ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the attempt of one brickyard owner, a member of the Brick Manufacturers' Association, to become kamnan of Ban Thung subdistrict. The chairman of the Brick Manufacturers' Association, Kamnan Damrong, offered to help Han's campaign at a BMA meeting a month before polling. The election was a contest between local elites and gave no opportunity for poorer residents to gain formal representation. The poor perceived the social distance between themselves and the candidates and in particular Han, as an insurmountable gulf. Han was identified with powerful, essentially repressive forces such as the police. The poor rejected an explanation popular among officials, richer villagers and urban dwellers for the prevalence of vote buying. The case study has illustrated the heterogeneity that characterizes the practice of vote buying and that makes it so difficult to generalize about. The motives of those who seek public office are highly complex and a crude materialist interpretation inevitably reduces a much more interesting reality.
