Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University as quoted in VOA:

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, also blamed structural problems within the government, such as overlapping authority and agencies that are not organized to collaborate.

“In a place like Thailand – which lacks policy coordination, which is beset by chronic interagency conflict, flooding disasters like this are likely to have a severe effect,” said Thitinan.  “And Yingluck’s leadership has been lacking. She has strengths and weaknesses. Her strength is that she has good temperament. [But] she lacks decisiveness in a time like this.“

As quoted in NYT:

“Her mettle is being tested, and it certainly will define her leadership,” he said.

…
Mr. Thitinan said fiscal stimulus measures after the waters recede may give cover to some of the expensive populist policies on which she campaigned. But recovery is likely to overwhelm other controversial elements of her political agenda, like constitutional amendments and an amnesty for banned politicians like her brother.

…
“Bangkok has gained at the expense of the rest of Thailand, and the disparity has accumulated over the years,” he said. “And here we have Bangkok being protected at the expense of surrounding provinces.”

Whatever their political positions, he said, the battle to save the city demonstrates that the affluent urban center is the priority for leaders of the government and its opposition.

As quoted in FT:

“The people who did not support her from the outset will seize on the deluge to destabilise her rule”.

Thitinan in an op-ed in The Guardian:

The government’s response was initially inept….Information was not centralised and reliable. The saturation and sensationalism of television images on a constant news cycle made the public edgier. Yingluck has shifted gear and appears more in charge, having invoked additional laws to give her government more authority short of declaring a state of emergency, which would give the army more powers.

…

Bangkok’s omnipotence is partly justifiable as it harbours some 40% of GDP as well as being the residence of movers and shakers in Thai society and the yoke of the economy. Yet submerging the rest of the Chao Phraya river basin to secure Bangkok is a mirror image of Thailand’s political crisis pitting the well-heeled urban elites against the hapless downtrodden elsewhere.

Moreover, the governor of Bangkok happens to hail from the opposition Democrat party. Unsurprisingly, Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra’s priorities differ from Yingluck’s. Unless the rains lighten, this trade-off between saving the capital to see its adjacent provinces suffer may prove futile.

If Bangkok shares some of the flooding, economic damage will mount but a sense of equality and justice will prevail. When the floods go through the capital, they will find faster release into the Gulf of Thailand.

Yingluck’s learning curve will have to steepen quickly. This flooding crisis has enabled her to carve out some autonomy away from her impatient and blustery brother. Managing the floods requires a day-to-day, hands-on operation that precludes the involvement of Thaksin.

But the challenge for Yingluck will come during the recovery and rebuilding aftermath. If ways can be found to institute a broad-based, post-crisis stimulus programme, she may not need her brother’s populism as much, and Thai economic growth can still clock a solid expansion with minimal slowdown in spite of global adversity. If her leadership is drowned out by the same floodwaters, her brother’s enemies and opponents will directly become hers.

Also, per VOA:

Economist Somphob Manarungsan says the government’s handling of the post flood recovery will be a key factor to its long term popularity.

“After the flooding calms down there will be the reconstruction,” said Somphob.  “That will be much more important. If the government has a clear policy, correct policy it may still maintain some popularity; but in the end they could not hand the post flooding crisis, well I think their credibility may be negatively affected.”

WSJ:

“Her results will be very high or very low—there is no barely passing grade,” said Michael Montesano at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “The key part of the test is how Ms. Yingluck handles the recovery.”

…

Chris Baker, a Bangkok-based author and political commentator, said it is “very difficult to tell” how the dice will land for Ms. Yingluck in the aftermath of the floods. “I think it’s still in the grasp of Ms. Yingluck and the government,” Mr. Baker said. “They could turn it against their critics.”

