Not long at all, it turns out.
For the past two weeks, the 72-year-old Samak has turned the spotlight on his past with comments that have shocked Thailand and focused heated debate on a massacre of student protesters three decades ago.
The prime minister publicly denied any role in the carnage of Oct. 6, 1976, and told CNN in a recent interview that only "one unlucky guy" was killed that day - even though historical records show that almost 50 perished.
"No deaths, one unlucky guy being beaten and being burned," Samak said of the death toll when asked about the incident.
"Only one guy died that day."
Violence was unleashed that day on leftist student demonstrators gathered to protest the return of the ousted prime minister-field marshal, Thanom Kittikachorn, one of the so-called Three Tyrants - national leaders who were removed by a student-led uprising in 1973.
Photographs and video footage from the time shows security forces and rightist paramilitary troops firing weapons into the campus of Thammasat University in Bangkok. Protesters were shot, beaten, hanged and set ablaze. Bodies were publicly mutilated. Some were dragged around the university's soccer field.
According to the official record, 46 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded. Some human rights groups and witnesses suggest the death toll was in the hundreds.
Samak's dismissal of one of the country's most traumatic events in recent decades sparked outrage among the public, academics and relatives of the victims.
It also prompted intense soul-searching in a country where talk of the 1976 massacre is all but taboo, partly because of the failure of any of the authorities to intervene to stop the brutal spectacle of Thais killing Thais.
Newspapers have seized on the incident to criticize Samak, academics have organized lectures to discuss the rarely mentioned subject, and Samak's remarks were brought up repeatedly during parliamentary policy debate last week.
Samak should be "ashamed" of "his insensitive, inflammatory and plainly inaccurate comments," The Bangkok Post, one of the country's main English-language newspapers, said in a Feb. 13 editorial. Samak "knows very well what went on because he played a key role."
Critics have said Samak's anti-Communist rhetoric on radio and at rallies at the time helped stoke sentiment that prompted the lynching of students. Samak - like others in the Thai establishment then - subscribed to a motto of the extreme right, "It's no sin to kill Communists."
As interior minister at the time, critics said, Samak had hundreds of "leftists" arrested in an anti-Communist witch hunt.
But Samak has repeatedly denied any involvement in the massacre, which came at a time when Indochina had fallen under Communist rule and Thailand was deeply polarized between right and left.
"Why did a murderer with blood on his hand receive more than a million votes?" Samak asked rhetorically during parliamentary debate last week, referring to his landslide election victory for Bangkok governor in 2000.
Analysts said Samak's controversial remarks, made so early, could undermine his tenure, threatening to turn even his allies against him.
"It has become a hot issue that might be a rallying point, bringing his current political allies and his opposition together," said Kanokrat Lertchoesakul, a professor at Chulalongkorn University. "It's an emotional issue for many people across today's political spectrum."
Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee and Chaturon Chaisaeng - allies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and now supporters of Samak - are among many contemporary politicians who were leftist student leaders in 1976.
On Saturday, Chaturon said Samak "should gather accurate information before speaking" about the incident.
Charnvit Kasetsiri, a former rector of Thammasat University and a historian, said Samak's clumsy remarks could provide the opportunity to re-examine "a traumatic history that hasn't healed," and force others who took part to answer for their crimes.
After the incident, an amnesty was issued that prevented any of those responsible for the massacre from being brought to justice.
"How many people in Thailand actually know about what happened then? It's not even in the history textbooks in our school curriculum," Charnvit said.
"The ruling elite want it forgotten because it goes against mainstream conservatism that is preferred in Thailand. But it reopened the wounds of many people who were there."
Source: IHT
Related Articles: The Nation : 'Damned if I was involved' The Nation : Historians reject PM's 'distortions'
Thought: And this is the man that they want leading the country?
