Following one of the largest mass rallies in recent years, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said yesterday the political situation was "heating up" but dismissed most of the protests against him as pre-election campaigning.
More than 42,000 people flocked to a downtown park on Friday night to hear Thaksin's most vocal critic -- media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul -- reel off more examples of alleged corruption in the Thaksin government. Some estimates of the attendance were higher.
"The political atmosphere is heating up these day. There are several groups of people staging protests, rallies and making noise. It is a normal phenomena of every election," Thaksin said in his weekly radio address.
He said the leaders were merely promoting themselves ahead of next April's election of 200 senators.
Besides Sondhi's followers, recent anti-Thaksin protesters have included farmers, teachers and employees of the state-run Electric Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). Academics continue to criticize the government for massive corruption, suppression of the media and politicization of major institutions.
Also confronted by economic problems, Thaksin said the public should be encouraged by a probable increase of GDP this year of 4.5 percent. He predicted GDP growth would rise to 5.3 percent next year as the government campaigns for more tourists and increased exports.
On Friday, Sondhi accused the Thai leader of urging the purchase of unsuitable jet fighters from Russia to reap a kickback of 3.5 billion baht (US$85 million).
In a new allegation of corruption, Sondhi said that instead of purchasing superior planes from the US or Sweden, Thaksin used his power to urge the air force commander to buy Russian planes that didn't fit Thailand's defense needs. The commander, Kongsak Watana, has recently been appointed the interior minister.
During a meeting last year, the foreign ministers of Thailand and Russia discussed the possibility of bartering Thai chickens for 12 Russian SU-30 jet fighters. A deal has yet to be concluded.
The rally, billed as a major showdown with Thaksin, failed to draw the half million people that Sondhi had hoped for in his continuing campaign to expose the wrongdoings of the government and oust the prime minister.
Many people carried signs reading, "Thaksin, get out" and "Thaksin's time is up." The audience applauded every time Sondhi mentioned Thaksin in connection with corruption or cronyism.
The crowd included protesting teachers and EGAT employees who chanted, "Give back the shares, give back EGAT." The employees are protesting privatization of the company, while the teachers, now under the Education Ministry, are against being placed under local administration control.
Over the past two months Sondhi, once a close associate of the prime minister, has generated the biggest political crisis facing the once highly popular Thaksin in his nearly five years in power.
Tensions, however, cooled over the past week after Thailand's revered king admonished Thaksin over his inability to accept criticism and tendency to strike out at opponents with lawsuits. Two days after King Bhumibol Adulyadej's advice, contained in a birthday speech, Thaksin dropped half a dozen lawsuits against Sondhi.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS