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Thailand prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra ordered to step down after 'abusing power'
Thailand prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra ordered to step down after 'abusing power'
(35 minutes later)
Thailand's prime minister has been ordered to step down along with part of her Cabinet after the Constitutional Court found her guilty in an abuse of power case, pushing the country deeper into political turmoil.
Thailand has been plunged into fresh turmoil after a court ordered that the country’s prime minister and nine of her top ministers stand down.
Thailand's prime minister was ordered to step down Wednesday along with part of her Cabinet after the Constitutional Court found her guilty in an abuse of power case, pushing the country deeper into political turmoil.
The country’s Constitutional Court found Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of abusing her position when she ordered the transfer of a civil servant for political gain and thereby breaching the constitution. The order had immediate effect, but the court said the remainder of her government could remain in place in a caretaker role until elections go ahead on July 20.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was charged with abusing her authority by transferring a senior civil servant in 2011 to another position. The court ruled that the transfer was carried out to benefit her politically powerful family and, therefore, violated the constitution - an accusation she has denied.
Ms Yingluck, the brother of Thaksin Shinawatra, was replaced as premier by the trade minister, Niwatthamrung Boonsongpaisan, a man considered loyal to Pheu Thai party and to Mr Shinawatra and his sister.
“Transferring government officials must be done in accordance with moral principle,” the court said in its ruling, read aloud on live television for almost 90 minutes. “Transferring with a hidden agenda is not acceptable.”
But the decision by the court, long seen as unsympathetic to the Thaksin family, does nothing to end the political crisis that has beset Thailand since Mr Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006. Since then, two other administrations led by politicians loyal to him have been scuttled by the Constitutional Court.
“The Constitutional Court has ruled unanimously that (Yingluck) has used her status as the prime minister to intervene for her own and others' benefits to (transfer) a government official,” which violated Article 268 of the Constitution, and ended her rule as prime minister, the court said in its verdict.
“Transferring government officials must be done in accordance with moral principle,” the court said in its ruling, according to the Associated Press. “Transferring with a hidden agenda is not acceptable.”
It was not immediately clear who would become the new acting prime minister. The ruling also forced out nine Cabinet members who the court said were complicit in the transfer of National Security Council chief Thawil Pliensri.
The decision by the court follows months of protests by anti-government campaigners who have sought to oust Mr Yingluck and her administration. When she last year agreed to stand down and hold a new election, the main opposition party announced it was boycotting the election, rendering it essentially meaningless.
The judgment marks the latest dramatic twist in Thailand's long-running political crisis. It was a victory for Yingluck's opponents, mostly from the urban elite and those in the south, who for the past six months have been engaged in vociferous and sometimes violent street protests demanding she step down to make way for an interim unelected leader.
Ms Yingluck and her brother have strong support from large swathes of so-called “Red Shirts” mainly located in Thailand’s north and north east and other rural areas. They also have support among working class elements within Bangkok.
But it does little to resolve Thailand's political crisis as it leaves the country in limbo and primed for more violence.
Those opposed to the Thaksins include Bangkok’s upper middle-class, elements within the army, farmers from the south of Thailand and elements of the establishment that surrounds the Thai royal family.
The ruling casts doubt on whether new elections planned for July will take place, which would anger Yingluck's mostly rural supporters who have called for a major rally Saturday in Bangkok. Her ouster will doubtless swell those numbers, and some fear it could lead to more violence. Since November, more than 20 have been killed and hundreds injured in sporadic gun-battles, drive-by shootings and grenade attacks.
“What is interesting about the current [development] is the bloodless, legal nature of the approach - using the legal process to take what the coup couldn’t secure, and the polls couldn't guarantee,” said Dr Liam McCarthy, an expert on South East Asia at Nottingham Trent University.
It also remains far from clear whether her opponents will be able to achieve other key demands, including creating a reform council overseen by a leader of their choice that will carry out various steps to rid the country of corruption and what they claim is money politics, including alleged vote-buying.
“How such a bureaucratic, or intellectual, tactic will play with the rural communities of Thailand? They may see such a play as tricking them out of their chosen leaders.”
Yingluck, Thailand's first female prime minister, and her Pheu Thai party swept to power in mid-2011 elections - and remain very popular among the country's poor majority, particularly in the north and northeast. But she is despised by Bangkok's middle and upper class.
The unanimous decision by the court, a day after Ms Yingluck appeared before it to give evidence, raises the prospect of more turmoil for Thailand, where scores of people have died as a result of political violence, and uncertainty as to whether the election on July 20 will proceed.
The campaign against Yingluck, 46, has been the latest chapter in Thailand's political upheaval that began when her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a polarizing figure who was ousted by a 2006 military coup after protests accusing him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespect for constitutional monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Since then, Thaksin's supporters and opponents have engaged in a power struggle that has occasionally turned bloody.
Supporters of Mr Thaksin and his sister are planning to hold a major rally on Saturday. At least 20 people have been killed since November and hundreds more injured.
Thaksin's supporters say the Thai establishment opposes him because their position of privilege has been threatened by his electoral popularity, cemented by populist programs that benefited the less well-off in the vote-strong countryside.
Mr Thaksin’s opponents say he is guilty of corruption and that he took decisions that directly helped him and his family. Mr Thaksin is living in exile in Dubai to avoid court charges and a plan by the government to introduce an amnesty that wold have allowed him to return was the spark for the most recent protests.
Thailand's courts, like its military, are seen as bastions of anti-Thaksin conservatism, and have a record of hostile rulings toward the Shinawatra political machine, which is fueled by a fortune Thaksin made in the telecommunications sector. Thaksin's opponents, including those who have rioted and attacked police, destroyed public property and occupied government offices, have usually been treated leniently by the courts.
The Constitutional Court has historically been unsympathetic to Thaksin's allies.
In 2007, the court made a landmark ruling dissolving Thaksin's original Thai Rak Thai party for fraud in a 2006 election, and banned its executives from politics for five years. Thaksin went into self-imposed exile in 2008 to escape a two-year jail sentence for conflict of interest while prime minister.
Thaksin's allies in late 2007 handily won the first post-coup election, but the Constitutional Court in 2008 kicked out two successive pro-Thaksin prime ministers.
A coalition government then cobbled together by the opposition Democrat Party had to use the army to put down pro-Thaksin demonstrations in 2010 that left more than 90 people dead in street battles, but Yingluck and her Pheu Thai party won a sweeping majority in a mid-2011 general election.
Yingluck's fortunes plunged when her party's lawmakers late last year used shady legislative tactics to try to ram through a law that would have given an amnesty to political offenders of the previous eight years, including Thaksin. The move reignited mass demonstrations against Thaksin and his political machine and eventual street fighting by anti-government toughs.
Seeking to ease the pressure, Yingluck in December dissolved the lower House and called elections for Feb. 2. But her opponents on the street disrupted the polls, which in turn were invalidated by the courts. More than 20 people have died in the latest political violence.
Yingluck's foes also have been seeking to topple her in the courts, in what her supporters describe as an attempt at a “judicial coup.” It was anti-government senators who lodged the case over the transfer of National Security Council chief Thawil Pliensri, a move previously ruled unlawful by another court.
