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Thai court disbands ruling party
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-02 19:15 BANGKOK – Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was banned from politics for five years and his party disbanded on Tuesday, plunging the country deeper into chaos and raising fears of a violent backlash by government supporters. Party members vowed to "move on" and form another government early next month.
The Constitutional Court also disbanded two other parties in Somchai's six-party coalition for vote fraud in the 2007 general election and barred their leaders from politics for five years.
The rulings raised the risk of clashes between red-shirted government allies, who rallied outside the court as the verdict was read out, and thousands of the yellow-shirted anti-government protesters blockading the capital's two airports. There was no immediate reaction to the court verdict from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), who invaded Bangkok's two main airports last week in a "final battle" to topple Somchai. The PAD had refused to negotiate until Somchai was gone. They accuse Somchai of being a puppet of his brother-in-law, ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Around 250,000 foreign tourists have been stranded by the week-long sit-ins at Don Muang and the bigger Suvarnabhumi international airport. The air cargo industry has ground to a halt, costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars. However, airport officials said they hoped to resume cargo flights from Suvarnabhumi later on Tuesday, a welcome sight for 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 percent, after earlier growth forecasts of between 4-5 percent. The travel chaos worried neighbors due to attend a regional summit in Thailand in two weeks, prompting the government to postpone the meeting until March 2009, a spokesman said. FEARS OF VIOLENCE The Thai baht edged up against the dollar and the stock market rose on optimism that political unrest might subside after the ruling, but shares soon fell back again. "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." All six parties in the coalition government vowed to stick together and seek a parliamentary vote for a new prime minister on December 8, setting the stage for another potentially violent confrontation in the country's three-year-old political crisis. Lawmakers who escaped the political ban would move to new "shell" parties to form another ruling coalition, a former minister said. "The verdict comes as no surprise to all of us," said Jakrapob Penkair, a close associate of Thaksin, who was removed in a bloodless 2006 coup and is now in exile. "But our members are determined to move on and we will form a government again out of the majority that we believe we still have," he said. Such talk is likely to harden the PAD's resolve, a day after they began reinforcing their airport blockades with thousands of supporters from Government House, ending a three-month occupation of the prime minister's offices. Only a handful of PAD members remained at Government House on Tuesday, as a crane removed the shells of six buses used to barricade surrounding roads. Bunkers of sandbags and car tires stacked two meters (six feet) high were everywhere, beside lines of makeshift tarpaulin tents. The carefully manicured lawns and gardens were invisible beneath a sea of wooden pallets and cardboard sleeping mats. PAD supporters left with no hint of remorse or regret. "I feel very proud and am very glad to have done all this," said Tae Saekuay, a toothless, hunchbacked 67-year-old as he carried a small plastic sack of clothes and bedding through the mess toward the barricades. "We need a new, clean government. We don't want corruption," he said.
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