one of my fav politicians

IN REMEMBERANCE: Samak Sundaravej - always marching to his own drum
By Pornpimol Kanchanalak
Published on November 26, 2009


"Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew and dog will have his day." (Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1.A Churchyard)


Whatever ambiguity this passage may convey, Samak Sundaravej, Thailand's 25th Prime Minister - an ardent cat lover - may have known precisely what it meant.


On January 29, 2008, the day he was sworn in as the 25th prime minister of Thailand, the country saw a man so defiant, turned unreservedly triumphant. Nobody ever believed he would reach the pinnacle of political life, he said, looking straight into the news cameras during his brief press statement after the swearing in ceremony; he had proved them all wrong.


The expression on Samak's face that day was not disparate from the expression of Barack Obama that the world saw on January 20, 2009 as the new US president walked in the bright sunshine towards the podium on the steps of the Capitol where he would be sworn in. Before he took the first stride of that monumental walk, he buttoned his jacket, straightened his back, raised his chin slightly, and took a deep breath, savouring every breath of air he took in. It was his moment, imprinted not only on the memory, but much deeper inside.


Perhaps not unlike Obama - whose critics predicted there was nowhere else for his political stock to go from that day forward but south - Samak Sundaravej saw his misfortune as a politician and prime minister grow exponentially during his turbulent five months in office. His political demise and his eventual exit as premier were forced by a ruling of the Constitutional Court over his cooking show. The affairs of the pantry were always just another one of his passions.


Samak's political life was never a one-act play, but a lengthy and colourful drama. Throughout his life, his friends and foes, admirers and haters, could always agree on one thing about the man: Unlike most politicians, Samak always spoke his mind. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He was known as the man with the golden tongue who wooed more than a million votes from Bangkokians to win the 2000 gubernatorial race with a historic landslide. His tongue was not always forked.


Unlike some politicians who are known to take revenge on a hostile press by spearheading sponsorship boycotts to cut off media lifelines, Samak was not known to ever consider that path. Perhaps it was the journalist/commentator in him that made him more benign towards the press - or maybe taking revenge was not part of his constitution. Samak simply slugged it out and butted heads with the press in front of a full audience and in broad daylight. In hindsight, he was truly an amazing breath of fresh air. But at the time, many felt embarrassed for him and for his office.


As a man who many believed was at least partly responsible for the brutal massacre of demonstrators during the October 1976 unrest, Samak, until the very end, maintained that only one or a few people died on that day and that he was not responsible. Such is his view that did not conform to the factual accounts of what transpired at the time. But there is no doubt that Samak truly believed his own words to be the case. There was no doubt that he ever questioned his statement at the time that there was an underground tunnel at Thammasat University, the hotbed of the demonstration. And that only one Thai was killed, and the rest were Vietnamese.


In his first act as prime minister, Samak defiantly declared that he would bring back, in full grace, the man many believe was the bona fide boss of the People's Power Party, which Samak chaired. Samak must have known full well that this move was not going to be popular, given the strong outcry in some quarters over the serious misdeeds of the fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the heated political debate over the issue. But Samak did it without a blink. To him, it was nothing more than something that had to be done, so he figured he might as well do it sooner rather than later. And he did it in the best fashion he knew how - in your face.


But there is more to the man who many loved to loathe.


"There is something about cat lovers," said an American who introduced her friend - the syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer - to Samak when he was the Bangkok governor, to discuss Geyer's book on cats. "They are kind and humane." She recalled her meeting with Samak and coming away with a fond impression of the man she and her friend had met. "He was very intelligent and funny," she said. "And he had eleven cats!"


Maybe he should have stayed in retirement and enjoyed going to the Sunday market for grocery shopping and food tasting. Maybe he should have spent the remaining days of his life making cookery shows, raising more cats and writing more books about them. After all, Geyer credited him as being one of most knowledgeable people in the world when it came to feline matters.


One can see how happy and decent Samak was as a man when he enjoyed all the non-political and mundane things he held close to his heart. Maybe he should not have answered to the call of politics during his twilight years, particularly that last "call to duty" that would eventually cause his ultimate demise as a public figure. But then again, maybe he could not help it. Maybe it was meant to be, all along.


But if there is one thing true about Samak Sundaravej rather than him being just a controversial political figure - he was not one-dimensional. It may be unfair to give just one simple definition of a man and how he lived his life and who he was. Nonetheless, if one is to try to apply one to Samak Sundaravej - the 25th prime minister of Thailand - it could be "chutzpah".


He had more than his fair share of it. And it is something that is worth remembering and honouring.

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