POLL: Do you believe anything was achieved after last week’s emergency session?

Asked about the effectiveness of last week’s emergency joint session to discuss the political impasse, most Thais believe the talkfest in the Thai Parliament was just a “stalling tactic”, buying time for the incumbent coalition government. The debate was held last Monday and Tuesday. There were no substantive motions coming from the 2 days of debate, merely the setting up a committee to “look into the protesters’ demands”.

The opinion survey was held by the Suan Dusit Poll and conducted over 3 days at the end of last week with a sample of 1,035 people across the country.

Respondents were able to select more than one of the responses (results rounded up to the nearest 0.1%).

• 54.4% say the conflict would remain unchanged
• 41.9% say it was only a government ploy to buy time which was unlikely to lead to any change
• 39% say the prime minister would not resign
• 32.3% say it was a political game
• 31.9% thought it was an attempt to find a way out
• 28.5% were of the opinion that MPs and senators should work together to find a concrete solution to the problem

But 57.2% believed that all parties had “shown their attitudes more clearly”, 43.9% said MPs were given a chance to voice their opinions and 36.5% say the government “had shown its stance in the conflict”.

34.8% were of the opinion that the conflict was likely to escalate.

A small majority of the respondents, 51.7%, were of the option that things will remain the same, but 35.4% believed the situation would “get worse”.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post