Samak accepts party nomination to return as Thailand PM
Thailand’s ousted leader Samak Sundaravej today accepted the endorsement of the country’s ruling party to return as prime minister.
A two-hour meeting of Samak’s People’s Power Party ended with him being chosen as its prime ministerial candidate, party spokesman Kuthep Saikrajang said.
“A majority of the party members voted to reappoint (Samak) to be the prime minister as he is the leader of our party. So he is the best choice,” Mr Kuthep told reporters.
Mr Samak thanked the party and said he was “accepting the nomination in order to protect democracy in the country.”
But in Thailand’s ever-fluctuating politics, doubts remained that Mr Samak would be the final choice amid concerns that his re-election would enflame political tensions.
Less than an hour after Mr Kuthep’s announcement, other party officials said negotiations were continuing to get someone else nominated.
“We are still having internal discussions. It can change at the last minute,” said acting Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.
The ruling party’s vote does not automatically make Mr Samak the prime minister. The nomination will be tested by a vote tomorrow in the 480-seat Parliament, where the People’s Power Party has 233 MPs, of which 10 are disqualified from voting, leaving it 18 short of a majority.
The other five parties in the coalition control 83 seats while the opposition Democrat Party has 164 seats.
Thousands of anti-government protesters have occupied the prime minister’s office compound since August 26, first demanding Mr Samak’s resignation and then a suitable replacement.
Mr Samak was forced out of office on Tuesday by a Constitutional Court ruling that found he had violated the constitution by being paid to host television cooking shows while in office.
Since then the People’s Power Party and its five coalition partners have been running a caretaker government.
Mr Samak’s apparent renomination today was not wholeheartedly endorsed by the five other parties, leaving the country mired in a political deadlock that has raised fears of instability, economic chaos and even a military coup.
Some of the coalition partners said they accepted the People’s Power Party’s right to nominate Mr Samak, but didn’t necessarily agree with the choice.
“We honour the core party’s nomination, but we think the new prime minister should be someone who can help resolve the political crisis,” Somsak Prisana-anantakul of Chart Thai Party, the second-largest party in the coalition, told a joint news conference by representatives of all six parties in the coalition.
The joint news conference came hours after Thailand’s army chief urged all political parties to form a government of national unity.
He also urged the caretaker government to lift a state of emergency that Mr Samak had imposed on September 2.
“It is time to lift the state of emergency,” army commander General Anupong Paochinda said. “Keeping it in place will damage the country’s economy.”
Mr Anupong’s comments were likely to fuel speculation of a possible coup to end the crisis, despite his repeated denials of any military intervention.
Democracy in Thailand has been interrupted by 18 military coups since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.
The most recent was in 2006, when the army ousted then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who recently fled to Britain to escape corruption charges.
The anti-Samak protesters, known as the People’s Alliance for Democracy, call Mr Samak a puppet of Mr Thaksin and accuse him of running the government as a proxy for Mr Thaksin while he is in exile.
