Thailand’s interim government might havecometo power without firing a shot, but the bigbang it inflicted onconfidence inDecember will resonate formany months to come.

The poorly executed and badly communicated attempt to defend the baht from speculators—even if it was under circumstances markedly different from the disaster of 1997 —illustrates justhowdifficult it is for policymakers to hold back the tide of globalisation.

It’s a reality that the interim administration top-heavy with technocrats needs to bear in mindas it charts theway forward before handing back the reins to elected politicians. Meanwhile, the country facesmanymore months of political drift. The considerable goodwill that greeted the arrival of the military-installed government has been tested severely. Perhaps public expectations were too high.

Our current unelected leaders are betting the houseon a single big idea—the sufficiency economyand all it entails. The goal is sustainable growth, rather than consumption-fuelled growth for growth’s sake aspromoted by the deposed Thaksin Shinawatra regime. In the short time the interim government has given itself, can it sell the idea to the public?Can it put a constitutional framework in place that its successors will be duty-bound to follow instead of subvert asMrThaksin did? Perhaps the lesson to be learned from the past year is not to expect toomuchfrom leaders, but to take charge of our ownpersonal destinies as bestwecan.