0		Making, Sure, People, are, Aware, What, Government, Doing

The Nation on the government's PR campaign:

A performance report will be released on August 3 along with the launch of a month-long publicity campaign. One of the highlights of this campaign will be the free 15-year compulsory education that the government has implemented nationwide. The campaign will be publicised on newspapers, billboards, community radio stations and two books that will be distributed widely.

About 10,000 copies of the first book, "Six Months, 100 Measures, 10 Million Happiness", will be handed out to media, MPs and senators. As for the second book - an easy-to-read version titled "Stories from the Fence: Thai People's Happiness is the Government's Goal" - about 200,000 copies will be printed and distributed to the public through village funds, school libraries, universities and government banks.

BP: There was some outrage over Thaksin's use of state resources to promote the government (see here and here) although don't expect much complaint this time around. To be honest, this is not that unusual in many western countries. That is the advantage of incumbency just like a poor economy is the disadvantage (ie the govt of the day gets blamed).

Not exactly sure how successful the government's approach will be. The government has taken too much of a scatter-gun approach hence people are not aware of specifically what the Democrats have done. Given some of these policies are just about to be/have just been implemented, it would seem better to publicize them in 3-6 months time. Nevertheless, the government may not have enough time and is worried about the stability of the government.