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Thai PM rejects army call for new polls
Thailand Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat rebuffed a call from Thai Army Chief Anupong Paojinda to step down and hold early elections to end five months of protests that killed at least six people and culminated in Wednesday’s seizure of Bangkok’s international airport.
- Agencies
- Published: 20:19 November 26, 2008
- A protester is helped after being injured by a bomb thrown at a crowd at the airport.
- Image Credit: AP
Bangkok: Thailand Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat rebuffed a call from Thai Army Chief Anupong Paojinda to step down and hold early elections to end five months of protests that killed at least six people and culminated in Wednesday’s seizure of Bangkok’s international airport.
"We need to protect and restore democracy," Somchai said in an address broadcast on national television. "The protesters are breaking laws as they are armed and have seized the airport, which is damaging the country."
Somchai, who rejected a previous resignation call from Anupong, returned to the northern city of Chiang Mai from an overseas trip on Wednbesday. He said the government will have a cabinet meeting on Thursday to decide on measures to restore order.
The airport's seizure, damaging the nation’s key tourism industry in its busiest season, forced a confrontation that Somchai and the army had tried to avoid. Anupong refused to enforce a state of emergency declared by Somchai’s predecessor in September after deadly street clashes in Bangkok.
"The government should return the power to the people," Anupong told reporters after meeting with business leaders and academics earlier on Wednesday. “We will not seize power. We are just making a suggestion and will let the government decide.”
Thai stocks erased losses to end higher as investors bet on military leaders finding a positive resolution to the standoff. The benchmark SET Index added 3.37 points to 395.22. The gauge has fallen 55 percent since the protests began May 25. Thailand’s baht slid to 35.27 per dollar, the lowest in 21 months, and government bonds fell, driving yields up from near a two year low.
Anarchy
“If not handled carefully, properly and soon, the country would tip toward anarchy,” said Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “When security evaporates, you are faced with a chain of events that can’t be controlled.”
The army chief, who helped oust former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a 2006 coup, said protesters must leave the airport, adding that violence wouldn’t solve the conflict.
Somchai should make a decision soon, Anupong said, insisting that the military “isn’t pressuring the government.”
Somchai, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, helms the People Power Party, which faces dissolution after one of its executive members was found guilty of buying votes. Parties linked to Thaksin have won four elections since 2001 on strong rural support for its platform of cheap health care and village loans.
Royalists
The protests are headed by the People’s Alliance for Democracy, a group comprised mostly of the Bangkok middle class, royalists and bureaucrats. Alliance members have blocked roads, seized buildings and wielded guns and metal bars with impunity in protests that started May 25. They want a new political system that dilutes the votes of the country’s rural majority.
The protesters will hold a meeting later tonight to consider the army’s request that they leave the airport, a spokesman said.
Surapol Nitikraipot, rector of Thammasat University, who sat alongside Anupong at the briefing, said the government must heed the army’s call to step down.
“If the government rejects our proposal, we will not listen to them,” he said. “We will use civil disobedience.”
Demonstrators were emboldened last month when Queen Sirikit attended the funeral of a protester who was killed in a clash with police. Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej is revered as a symbol of stability in a nation that has endured 10 mostly bloodless coups since ending absolute monarchy in 1932.
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