BANGKOK — Sheltering from rain near
Bangkok’s Grand Palace, scores of unemployed Thais queue alongside homeless
people waiting for free meals as 14-year-high inflation sends living costs
soaring — causing a headache for the government ahead of a looming general
election.
اضافة اعلان
The leadership
came to power eight years ago under
Prayut Chan-O-Cha, promising to provide
stability after long-running protests started to hit the kingdom’s economy.
However, it struggled to live up to its pledges and
the damage wrought by the pandemic on the travel industry has been compounded
by a global inflationary crisis that has sent prices rising beyond many
people’s reach.
And in a move seen as symbolic of the severity of
the situation but likely to cause more pain for consumers, the government
recently raised the price of instant noodles for the first time in more than a
decade after manufacturers agitated for a rise.
For those waiting in the rain, the impact is already
painfully clear.
“A few years ago, I was able to afford buying my own
food but now food is too expensive,” said Somchai, who only gave one name, and
who is unemployed.
“I couldn’t bear the prices, so I have to come out
and find food donation like this,” said the 42-year-old after he had collected
his meal.
A general election must be called by March, giving
the coalition government led by the military-friendly Palang Pracharat Party
(PPRP) little time to turn things around.
Unkept promises
Adding to PPRP’s woes,
Prayut was suspended from office last month while the Constitutional Court
decides whether he has reached his term limit as prime minister.
In a bid to ease the pain for struggling Thais, the
government has approved a proposal to raise the daily minimum wage to between
328 and 354 baht ($8.83 and $9.53) after earlier agreeing to extend a fuel tax
break.
But political analyst Napisa Waitoolkiat at Naresuan
University told AFP the measures were taken “for winning votes” but doubted
they would turn many voters around.
“The damage is beyond repair,” she said.
The economy looks set to be a major factor in the
election, and Napisa said voters would not forget the PPRP’s vows to improve
it.
“Yet, once they are in power, they cannot keep the promise,”
she said.
And while the minimum wage hike goes some way,
Thammasat University international business professor Pavida Pananond suggested
more was needed.
“What we now need to look at is more targeted policy
measures that would help alleviate the difficulty from rising living costs
among Thai lower-income households,” she said.
Growth remains sluggish — just 2.5 percent in the
second quarter, dragged by high inflation despite the return of foreign
visitors after the pandemic shutdowns.
“You will see that even the GDP growth rate of
Thailand is the slowest in the region,” Pavida said.
‘You cannot survive’
Pavida also warned that
price rises, like those of instant noodles, could be a precursor to further
hikes in foodstuff.
“For lower-income people, whose majority of income
is spent on food or energy, they would be even more impacted by this,” she
said.
Veerayuth Sae-ung, queueing to buy a noodle lunch in
central Bangkok, said his “way of eating has changed a lot”.
“I used to come down here and buy lunch like this
daily, but lately I just couldn’t afford to buy from stalls every day anymore,”
the 34-year-old said.
Greg Lange, co-founder of Bangkok Community Help
Foundation which distributes 500 meals a day, warned they were helping more and
more people.
“Even in spite of the rain, there are some times
that the line goes two or three blocks,” he said.
“I think it was already very hard for the elderly to
make ends meet,” his co-founder Friso Poldervaart added.
Poldervaart said many of the elderly people they
helped had lost touch with their families and were unable to survive on the
government support of between 600 and 1,000 baht a month.
“You cannot survive on that. That’s just the way it
is,” he said.
“So it was already hard, but of course with
increasing prices it just gets harder for everyone to make ends meet.”
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