Thai parliament postponed as protestors surround building
Thousands of supporters of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra surrounded Thailand’s parliament today, daring MPs to pass through their ranks to deliver a speech outlining the new government’s key policies.
But with only a handful of opposition MPs entering the building in Bangkok, the morning opening of the legislature was postponed.
“If they want to go in, they have to walk through us, including the prime minister,” one of the protest leaders, Chatuporn Prompan, said outside the parliament compound where demonstrators spent the night.
The demonstration sparked fears of renewed political turbulence, which paralysed the previous government for months and climaxed with an eight-day seizure of Bangkok’s airports. But the earlier protesters had been part of an anti-Thaksin alliance.
The current protest group – which calls itself the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship – said it would stay at parliament until the government called a new general election. The group had previously planned to stay for three days.
“We will celebrate New Year at parliament,” Mr Chatuporn said.
The alliance has at least temporarily disrupted the government’s plan to announce its policies, which, by law, it must do by January 7.
The protesters – dubbed the “red shirts” for their protest attire – say new prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Democrat Party came to power this month through a virtual coup d’etat.
The court ruling that dissolved the previous government – which was packed with Thaksin allies – and led to Oxford-educated Mr Abhisit’s selection as prime minister, came under pressure from the military and other powerful forces, the group said.
Mr Abhisit, 44, told reporters yesterday that force would not be used against the demonstrators.
He was formally named prime minister on December 17 in what many hoped would be the end of months of turbulent, sometimes violent, protests that had their roots in a 2006 military coup that toppled former Manchester City FC owner Mr Thaksin.
Mr Thaksin and his backers retain strong support in rural areas but have lost ground recently as former loyalists defected to join Mr Abhisit’s government, behind which the powerful military and monarchist figures have thrown their weight.
Mr Thaksin no longer seems the prime mover in the country’s political arena after being forced out of the UK where he sought exile, and facing probable imprisonment should he return to Thailand – although some still do not count him out.
Local media has speculated that Mr Thaksin, once Thailand’s richest man, has also taken heavy losses in the current financial crisis and no longer has the seemingly bottomless purse to support and motivate his backers.
Mr Abhisit, the nation’s third prime minister in four months, vowed in his inaugural address to reunite the deeply-divided nation and to restore Thailand’s tourist-friendly image.
The eight-day airport shutdown battered the country’s essential tourism industry and stranded more than 300,000 travellers.
