PHUKET: Loy Kratong is one of the great Thai festivals, marking the change each November from the wet monsoons to the dry months of the tourism high season.

This year, on Phuket and especially in Bangkok, this coming week's ceremonies will be tinged with deep poignancy and significance.

Traditionally, Loy Kratong is a time for romantics. Lovers especially craft hand-made kratongs from banana leaves and cast the the tiny vessels adrift on oceans, lakes and lagoons.

Flowers, lit candles, coins and incense usually sail with every kratong. So do hopes and prayers for the future.

The residents of Bangkok will not have to travel far to find water on which to launch their kratongs next week. This year, water laps on many doorsteps.

The fervent collective wish for the future will be a return to a prosperous normal existence, before Loy Kratong 2012.

Thailand's dry provinces are now being paired for aid with areas of Bangkok and its surroundings that are under water. Phuket has been twinned with Klong Sam Wa, a floodbound district in the path of the massive northern run-off.

Here, just a few days ago, hundreds of residents rallied to the sluice gates and demanded that authorities end their torture by water. Sledgehammers were used, the Bangkok Post reported, to try to demolish one floodgate.

After local officials agreed to lift the sluice to 80 centimetres, the crowd dispersed. Within the Klong Sam Wa region, the residents probably have several more weeks of torment to endure.

From Phuket, it would be easy to find scapegoats among the politicians and administrators, whose reputations have been sinking as the waters rise. The truth is that the blame extends back through many successive governments.

The short-term gain is an intrinsic part of Thailand's politics. But politicians alone are not to blame.

What if, back at the national elections in June, a wise political party had offered to build a floods protection system for Bangkok and beyond? Would that party have drawn deserving votes?

Or would the nation have voted, as it did anyway, for the party that offered the highest minimum wage and made the most extravagant promises?

Thailand's modern governments have always been blinded by Bangkok. And sadly, any nation that fails to see the need for development to be spread, for perfectly logical reasons, beyond one big city is doomed to mediocrity.

Whichever government sits in power over the next 12 months must heed the call of the people to turn away from the politics of promises to commonsense, from short-term thinking to long-term planning.

Between this week's Loy Kratong and next year's ceremony, Phuket has a key role to play in retaining Thailand's reputation as a safe and secure destination for international tourism.

In return, we suggest that a real government for all of Thailand must bluntly address the issue of chronic corruption on Phuket, provide Phuket with a real public transport system, and in future consider sending IT industries south, for safety's sake.

At Loy Kratong this week, the message will be plain both in wet Bangkok and on dry Phuket: we are all in the same boat. We must sail on, united.