jobs. Mr Samak’s offence was to make a handful of appearances as a television chef, continuing the parallel career that he has been following in recent years alongside his main job as an abrasive right-wing politician. The court rejected his claim that the 80,000 baht ($2,400) he received for doing the cookery shows earlier this year was not a fee, just reimbursement for ingredients and other expenses.

EPA

Out of the frying panOpponents of Mr Samak, including the protesters who have been occupying his office for the past fortnight, will see this, the latest in a string of rulings against him and his allies, as vindicating their demands for his resignation. However, his supporters will just as predictably see it as a further example of a conspiracy by Bangkok’s royalist establishment to bring down the elected government by all means possible. Indeed the case over Mr Samak’s part-time wok-wielding did reach judgment notably rapidly, compared with the years for which court proceedings usually drag on in Thailand.

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The ban on ministerial moonlighting was introduced in a new constitution drawn up last year during the army-backed government that ran Thailand from the 2006 coup until last December’s elections. It was aimed at stopping the much more serious conflicts of interest that arose continually during the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister deposed in the coup. Mr Thaksin was often accused of tinkering with the law to benefit his huge telecoms empire.

However, the drafters of the new charter left an enormous loophole, big enough for even Mr Samak’s well-fed frame to slip through. It turns out there is nothing to stop his ruling coalition, with its sizeable majority, simply nominating him as prime minister again. As The Economist went to press, Mr Samak was reported to have accepted renomination by his People’s Power Party. The party’s coalition partners, however, were expected to object. In the meantime, to infuriate the anti-government protesters further, they chose one of Mr Samak’s deputies, Somchai Wongsawat, as acting prime minister. He is Mr Thaksin’s brother-in-law.