Prayut must stay on as PM until problems solved: survey

Of 626 community leaders surveyed, 63.6 per cent want Prayut to continue in his post till the problems facing the country are solved.

Another 7.7 per cent said they would give him time to work one more year, 14.9 per cent would like him to continue working for two years, 5.8 per cent wanted him to work for another three years, and 8 per cent said he should continue working for four years.

Assoc Prof Chet Ratchadapannathikul, chairman of the Thai Researchers in Community Happiness Association, said the survey showed the Prayut government and the National Council for Peace and Order receiving a job approval rating of 8.5 out of 10.

The government work that received the highest score was promoting His Majesty the King's sufficiency principle, with a score of 8.68, followed by the state subsidy to rubber farmers - at Bt1,000 per rai with a maximum of 15 rai - with a score of 8.39.

The high score for the subsidy for rubber farmers came despite reports that leaders of rubber farmers had expressed disappointment, and had attacked the scheme as only a short-term remedy. They have called on the government to provide sustainable solutions to plummeting rubber prices, for instance, by establishing an industry to buy rubber instead of solely relying on exports.

Other projects mentioned in the survey that received relatively high scores were the debt moratorium for poor farmers; supporting poor people with vision disability; establishing industrial and agricultural zones; the achievements of the PM by attending the Asia-Europe Meeting Summit in Italy and that he was able to get the world community to understand the situation in Thailand.

Others were developing rail lines between cities, developing highways to link production bases with other countries, developing land transport networks to reduce traffic congestion and projects to increase air transport potential and to boost water transport networks. The survey was conducted from October 25-31.

 

The Sunday Nation November 2, 2014 1:00 am