Bangkok protests call for dismissal of Thailand's caretaker government
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Version 0 of 1. Thousands of Thai royalist protesters have fanned out across Bangkok to try to bring down a caretaker government after a court dismissed Yingluck Shinawatra from office as prime minister and an anti-graft agency indicted her for negligence. The interim government is hoping to organise a 20 July election that it would probably win but the protesters want the government out, the election postponed and reforms brought in to end the influence of Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, speaking to supporters in a city park, urged them to rally outside parliament, the prime minister's offices and five television stations to prevent them being used by the government. "We will sweep the debris of the Thaksin regime out of the country," said Suthep, a former deputy premier in a government run by the pro-establishment Democrat party. Thaksin is vilified by his enemies as a corrupt crony capitalist. But he won the unswerving loyalty of legions of rural and urban poor with populist policies when he was prime minister from 2001 until he was ousted in a 2006 coup. He lives in exile to avoid a 2008 jail sentence for abuse of power. Tens of thousands of his "red shirt" supporters, angered by Yingluck's ousting, were on Friday heading to Bangkok for a rally on Saturday. They are clinging to the hope that the interim government will win the July election and bring the Shinawatras' party back to power. Thaksin or his loyalists have won every election since 2001. The prospect of rival protesters in the capital over the weekend has raised fears of trouble. Both sides have armed activists in their ranks. Twenty-five people have been killed since the anti-government protests began in November and more turmoil could further unsettle south-east Asia's second-largest economy. Thailand is already teetering on the brink of recession amid weak exports, a year-long slump in industrial output and a drop in tourism, presided over by a caretaker government with curtailed powers. Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in more than 12 years in April as the crisis took its toll. The anti-graft agency indicted Yingluck for negligence on Thursday – a day after the constitutional court threw her out of office – in connection with a rice-subsidy scheme under which the state paid farmers way above market prices for their crops. The scheme, a flagship policy of Yingluck's administration, was aimed at helping her rural supporters. But the government could not sell much of the rice it quickly stockpiled and was unable to pay many farmers. If Yingluck is found guilty of negligence by the Senate she could be banned from politics for five years. Several other members of the family and about 150 of Thaksin's other political allies have been banned for five-year terms since 2007. Yingluck dissolved parliament in December and called a snap election but the main opposition party boycotted it and anti-government activists disrupted it so much it was declared void. |