Thailand’s main opposition Democrat Party said yesterday that it would boycott February’s general election, deepening the country’s weekslong political crisis.
The party’s leader, former Thai prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, announced the boycott after a meeting of party executives.
He said the decision was made to try to ensure that political reforms are implemented.
Photo: AFP
The party’s position reflects the stand taken by street protesters demanding that Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra step down ahead of the elections.
The demonstrators want an appointed interim government to institute reforms before any new polls are held.
The Democrats, who are closely allied with the protest movement, also led an election boycott in 2006 that helped destabilize the government and paved the way for a military coup that ousted then-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s older brother.
The protest movement, led by a former senior member of the Democrat Party, Suthep Thaugsuban, has said it will insist that the Feb. 2 elections not be held if Yingluck stays on as caretaker prime minister.
However, Abhisit distanced his party from that position, saying it respected the concept of elections.
Earlier yesterday, Yingluck formally proposed a plan for making political reforms after the election.
Thailand has been wracked by sometimes violent political conflict since the coup that toppled billionaire Thaksin, who was accused of corruption and abuse of power.
The protesters say Thai politics are hopelessly corrupt under Thaksin’s continuing influence, and that he buys his electoral support from the country’s urban and rural poor.
They accuse Yingluck of being Thaksin’s puppet, and believe that traditional one-man, one-vote democracy does not work because the poor are not educated enough to choose responsible leaders.
Thaksin’s supporters say he is disliked by Bangkok’s elite because he has shifted power away from the traditional ruling class.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS