Thailand promises airport will be open soon
Thailand vowed its main airport will be open by the end of the week after thousands of sit-in protestors succeeded in forcing the country’s prime minister from office today.
The government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was doomed when the Constitutional Court convicted the top three ruling parties of electoral fraud in the 2007 vote that brought them to power.
Somchai was banned from politics for five years.
Somchai did not formally resign, as the protesters had demanded for months, but accepted the ruling.
“It is not a problem. I was not working for myself. Now I will be a full-time citizen,” he said in Chiang Mai, the northern city where his paralysed administration has been forced to govern since Wednesday.
Protest leaders said the airport seizures would end tomorrow.
With the waning of the political crisis, the official in charge of Thailand’s airports said Suvarnabhumi international airport will resume operations on Friday.
“Please have confidence in us,” said Vudhibhandhu Vichairatana, the chairman of the Airports of Thailand.
Officials had earlier said the airport would not reopen for commercial flights before December 15, but Vudhibhandhu said he brought forward the date because an inspection revealed the airport had suffered no damage and could become operational more quickly.
After today’s court decision a government spokesman said the six-party governing coalition would step down.
Despite the appearance of a smooth political transition, the ruling is expected to widen the dangerous rift in Thai society that many fear could lead to more violence between pro- and anti-government groups.
On hearing the court’s decision, a cheer rose from thousands of members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy occupying the airport.
Somchai had become increasingly isolated. Neither the army, a key player in Thai politics, nor the country’s much-revered king offered firm backing.
But hundreds of his supporters gathered outside the court, saying the swiftness of the ruling – which came just an hour after closing arguments ended – appeared predetermined.
“The court is not qualified to make this ruling. They are nothing more than apologists for the alliance, who are ruining the country,” an activist shouted through a megaphone outside the court.
Somchai’s People’s Power Party, the Machima Thipatai party and the Chart Thai party were found guilty of committing fraud in the December 2007 elections that brought the coalition to power.
“Dishonest political parties undermine Thailand’s democratic system,” said court president Chat Chalavorn.
The ruling sends Somchai and 59 executives of the three parties into political exile and bars them from politics for five years. Of the 59, 24 are elected officials who will also have to abandon their
parliamentary seats.
But others in the three dissolved parties who escaped the ban can join other parties, try to cobble together a new coalition and then choose a new prime minister.
Until then, Deputy Prime Minister Chaowarat Chandeerakul will become the caretaker prime minister.
The protesters accuse Somchai of being a proxy of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the alliance’s original target. Thaksin, who is Somchai’s brother-in-law, was deposed in a 2006 military coup and has fled the country to escape corruption charges.
Alliance supporters are largely middle-class citizens who say Thailand’s electoral system is susceptible to vote-buying and argue that the rural majority - the Thaksin camp’s political base – is not sophisticated enough to cast ballots responsibly.
