Thai Court orders ruling parties to dissolve, executives banned from politics
2/12/2008 15:57
Thailand's Constitution Court today ruled the three ruling parties in the
coalition government -- People Power Party (PPP), Chart Thai Party and Matchima
Thipataya Party were guilty of electoral fraud charges and ordered them to be
dissolved.
All the three party's executives were banned from politics for
five years as punishment in line with the 2007 Constitution.
The Constitution
Court began to read the verdicts against the three parties on electoral fraud
charges at around 12:20 pm(0520 GMT) today after hearing the closing statements
from both the prosecutors and the defendants in the morning.
The verdicts
reading process took only some 40 minutes to complete, unexpectedly much swifter
than the Court did in May last year to the former ruling Thai Rak Thai (TRT)
party following the Sept. 19, 2006 coup that ousted then premier Thaksin
Shinawatra.
The TRT was disbanded on electoral fraud charges and its 111
executives including founder Thaksin Shinawatra were banned from politics for
five years.
The PPP, which is seen by opponents as a reincarnation of the
TRT, did not attend today's summation session, protesting that the judges were
biased against the government.
Anti-government protesters led by the People's
Alliance for Democracy (PAD), who had occupied the Government House for three
months and lately besieged and shut down two airports in Bangkok in a showdown
to topple the government, hailed as the Court handed down the verdicts.
As a
result of the verdict, Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, who is acting leader of
PPP, will lose his premiership according to the Constitution. The whole cabinet
must go with him. A deputy prime minister, who is not a party executive, could
be appointed to succeed Somchai to lead the caretaker cabinet.
On July 8, the
Supreme Court ruled that former House speaker Yongyuth Tiyapairat, former deputy
PPP leader, was found guilty of vote-buying during last Dec. 23 general
election, which saw PPP win most votes, and banned him from engaging in politics
for five years.
Under Thailand's Election Law under the 2007 Constitution, if
any executive member of a political party committed electoral fraud, the party
could be dissolved and its executive committee will be banned from engaging in
political activities for five years.
Xinhua
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