The reason that Thailand gets a better “democracy score” is because it is more closely aligned with the US and has a more liberal (read: more open to corruption and to being bought off by western monopolies) economic system than its ASEAN neighbors.
You should never take the rhetoric about “democracy” at face value, because in almost every single case whenever a party or a movement in the global south brands itself as “pro-democracy” that is just code for “pro-western” and likely receiving NED (CIA) funding.
I have not heard anything about this veto by the military in Thailand (last i heard the PM was sworn into office earlier this month) but i can tell you that things are not always that simple. It depends strongly on the orientation of the military establishment whether what they are doing when they interfere helps to protect or impede democracy.
For instance if the military intervened to prevent a western backed puppet from taking power, that is in the interest of the people and helps preserve democracy in the long run by preventing a loss of sovereignty. You cannot have democracy when your government is a puppet of the West.
Whether or not someone “won” elections does not tell us much without looking deeper into how the political and electoral system works and more importantly what the media environment was like leading up to the elections. If the media is overwhelmingly dominated by pro-Western liberals, owned by pro-Western oligarchs or outright controlled by the West, then they can disseminate a huge amount of propaganda and brainwash the population into voting against their own best interest.
The reason that Thailand gets a better “democracy score” is because it is more closely aligned with the US and has a more liberal (read: more open to corruption and to being bought off by western monopolies) economic system than its ASEAN neighbors.
You should never take the rhetoric about “democracy” at face value, because in almost every single case whenever a party or a movement in the global south brands itself as “pro-democracy” that is just code for “pro-western” and likely receiving NED (CIA) funding.
I have not heard anything about this veto by the military in Thailand (last i heard the PM was sworn into office earlier this month) but i can tell you that things are not always that simple. It depends strongly on the orientation of the military establishment whether what they are doing when they interfere helps to protect or impede democracy.
For instance if the military intervened to prevent a western backed puppet from taking power, that is in the interest of the people and helps preserve democracy in the long run by preventing a loss of sovereignty. You cannot have democracy when your government is a puppet of the West.
Whether or not someone “won” elections does not tell us much without looking deeper into how the political and electoral system works and more importantly what the media environment was like leading up to the elections. If the media is overwhelmingly dominated by pro-Western liberals, owned by pro-Western oligarchs or outright controlled by the West, then they can disseminate a huge amount of propaganda and brainwash the population into voting against their own best interest.