Thai Foreign Minister, Mr Kasit Piromya, has met with representatives of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and other German political foundations in Berlin. Mr Kasit invited the representatives of the foundations to directly engage in the reform processes in his country. He said that Thailand was in a phase of "education on democracy". This process lends itself to cooperation between Thai civil society and democracy promoters from abroad, he explained. Thai civil society needs to be strengthened and the problem of corruption in Thai politics needs to be tackled effectively. Village councils must play a greater role and the cooperation between the elected bodies needs improvement. During the meeting, Mr Kasit also asked for input from the foundation representatives regarding their work in Thailand. Dr. Christian Taaks, Head of the Asia Department of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, who was also present, then described the foundation´s cooperation with partners in Thailand. Mr Taaks said that this cooperation could be extended to the ASEAN inter-governmental or trilateral level. Also present during the meeting was Busaya Mathelin, the Director-General of the Department of European Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand.

The headquarters of Democrat Party of Indonesia was recently visited by the youngest member of Netherland’s political party, D66. What is it exactly that they have in common and what makes both parties interested in knowing more about the background and political system of their countries?

In the Westminster-style parliamentary tradition of democracy, with a first-past-the-post electoral system, the candidate who wins his constituency is the one who will represent the people in parliament. He or she is “the winner who takes it all”. General elections in such polities usually translate the people’s will into comfortable majorities in legislative chambers. This is so despite the fact that often only about 35 to 40 % of all voters elected this “winner” (or winning party) and is still short of a majority.