Three years – and three prime ministers – after it was first proposed, a multibillion-dollar “landbridge” across Thailand’s southern neck to slash transport times between Asia’s main shipping lanes has now hit a dead end, entangled in the kingdom’s intractable political crisis.
As Thais prepare to vote on February 8 for yet another government, southerners say the promise of a landbridge connecting the Gulf of Thailand to the Indian Ocean now feels empty.
“We put our resort up for sale when they announced it, but we’re about to have a fourth government, and they still haven’t even started,” said Rung*, a resort owner in Chumphon province that is at the heart of the proposed landbridge.
“All of the properties around me put up their land for sale as soon … but we’re all still waiting for buyers.”
On February 8, Thai voters will seek a reset from a decade-long decline that is showing up in poor economic fundamentals in part caused by the chronic political instability.
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