The Nation UNSC vote is not a referendum on Thailand's world standing

Pornpimol Kanchanalak, nationmultimedia.com

Image fom article, with caption: The 193 members of the United Nations General Assembly at the headquarters in New York on Tuesday elected Sweden, Bolivia, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan to UNSC.

After 7 wasted years, current government cannot be blamed for failure to win a seat

Excerpt:

In the next few days, the medias [sic] here in Thailand is likely to be awash with self-anointed international sages swinging at the current Thai government for having lost the bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. ...

The current Thai government and the Foreign Ministry knew full well the high hurdles in the UN bid to compensate for lost time and opportunities, but it had the sportsman's spirit not to quit the race in the middle. With a much smaller budget, compared to that of the oil-rich Kazakhstan to spend on the campaign, the Thai Foreign Ministry attempted to do a double duty with the budget; it tried to carry out public diplomacy at every campaign stop. The strategy and the face-to-face contacts have improved Thailand's relations with many nations around the world. ...

Regarding the issue of human rights, those who care to check will find out that the issue has little or no relevance in the consideration for the Security Council seat. And on this issue, Thailand is not the worse of the two countries.

Lastly, contrary to the criticism that Thailand was shunned by Western countries due to the military government, countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Australia, expressed their support for Thailand without any misgivings about the country's military leadership.

It is said that success has a thousand fathers, and failure has none. Like in any race, there is winner and loser, but Thailand can take pride in having played fair and by the rules in this campaign. The most important aspect of a race is to take part.

And taking part was what Thailand did.