The leader of a protest group trying to overthrow Thailand’s government and scrap planned elections yesterday said the prime minister should either step down or be forced out, and his movement would then need about one year to push through reforms.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has called an election for Feb. 2 in an effort to end the street protests, but Suthep Thaugsuban, a veteran lawmaker who resigned from parliament to lead the protests, has rejected the move.
Knowing that allies of Yingluck’s brother, ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, would likely win any election, he wants an unelected “people’s council” to run the country.
Suthep said he would meet military chiefs today to discuss his strategy, but he rejected any idea of cutting a deal with Yingluck, who heads a caretaker government now that the king has endorsed the election date.
Yingluck will hold a forum tomorrow to discuss reforms, but said they can only be drawn up and implemented after the election.
“Yingluck’s invitations for national reform forums are nothing new. We do not accept Yingluck’s offer. We won’t negotiate,” Suthep told reporters.
“Instead of issuing laws that benefit the people ... they have used the parliamentary system in the wrong way to help just one group of people, ... to wash the guilt of Thaksin Shinawatra,” he added, referring to a political amnesty bill that acted as a catalyst for the current crisis.
The “soft way out” of the impasse, was for Yingluck to step down and let his council push through reforms, he said. Failing that, the people would simply seize power, he said.
The number of protesters on the street has dwindled to just a few thousand from 160,000 on Monday, when Yingluck announced the snap election, but Suthep shows no sign of giving up.
On Thursday, Suthep sought to drum up support for his plans at a meeting with business leaders, talking of a “people’s assembly” of up to 400 members from a cross-section of society. He said his protest movement would get 100 of the seats.
He has offered little in the way of policy proposals.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia