Choonhavan remarked that it was not so much the sale of Shin Corp to Temasek itself which sparked the anger of Thais but Thaksin's refusal to pay tax on the transaction. If he had paid taxes on the THB 73 billion (SGD 3.1 billion) deal, that would have diffused a lot of criticism but he was too greedy and stuck by the letter of the law at great political cost. Limthongkul added that it might have been more difficult to resist Thaksin if he had slowly eaten up Thailand's wealth rather than trying to swallow so much over such a short period of time.

Both speakers also expressed frustration at Western governments' silence over Thaksin's complicity in extra-judicial killings in the South of "so-called drug traffickers", the human rights violations in the military police's handling of the insurgency in the three Southern provinces and the way Thaksin rode roughshod over the liberal guarantees of the 1997 Constitution. Limthongkul argued that although Thaksin had a democratic mandate, his behaviour was not in accord with democratic norms; he accused Thaksin of being a tyrant with a democratic mask. "The bl**dy irony of the whole d*mned situation," he said his colourful style, "was that we had the best constitutioni but the worst possible leader!"

Firstly, no freedom of expression under Thaksin; he himself had been charged with 44 counts including lese majeste (discussing reform of the monarchy), disturbing the peace (organizing peaceful demonstrations allowed under Art 44 of the Constitution) and treason (for calling upon Thaksin to resign due to corruption).

Secondly, no freedom of speech; Thaksin controlled most of the media companies and that opposition could only communicate with the public through satellite and the internet. Local satellite receivers had been pressured to stop re-broadcasting to their areas via cable but were forced to resume when subscribers started cancelling their subscriptions in protest. The ICT Ministry had tried to get ISPs to stop providing internet service to websites outside of Thailand and Limthongkul alleged that hackers had tried to attack his websites and their IP addresses had been traced back to Shin Corp.

Thirdly, no neutrality of the state apparatus; Thaksin had packed the Constitutional Court, electoral and anti-corruption commissions with his supporters as well as the regional governors down to the local district officers. Those who were not in his camp were intimidated, threatened or harrassed. In response to event chair Dr Jason Abbott's first question about why there was no other way to replace Thaksin other than the coup, Limthongkul said that he and many others had been struggling for almost 13 months through protest marches of hundreds of thousands, a radio talk show (eventually shut down), petitions to Thaksin, Senate enquiries into human rights violations to the extent that he had almost bankrupted his own companies. "Where were you!?" he thundered, "When I went down to the ground and had to eat grass? When I was living with the fear for my life? WHERE WERE YOU!? And now suddenly all of you are b*tching about the military!"

Fourthly, he felt that a proper democracy required a well educated population that could properly understand issues. This last point brought heated responses from Dr Andrew Walker as well as a former LSE Thai Society president (whose name escaped me due to my ignorance of the Thai language). They accused Limthongkul of elitism and argued that ordinary farmers and peasants did understand the pros and cons of Thaksin's government, in fact they often simply took money from all the parties and voted for whom they wanted anyway. Limthongkul was adamant that the rural people had been fooled by Thaksin, giving examples of how they failed to link the deterioration of their livelihoods, particularly the collapse in prices of garlic, onions and flowers, to the FTA that Thaksin had signed with China. He also talked about how the anti-poverty measures for rural areas so lauded by the West was actually a sham but that the rural people often did not realize it either.

Choonhaven and Limthongkul were clearly unhappy about how the Western media, like the Economist, had repeatedly praised Thaksin's rural credit scheme. Limthongkul emphasized that the money was lent and not given to the poor. He said that much of these funds were channelled through a monopoly held by Thaksin-related company, Ok Credit, and many farmers were over-charged interest (12 - 24% per annum). Similarly those who took housing credit were forced to take housing insurance from a friend of Thaksin company at rates that were allegedly 80% higher than the market rate. Thus Thaksin's business associates make profit at the expense of the rural poor and Thaksin himself gained popularity but foreign correspondents did not investigate how rural funds were exploited and siphoned off. A retired British diplomat agreed that the quality of coverage of Thai issues had become appallingly superficial and the clearest symptom was the shutting down of the BBC's Thai service which had been the only news organization keeping the Thai people informed during the 1992 disturbances - though Choonhaven did give credit to the BBC's website for prominently displaying stories about human rights violations in the South.

The role of the king was also discussed with both speakers pouring scorn on Peter M. Handley's The King Never Smiles. Choonhaven rubbished the idea that the King was seen as a demi-god; Thai people recognized that he was a human being but one who was worthy of great respect due to the many contributions he had made to country of his sixty years reign. Limthongkul argued that the King was not perfect and had made mistakes but that his positive contributions vastly outweighed his errors; he also said that the monarchy should be reformed as an institution but did not indicate what kind of reforms were needed.

The seminar was supposed to be two hours but overran to three. While there was some force in the speakers' arguments that a real democracy needed a liberal political environment for elections to have meaning, there is also the argument that the procedural legitimacy conferred by elections is important and challenging that undermines the social contract of political intercourse without resort to coercion or violence. There was also a sense that the speakers represented the old elite (Senator Kraisak Choonhaven is the son of former prime minister Chatchai Choonhaven) and capitalist class that were being challenged and displaced by the new elite and capitalist (telecoms and TV) class represented by Thaksin - in this sense, the coup looks like class struggle between old and new bourgeois as well as between different factions of the army and police. Beside the irony of the military delivering liberals from Thaksin's new authoritarianism, we seem to have liberals arguing that rewriting constitutions and having elections should not be the focus of building a really-existing democracy.