Thailand won praise overseas for its return to civilian rule, but its Cabinet full of newcomers yesterday faced immediate doubts at home over its competence and plans for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The EU hailed the kingdom's return to democracy, while the US announced a resumption of military aid suspended after the coup in September 2006.
But at home Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's government faced widespread criticism over a Cabinet that even he described as "ugly" because so many relatively inexperienced figures dominated top positions.
Samak, who led the People Power Party to victory in December elections by openly campaigning as Thaksin's proxy, is also trying to temper expectations that he would quickly grant the exiled billionaire an amnesty to allow his speedy return home.
After the coup, a military installed tribunal banned Thaksin and 110 of his top aides from politics for five years.
Thaksin faces separate corruption charges filed by military backed investigators, which could land him and his wife in prison.
His wife has told a Thai court that he would return home in May to defend himself, but Thaksin has given no firm plans for ending his self-imposed exile in Britain, where he has bought the English Premier League soccer club Manchester City.
Samak said late on Wednesday that he would only consider an amnesty for Thaksin in two years, which he said would allow time for political tensions to ease.
The leaders of anti-Thaksin street protests that precipitated the coup have already threatened to stage fresh demonstrations if the new government interferes with the court cases against Thaksin.
Samak's efforts to put off discussion of an amnesty may help appease those critics, said political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University.
"Samak needs breathing space to actually govern the country. This is a maneuver to keep the pressure away and then to create a working space and time to prove his worth," Thitinan said.
So far the military has indicated that it plans to stay out of politics.
"There should not be any more coups because that would affect our country's credibility," air force chief Chalit Pukbhasuk said yesterday as he announced that the junta has officially dissolved.
"We must have confidence in democratic rule," he told reporters.
Analysts worry that the new Cabinet lacks the political gravitas needed to revive the economy while steering through the minefield of competing interests within Samak's six-party coalition.
Close Thaksin aides were given choice posts -- leading the finance and foreign ministries -- while his brother-in-law was named a deputy prime minister.
Most of them were unknowns before the coup, and Samak has publicly complained about how little say Thaksin's allies allowed him in the naming of the Cabinet.
"It shows that he does not even have the power to select his own Cabinet," said political analyst Prayad Hongthongkam, who lectures at several universities in Bangkok. "Several ministers have no qualifications for their jobs. They got their jobs as political payback."
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the