Around seven in the morning, the daily news rings through the rural countryside via massive loudspeakers mounted on concrete utility poles. Throughout the day, there will be information such as election results, updates on the Royal family, and village meetings sent through the system.
Election Day was drawing near when I arrived in Thailand; a good opportunity to put the loudspeakers to work. This time, mounted on the top of trucks covered in campaign posters, the sound went mobile.
Every hour or so, I detected a faint noise in the mountain valley, which slowly became louder and louder, until the deafening sound passed by our front gate. The use of loudspeakers, along with vote-buying, seems to be the preferred method of campaigning around Mae On village.
Talking with local people, around 400 baht (around 12 dollars), seemed to be the going rate for the two biggest political parties. The local people we spoke with, to took the money, but did not vote for the party who coughed up the cash.
I wondered why vote-buying wasn’t exposed by the media since it was widely known by the public. The most common answer I got – the media would be in big trouble if they decided to report on this without concrete evidence, and currently, the people are not willing to come forward if there is media involved. So today in Thailand, as in many other developing countries, vote-buying stands.
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