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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Thailand: Political and economic insecurityIt's exactly one year since Thailand introduced a military rule to replace what the local generals saw as inefficient and corrupt civilian regime. New elections will be held in December that will hopefully put and end to this military regime. It's, however, already obvious that the new regime won't be up to the western standards of liberal democracy; building from the beginning a hybrid regime may only make more probable an eventual new military intervention in the political process. At the same time, Thailand is beginning to suffer from the global financial turmoil; despite the good economic performance, foreign investors see it as a risky country, unusually high exposed to instability. A year ago the military in Thailand performed something they know very well how to do, toppling down a civilian government, by promising better governance, better law and order, and less corrupt administration. Having the political support by the monarch, the military regime had no problems of establishing legitimacy among the local population. For the people, it's the king that symbolizes the national sovereignty and unity, not the parliament, and for sure not the people's elected politicians. Adding to this the promise of restoration of the democratic regime within a year was enough not to bring the country on the verge of a civil war. On the contrary, it seemed that the coup produced a hefty dose of political normalization. One year later, the regime representatives wear civilian suits. The promise to call for free parliament election has been postponed up until December. This is the good side of the story; the bad side is that the regime promises also not to allow 'bad old politicians' to take power. It isn't quite clear how a democracy can work having certain citizens and parties unable to compete for power? Either they will be disfranchised and then the democracy will be a sham; or they will be allowed to compete, but will be held constantly under the threat of another military coup, which will also make the democracy in Thailand only a sham. The new political liberalization, if genuine, promises to be short, and the basic question of political stability in Thailand will continue to haunt the local people as well as the foreign investors. Another sign of malaise in Thailand bears the marks of economic instability. To be honest, comparatively the local economy is doing rather well, worst than China or India, to be more precise, but close to the world average, which is significantly higher than most developed countries can boast nowadays. There are, however, signs that Thailand may be suffering from the global financial turmoil, not directly, but via the channels of interrelated financial streams, that make certain projects conditioned upon freeing some financial resources from other parts of the world. The political instability, unfortunately, won't help to dissipate these fears. Just a friendly reminder: the Asian financial crisis of 1997 was partly due to the perception of political instability; as a coincidence it started in Thailand.
Thailand country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Thailand.
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