Anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban waves to supporters as the protesters move away from a month-long occupation of the city’s main park and march to the prime minister’s office compound in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday, May 12. The battle for who holds Thailand’s seat of power took on a new twist Monday as Suthep planned to set up his office at the vacated Government House while the country’s new caretaker leader worked from a makeshift, suburban outpost. (AP Photo)
BANGKOK, May 12 (Reuters): Six months of political turmoil has created Thailand’s biggest ever crisis, the leader of the country’s Senate said on Monday, amid calls from anti-government protesters for a new interim prime minister after Yingluck Shinawatra was ousted last week.
Yingluck’s caretaker government has remained in office since the Constitutional Court ordered her and nine cabinet colleagues to step down over a nepotism case. It is hoping to organise a July election it would likely win. But the protesters say the entire administration has lost legitimacy and want to replace it with a “neutral” interim prime minister who would oversee electoral reforms aimed at keeping Yingluck and her brother, ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, out of power.
Former telecommunications tycoon Thaksin, who was overthrown in a coup in 2006, won huge support in the north and northeast with pro-poor policies but was he was increasingly seen as a challenge to the Bangkok-based royalist establishment. Newly elected Senate Speaker Surachai Liengboonlertchai called a special session on Monday hoping to draw up a plan to end the crisis. “At this moment, the Senate is the main institution that can solve Thailand’s political crisis. Thailand is facing its biggest crisis right now,” Surachai told reporters.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy Prime Minister in a government run by the pro-establishment Democrat Party, has called on the upper house Senate, the judiciary and Election Commission to step in and appoint a new prime minister. “We will discuss how to draw up a road map to get Thailand out of this situation,” said Senate leader Surachai. “A neutral prime minister has not yet been discussed as part of the road map.”
“NOT PLANNING A COUP”
The latest phase of a nearly decade-long struggle between Thaskin and the establishment has damaged Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy and has even raised fear of civil war.
The military, which has intervened frequently in politics in the past, has stayed out this time despite calls from some pro-establishment forces for it to oust the pro-Thaksin government. “Military heads have never mentioned a neutral prime minister and this is not something they plan to get involved in,” Winthai Suvaree, a spokesman for the army, told Reuters, referring to the anti-government protesters’ demand. “The military is not planning to stage a coup and it will let politicians sort the country’s problems out.”
Thailand has seen nine military coups since 1946, when King Bhumibol Adulyadej assumed the throne. The king, who is 86, has intervened to defuse previous crises but has not commented directly since this one blew up.
FEARS OF VIOLENCE
Derided by his opponents as a corrupt crony capitalist who manipulates elections with his wealth, Thaksin - the last prime minister to be deposed by the army - lives in self-exile abroad to avoid a 2008 jail sentence for graft.
Yingluck dissolved the lower house of parliament in December to call an election she hoped would end the protests. But her opponents disrupted the vote and it was later ruled void. She and the Election Commission have agreed on July 20 for a new election but it has not been formally called.
Rival supporters are staging sit-in protests at various places in and on the outskirts of Bangkok, raising fears of violence. Twenty-five people have been killed in sporadic violence since this round of protests kicked off in November.
Rallying pro-government “red shirt” activists are demanding a new election. “Appointing a so-called neutral, un-elected prime minister is against the law and, I warn you, it will provoke a violent reaction,” red shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan told Reuters. “Thai people know their rights - they are now politically savvy and will not accept a puppet premier chosen by the elite.”
Yingluck’s ruling Puea Thai Party selected Commerce Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongphaisan as caretaker prime minister last week, but government opponents reject his appointment. Anti-government protesters plan to move from a city park to a site in front of the U.N. regional headquarters on Monday to prepare for what they see as imminent victory. “For those joining our final offensive be prepared to stay until we prevail,” Suthep told his supporters on Sunday night.
New twist in Thailand’s battle for seat of power
BANGKOK, May 12 (AP): The battle for who holds Thailand’s seat of power took on a new twist Monday as the leader of anti-government protests planned to set up his office at the vacated Government House while the country’s new caretaker leader worked from a makeshift, suburban outpost.
The development was the latest to highlight the government’s lack of power as Thailand’s political crisis grinds into its seventh month. One newspaper compared the political situation to a sinking ship that it called the “Thaitanic.”
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, who has led the movement for six months, has called for a “final push” to install an unelected new prime minister — a goal that critics call undemocratic but supporters say is a necessary step for implementing anti-corruption reforms before a new election can take place.
Suthep planned to end a months-long occupation of the city’s main park Monday and march his followers across Bangkok to the prime minister’s office compound, called Government House, which has been vacant for months due to violent clashes between protesters and police nearby.
Suthep says he will not occupy the actual prime minister’s office inside the compound’s stately Gothic-style main building but will base himself in the adjacent Santi Maitree Building traditionally used for state visits. In more stable times, the building was used for meetings with dignitaries such as President Barack Obama and Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
There was no apparent resistance to Suthep’s plan. The military that provides security at Government House said over the weekend he would be allowed in to avoid further clashes in a crisis that has left more than 20 dead and hundreds injured since November. Protesters achieved one of their goals last week when the Constitutional Court dismissed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for nepotism in a case that many viewed as politically motivated.
Analysts, protesters and Thai media agree that the ruling did little to resolve the country’s political turmoil. “Every so often, the stewards of the nation rearrange the deck chairs, as ‘Thaitanic’ continues to plough relentlessly further into uncharted territory, without a captain,” The Bangkok Post newsp aper said in a Sunday editorial. “The ship is still heading right for that iceberg.”
Protesters had been calling for Yingluck’s ouster but say her removal is not enough, and they want to set up an unelected “people’s council” to implement still-undefined reforms to combat corruption and money politics. They oppose elections scheduled for July, which the current ruling party would likely win. Yingluck’s Cabinet has named deputy premier Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan as acting prime minister, but protesters say he doesn’t hold the authority and status to be the head of the government.
Like Yingluck, he is forced to work out of the Office to the Permanent Secretary for Defense in the unfashionable suburb of Muang Thong Thani. Niwattumrong was to hold his first news conference with the foreign media later Monday as the crisis continues to batter the country’s image, its tourism industry and overall economy. Yingluck’s supporters have warned that any attempt to install an unelected prime minister would be a disaster for the nation that could spark “civil war.”
