Thai court bans PM's ruling party
2008-12-02 09:06
Bangkok - Thai judges ordered Prime
Minister Somchai Wongsawat's ruling People Power Party (PPP)
disbanded on Tuesday after it was found guilty of vote fraud,
but party members vowed to "move on" and form another
government.
"We will all move to a new party, Puea Thai, and seek a
vote for a new prime minister on December 8," Jatuporn Prompan,
a PPP MP, told Reuters.
Former minister Jakrapob Penkair said the verdict came as
no surprise. "Our members are determined to move on and we will
form a government again out of the majority that we believe we
still have," said Jakrapob, a close associate of ousted Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The Constitutional Court also barred the party's top
leaders, including Somchai, from politics for five years,
raising the risk of clashes between his supporters and
thousands of anti-government protesters blockading the
capital's two airports.
The court also ordered two other junior parties in the
government coalition disbanded.
A grenade was fired from a flyover near the domestic
airport hours before the court hearing, killing one
anti-government protester and wounding 22 others.
Thousands of foreign tourists have been stranded by the
protests and the air cargo industry has ground to a halt,
costing the country millions of dollars.
'It's positive short-term'
Hundreds of government supporters gathered inside the court
compound on Tuesday and riot police were guarding the courtroom
where the judges were reading verdicts.
The yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD)
demonstrators at the airports have been seeking to topple
Somchai, whom they accuse of being a Thaksin pawn.
Thaksin, Somchai's brother-in-law, was ousted in a 2006
coup and is now in exile.
The Thai baht edged up against the dollar and the stock
market, which had been lower earlier, also turned round as
optimism rose that political unrest could ease after the
ruling.
"It's positive short-term as the government term has ended
and the PAD may stop its protest," said Nuchjarin Panarode, an
economist at Capital Nomura Securities.
"But in the longer term, there is still uncertainty as we
need to wait for a new government and see its policies."
The electoral fraud case, stemming from December 2007
general elections won by the PPP, was scheduled to be heard at
the Constitutional Courthouse in Bangkok on Tuesday but was
moved after hundreds of red-shirted government supporters
surrounded the building.
Neighbours worried
Several thousand PAD supporters have occupied the prime
minister's offices since August but the PAD has said it would
hand the compound back to the authorities on Tuesday.
A Reuters reporter said only a handful of PAD activists
remained at Government House early on Tuesday. There were no
police present, but cranes had arrived to remove the shells of
six buses used to barricade surrounding roads.
The PAD leadership apparently intends to move more
supporters to the international airport, which has been
blockaded for a week, adding to the pain of a tourist- and
export-dependent economy already suffering from the global
financial crisis.
Finance Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech told Reuters on
Monday the economy might be flat next year, or grow by just 1-2%, after earlier growth forecasts of between 4-5%.
The chaos has worried Thailand's neighbours, who were due
to meet in the country in two weeks for a regional summit. A
government spokesperson said after a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday
that Thailand had postponed the summit to March 2009.