Ousted Thai premier proclaims innocence as criminal trial starts
Print Edition
Ousted Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra insisted on her innocence yesterday at the start of a trial that could see her jailed for a decade, part of what observers say is a vendetta against her family.
It is the latest legal move against Yingluck — sister of fugitive billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra — whose administration was toppled in a coup nearly a year ago.
Shortly after Yingluck’s court appearance, junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha raised the possibility of holding a referendum on a contentious new constitution he says is vital to bridging the nation’s trenchant political divide.
But any plebiscite — in a nation where political gatherings are still banned by the military — would “postpone the roadmap” for elections slated for early 2016, Prayuth said.
Around 50 supporters gathered outside Thailand’s Supreme Court on the northern outskirts of Bangkok, including members of Yingluck’s Pheu Thai Party, a rare public act of defiance of the junta.
A guilty conviction for Yingluck could deliver a hammer blow to the political dominance of her family, but it also risks stirring up their grassroots “Red Shirt” supporters who have remained largely inactive since the military took over.
“I am confident that I am innocent,” Yingluck told reporters outside the courthouse.
The ousted PM is accused of criminal negligence over a populist rice subsidy scheme, which paid farmers in the rural Shinawatra heartland twice the market rate for their crop.
She is not accused of personal corruption but of failing to prevent alleged graft within the program, which cost Thailand billions of dollars and galvanized protests against her elected government prior to last May’s coup. The charge carries up to 10 years in jail.
During the brief hearing, Yingluck spoke only to plead not guilty. The court granted 30 million baht (US$900,000) bail on condition that she will not leave Thailand without written permission, and the next hearing was set for July 21.
The military-appointed parliament impeached Yingluck in January over the scheme, a move which banned her from politics for five years.
“I believe a hawkish faction in the old powers... wants to punish the Shinawatras as much as they can,” Puangthong Pawakapan, a Thai politics expert at Chulalongkorn University, said. “But keeping her in prison will definitely anger the Red Shirts even more.”
Other analysts say the mere threat of jail may be used to discourage the Shinawatras from re-engaging in politics.
Yingluck herself has defended the rice scheme as an effort to boost incomes in the poor northeast of a country which traditionally receives a smaller slice of state cash than Bangkok, despite being home to a third of the country’s population.
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