Over the weekend, alcohol sales in Thailand were suspended due to pre-elections. The same will be the case next Friday till Sunday midnight when the actual elections are scheduled.
The measures makes sense, considering that recruiting sailors soldiers used to be done by filling them up, letting them enlist while they were hammered and then the next morning they found themselves sailing the seas; and those were not the ones of cheese. And that’s about all about it which makes sense.
A claim by various groups ever since the last coup d’état has been to restore ‘genuine democracy’ in Thailand. The question must arise how ‘genuine’ a cracy can be which consists of a demo which values its right to vote so little that it sways to the ballot boxes and let’s Bacchus lead their hands in such decisions? And how must their maturity be evaluated – a key element of democracy – if such a measure can keep them from stocking up the days preceding the ban and still turn up rat-faced?
Maybe patronizing the electorate like this is what leads to increased alcohol consumption before elections – in light that people realize their suffrage is about legitimizing rules and not about participation. Who could blame them for despairing over that and hitting the bottle?
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