BP: Some comments below:

As the crisis has evolved this has led to criticism of her leadership and highlighted her political inexperience. It is still unsure whether the floods will turn out to be Yingluck’s Katrina as we are less than half-way through the crisis. The aftermath of the floods will be easier for the government to handle... This will put the onus on the Commerce and Industry Ministers, who have been overshadowed by the war room, as they negotiate compensation with business which will place further strain on the increasing budget deficit. The government will then face tough choices over what policies to delay or cut. In the short-term, the government’s popularity is likely to only deteriorate further in the months ahead unless they can turn around public opinion over their management of the crisis.

[The above is an excerpt - written on October 19 -  for an upcoming column BP has for Business Report Thailand - see older columns here ]

BP: Given the extremely poor performance in communication by FROC (the government’s flood war room) principally where they made predictions that very quickly were  proven wrong over the first 10 days of its operation after being established on October 7 – see here and here for some more details – this has meant that the government has likely lost segments of the public already, particularly in Bangkok. FROC has been criticized also by those close to the government including former Thai Rak Thai Minister Chaturon in a series of tweets last week. However, BP agrees with Achara who notes in the Bangkok Post on October 31:

Beset by criticisms over its handling of the flood crisis, the Yingluck Shinawatra government has streamlined its disaster management and fine-tuned its communications.

The move, however, appeared to have come too late to appease millions of residents in the capital who have been living with floodwater _ neck-deep in some areas _ for the past two weeks.

The adjustment in the way the government handles the situation has been slowly noticed, with the replacement of the Flood Relief Operation Command’s (Froc) spokesman team of young and little-known figures with more respected academics and professionals.

These new mouthpieces included Pramote Maiklad, a former irrigation department chief, Smith Dharmasarojana, a disaster information expert, Anond Snidvongs, a climate expert, and Thongthong Chandrangsu, a senior bureaucrat.

BP: A new ABAC poll surveying 1,457 people in Bangkok between October 28-29 finds 54.5% say FROC has improved, 34.2% say it is still the same, and 11.3% say it has got worse. Given the previous rating of just over 3.3, there is still a long way to go. Also, as the water has got closer to Bangkok, the BMA have also become involved so they are sharing the burden of predictions with FROC. The government has also become more dire, no more so than Yingluck’s national address last week which talked about a worse-case scenario where inner Bangkok could see water up to 1.5 metres in some areas.

However, problems keep on coming up for the government. More recently the government has come under pressure to explain why some MPs have imposed their names on vehicles which allegedly (say allegedly as the photos that have circulated online make it hard to tell the source of the contents in the vehicles – they could be arranged by Puea Thai or they may not have been)* although in the case of videos – such as this one with Thaksin’s name on a vehicle – BP doesn’t see that there is much doubt. Other videos are less clear, but require an explanation from the government such as this video from October 27 showing goods at what appears to be Don Muang airport. Now, it would make sense that the priority would be to evacuate people from Don Muang first and then goods, but this video more shows the problems of distributing goods than hoarding the goods as Post Today states because we don’t know from the video when the goods arrived and hence how long they have been sitting there. For example, for the  clothing that has yet to be distributed. Chamroen Yuttithamsakun, the PM’s Office inspector-general in the Bangkok Post explains:

He said the clothes shown in the video clip were waiting to be sent to Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy for laundering.

BP: If people were sent dirty clothing there would also be complaints so it needs to be washed, but you have to transport the dirty clothing and then wash it. The Thai government doesn’t move quickly the best of times so now you have making logistical arrangements with the army. This problem has been compounded as earlier it was a free-for-all with donations, but because of the photos with MPs putting their names on the trucks, the giving out of donated goods is now handled by at least two different agencies. Nevertheless, while there have been plenty of goods distributed so far, the government needs to assure the public that goods donated are not going to waste. The only way to do so here is to take a few journalists of a tour of Don Muang so they can see how many goods are left and what is happening about that. Further explanations are needed about what goods are received and what goods have been distributed and by whom.

btw, the reason for the disjointed quotes from Thitian is well want to include as much as BP can of Thitinan’s arguments, but to stick to fair use in excerpting articles.

*One could also ask the military the same question about what signs they put on their trucks…..