UPDATE: Below

Well, with no political news from Thailand today because of the death of the King’s sister and a likely delay for at least few days in any coalition news, I thought I might do a brief comparison with Pakistan. It was The Economist which started it off with a Pakistan analogy:

Pakistan is not the only Asian country where a dodgy military regime is running a general election under dubious electoral rules in the hope of keeping out a similarly dodgy civilian whom it overthrew. The difference is that unlike Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the exiled Mr Thaksin is not being allowed to take part in the vote himself, and there may be slightly more hope that things will come out right in the end.

COMMENT: Well, given Bhutto’s death maybe not returning home before the election was not such a bad idea for Thaksin after all.

The comparisons don’t end there. Bhutto’s party is also called the PPP, the Pakistan People’s Party and there were numerous allegations of corruption made against her although the case against here is more strongly supported by international investigations.* Bhutto was also about to release a report on vote-rigging in the election against her party, which according to polls was the most popular. There is talk also of the military government diverting essential eavesdropping equipment away meant to be used for terrorists operations to listen to the PPP. Sound familiar?

*Reading her Wiki biography makes for interesting reading

UPDATE: Argh, I can’t believe I left out the sending of EU election observers to monitor the parliamentary elections in Pakistan – it was the whole point for starting the post. Pakistan had to agree to set “out the rights and obligations” and there are around 70 EU election observers who will monitor the elections. Compare that with Thaksin where the elite where outraged over the EU election observers coming to Thailand. Andrew at New Mandala has blogged on Thailand’s refusal to agree to the EU terms for sending election observers – see his his latest post for relevant comments as well. I think Andrew is right.