Wondering why Thailand's vaccine procurement strategy has turned out to be a disaster, and why the regime is so paranoid about criticism of the plan? The issue is too sensitive for local media to fully report. Here comes a THREAD with the full story #WhatsHappeningInThailand 1/24
The backdrop to the saga is the crisis facing the monarchy. Following the death of King Bhumibol, royal legitimacy has imploded due to the antics of King Vajiralongkorn, who spent the first nine months of the pandemic living in a luxury hotel in Bavaria with a large harem. 2/24
The palace has been desperately trying to create propaganda showing the royals working hard to combat the coronavirus crisis, but this has been very difficult because in fact Vajiralongkorn and his family have done nothing useful. reuters.com/article/us-hea 3/24
reuters.com
There were announcements about Vajiralongkorn donating medical equipment, but we don't know who really paid for it, and it's not a sensible national strategy to rely on random donations from the king. Equipment procurement needs to be coordinated. pattayamail.com/featured/their 4/24
Meagre bags of supplies were also delivered to poor communities in Bangkok from time to time. Recipients had to pose for propaganda photos with portraits of the king, and had to treat the bags like sacred artefacts, not letting them touch the ground. 5/24
Here's
video of Channel 3 royal correspondent Malinee Wanthong badgering an
elderly couple to hold up a picture of the king and express their
gratitude to the palace. Very unprofessional behaviour, obviously no
real journalist would behave like this 6/24
Meanwhile, after hearing that French luxury goods conglomerate LVHM had converted three of its perfume factories to produce hand sanitiser, Sirivannavari decided it would be good PR for her eponymous brand to do the same. But actually her company has no perfume factories. 7/24
So Sirivannavari got Chulangkorn hospital to make the sanitiser, put her own branding on it, and promoted this pointless stunt by posting photographs on social media showing her dressed as a doctor and her beloved Yorkshire terrier Princess Perfume wearing a nurse's hat. 8/24
During a visit to Thailand of less than 24 hours on April 6, 2020, Vajiralongkorn and Suthida posed for photographs showing Suthida making one face mask, as Vajiralongkorn watched and servants and soldiers crawled on the floor. 9/24
This royal face mask was also treated like some kind of holy relic, and was officially received by PM Prayut in a special ceremony the following month. To repeat: it was one face mask. One. 10/24
สมเด็จพระนางเจ้าฯ พระบรมราชินี พระราชทานหน้ากากผ้าฝีพระหัตถ์แก่นายกฯ - BBC News ไทย
ผู้ช่วยราชเลขานุการในพระองค์ พระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว เชิญหน้ากากผ้าฝีพระหัตถ์ สมเด็จพระนางเจ้าฯ พระบรมราชินี พระราชทานแก่ พล.อ.ประยุทธ์ จันทร์โอชา นายกรัฐมนตรี และคณะ
Needless to say, all these ridiculous propaganda efforts did nothing to boost the collapsing reputation of the palace, especially given all the negative headlines about Vajiralongkorn's luxury quarantine arrangements in a luxury hotel with a harem of women. 11/24
By the second half of 2020, the reputation of the monarchy had never been worse. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca was looking for partners to produce its vaccine. In Thailand, there were talks with the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, Bionet Asia and Siam Bioscience 12/24
Palace and government officials thought if they portrayed the vaccine as coming from a firm owned by Vajiralongkorn and founded during Bhumibol's reign, this would be great for propaganda — the monarchy rescuing Thailand once again with its generosity, foresight and wisdom. 13/24
So they ensured Siam Bioscience alone got the deal with AstraZeneca to produce the vaccine, and they ignored other possible vaccine sources. They didn't want to use foreign-made vaccines or accept help from other countries because they wanted to glorify the king. 14/24
They accepted two million Sinovac doses from China, because they didn't want to be rude to Beijing, but they ignored an offer from India completely. The story they wanted was a royal company saving Thailand, not foreign countries helping Thailand. 15/24
The fingerprints of the palace are all over the Siam Bioscience project. Siam Cement is helping it build a bigger production facility. National Vaccine Institute director Nakhon Premsri says the vaccine is being made according to "Rama IX philosophy" 16/24
Instead of using a professional comms team, Siam Bioscience has been using Sirivannavari's friend Nualphan "Madam Pang" Lamsam as "honorary director of communications". She is regularly photographed crawling at the feet of the princess. 17/24
Here's the kind of propaganda that Nualphan was been putting in Siam Bioscience press releases. But the plan has now gone disastrously wrong and the debacle is likely to do even more damage to the reputation of the monarchy and the regime. 18/24
The
earliest Siam Bioscience can start production is June, and my sources
say it may actually be months later. An initial batch of 150,000
AstraZeneca doses was due from Europe on February 14 but is now
indefinitely delayed due to production problems. 19/24
Meanwhile, neighbouring countries like Myanmar are already vaccinating frontline workers with AstraZeneca doses received from India. Thailand can't even say when inoculations will start. King Vajiralongkorn is reportedly furious about the mess. 20/24
This is why the regime is so paranoid about it, and why they charged Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit with lese majeste and demanded that he completely remove legitimate questions about vaccine strategy from all social media. 21/24
Initially they wanted the palace to get all the credit for getting the Thai population vaccinated, but now the whole thing has turned into a total shitshow they are paranoid about the king's anger and trying to erase all criticism that makes the monarchy look bad. 22/24
So because of the stupidity of the Thai regime and the need for propaganda to boost the palace, the government chose a terrible strategy for procurement of vaccines which will cause more damage to the country. Even regime supporter Bill Heinecke is appalled. 23/24
Instead of focusing on just vaccinating the population as cheaply and quickly as possible, they also tried to glorify Vajiralongkorn, and the result is a disaster. More details in the latest edition of my newsletter #SecretSiam 24/24
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