Government stands firm on Thai election set in February
Print Edition
Thailand’s government stuck to a plan for a February election yesterday despite mounting pressure from protesters who have brought parts of Bangkok to a near-standstill, and said it believed support for the leader of the agitation was waning.
Some hardline protesters threatened to blockade the stock exchange and an air traffic control facility if Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra had not stepped down by a deadline set for 8pm. There was no apparent movement as the deadline came and went.
The unrest, which flared in early November and escalated this week when demonstrators occupied main intersections of the capital, is the latest chapter in an eight-year conflict.
The political fault line pits the Bangkok-based middle class and royalist establishment against the mostly poorer, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier ousted by the military in 2006.
Yingluck invited protest leaders and political parties to discuss a proposal to delay the general election, which she has called for February 2, but her opponents snubbed her invitation.
After the meeting, the government said the poll would go ahead as scheduled, and it derided the leader of the protest movement, Suthep Thaugsuban.
“We believe the election will bring the situation back to normal,” Deputy Prime Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana said. “We can see that the support for Mr Suthep is declining. When he is doing something against the law, most people do not support that.”
Speakers at protest sites across central Bangkok have given the impression Yingluck is worn out and eager to quit. But she seemed relaxed and cheerful at the meeting, which was held inside an air force base near Don Muang International Airport.
Her senior officials stressed the caretaker government had no legal powers to postpone or cancel the election and stressed that even an imperfect poll was better than none.
“The ballot box doesn’t solve everything, and she knows that. But at least that’s the right step,” said Suranand Vejjajiva, secretary-general to the prime minister.
The protesters say they will occupy the city’s main arteries until an unelected “people’s council” replaces Yingluck’s administration.
Thaksin’s rural and working-class support has ensured he or his allies have won every election since 2001 and Yingluck’s Puea Thai Party seems certain to win any vote held under present arrangements.
The protesters want to suspend what they say is a democracy commandeered by the self-exiled billionaire Thaksin, whom they accuse of nepotism and corruption, and eradicate the political influence of his family by altering electoral arrangements.
There was no sign of trouble at the two targets named by hardliners in the protest movement, the stock exchange and the central Bangkok offices of AeroThai, which is in charge of air traffic control communication for planes using Thai air space.
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