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POLITICS ALSO MILLIONAIRE IN THAILAND, GENERAL SONTHI BOONYARATKALIN ASSETS WORTH MILLIONS US DOLLARS


How can somebody who made all his career in the military be millionaire ?

Only General Sonthi Booonyaratkalin, the man who overthrew Thailand's billionaire prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra last year on corruption charges has the reply.

According to the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) Sonthi and his family have a net worth of almost 100 million baht (almost 3 millions dollars), but this is nothing surprising in Thailand.

General Sonthi was obligated to disclose his family's personal assets to the NCCC upon taking up his current government post as deputy prime minister last month, because even in Thailand this kind of obligation exists, the only difference being that the control of declarations isn't as strict as in America or in Europe.

It's just surprising that the general who led the coup d'etat to topple former premier Thaksin on charges of mass corruption is millionaire himself, but as sometimes in Europe or America, despite their small salaries, many of Thailand's politics are millionaires, a phenomenon that can sometimes be explained by the top military's propensity to marry into wealth, or by other means as corruption.

So most of the politics and generals are millionaires in Thailand, and the situation is far to change, as most of the candidates running for the next December election also are rich and maybe not ready to abandon the power.