Thailand reassures trade partners
TEXT OF STORY
LISA NAPOLI: How do you assure the world that all’s well in your country a month after a coup? You send your newly-installed prime minister on the road to visit trading partners. Thailand’s new chief is visiting the Philippines today. From Manila, Miranda Kennedy reports.
MIRANDA KENNEDY: The very presence of Thailand’s new military leader has got the Philippine government worried.
Earlier this year, the president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo, nearly lost her job in a coup, so Benito Lim, a professor at Ateneo De Manila University, says Arroyo probably wont discuss how the Thai military leader came to power when she meets him today.
BENITO LIM [translated]: They will not talk about the coup. I think President Arroyo would rather not talk about it. Would you, if you were President Arroyo?
He says President Arroyo knows her end is nigh. Much of the military is against her, though the senior officers who attempted to overthrow Arroyo’s government in February are now in custody.
Lim predicts Arroyo will be pushed out democratically after next year’s elections.
Not only has she been charged with corruption and election rigging, she’s also failed to turn the Philippine economy around.
In Manila, I’m Miranda Kennedy for Marketplace.
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