When Prime Minister Yingluck has to leave the field, there will be no neutral interim Prime Minister. Those who hope so can go to hell. Yingluck's duties are performed by one of the deputy prime ministers. Thus 'key Pheu Thai Party figures', writes Bangkok Post.
Employment Minister Chalerm Yubamrung said yesterday that the government will go to court if attempts are made to nominate a neutral prime minister.
The Constitution provides that possibility, with the Senate President having a casting vote. However, Yubamrung points out that a prime minister must be a member of parliament, as mandated by the constitution. An outsider is therefore unthinkable.
Yingluck threatens bankruptcy because of the Thawil case (see below), instigated by a group of senators led by Senator Paiboon Nititawan. On Wednesday, the Court considered a petition from that group.
Pheu Thai already takes into account that Yingluck will have to hang up her winch, because previous rulings of the Court were not exactly favorable to the government.
Paiboon believes that the entire cabinet should resign. The tasks of the (dissolved) House of Representatives can then be performed by the Senate. But Pheu Thai doesn't think so. The cabinet will continue to mind the shop until new elections are held and a new government is formed.
Former Pheu Thai MP Surasit Jiamwijak raises an interesting legal question. Technically speaking, Yingluck is not even prime minister, but 'caretaker' prime minister since she dissolved the House of Representatives on December 9, as required by law. When the Court rules that she must leave, Surasit argues, the question is whether the Court will not violate the constitution in that case.
The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), which is holding a major rally for two to three days from Saturday, says it will not accept a coup or attempts to strip the government of its status. Red shirt leader Korkaew Pikulthong: 'In that case we will organize a rally.'
What is the cause?
Another reason for the fuss. Prime Minister Yingluck transferred Thawil Pliensri, Secretary General of the National Security Council (NSC), in 2011. According to Paiboon et al. with no other aim to make her brother-in-law chief constable of the Royal Thai Police, because the man who was there moved on to the NSC.
The administrative judge called the transfer unlawful and ordered Thawil to return to his old post. The cabinet has now decided that; we are now waiting for the green light from the Electoral Council. The petitioners assume that the Court will follow the administrative court and find that Yingluck has violated the constitution. And that is a mortal sin in Thailand.
It is not yet known when the Court will rule. In previous posts I came across two predictions: within a few days or within two weeks.
(Source: Bangkok Post, Apr 4, 2014)
I thought I read that PM Yingluck has been given 15 days by the Court to defend himself against the allegations. That would mean (and that's really Thai of course) that the verdict on the Songkran holiday is lifted.
The Yingluck cabinet is probably the most criticized government in Thai parliamentary history. There is every reason for that. Since taking office, the government has piled error upon error (crisis management during flooding, water management, high-speed rail, corruption in rice politics, corruption in police station construction, tablets in education, problems with farmers in the north and south, negotiations with the Muslim minority in the south, the temple issue with Cambodia, subsidies for buying a new car) and has never paid any attention to the growing criticism from the opposition parties, as well as from many other national and international organisations.
It shows that for Thai politicians democracy means: having the majority in parliament and then doing whatever you see fit (up to and including changing the constitution to your own advantage). And that is precisely NOT the core of democracy.
“Those who ignore history must relive it over and over again”. Placing the current government as the most criticized and most wrong without factual comparison is a striking example of this. It can simply be said that the current government is by no means a qualitative exception. Thanks to the exponentially increased speed of information exchange, it is true that mistakes, criticism and machinations are immediately publicized in front of a wide audience. Of course, rarely captured in a well-considered framework.
Thai politics has been dominated for years by two essentially capitalist blocs. This is an essentially anarchic struggle between financial, business and group interests. Compared to many Western democracies, it is striking that the interests of the poor are not represented by a socialist party. Whether you are committed to the socialist cause or not: the result is that specific interests are not given a clear voice and are not represented in a way that makes factual contradictions clear, creates a transparent negotiating situation and strives for an acceptable solution. In fact, the poor are now seeking refuge with the Shinawatra bloc, whose agenda combines chauvinistic capitalist advocacy with a series of popular social benefits (which also fit in well with its focus on a consumer economy). This made this bloc a 'lesser evil' alternative for the poor(er)s to the conservative capitalist bloc (traditionally focused on an exploitative economy) grouped around the so-called Democrats. The result is now an absurd fight between capital interests, with blurring boundaries between the Trias Politica (the legislative, the executive and the judiciary), and gratuitous abuse of populist themes (on the one hand so-called social, on the other hand so-called democratic ).
As long as Thailand's social diversity, economically, socially, religiously and ethnically, is not reflected in its political programs and parties (or factions), we will remain spectators of this political mud fight, in which there is literally no side to choose from if one has a constructive development agenda. has in mind.
Dear Jan
I put the Yingluck government as “arguably the most criticized” government. Not as the worst. After all, criticism can also be unjustified. However, in the years that I have lived here, I have not experienced a government that was a mess almost every week. This varied from the number of foreign visits by the PM to extremely undiplomatic statements by more than 1 minister (Yingluck, Plodprasop, Chalerm) to outright political judgment blunders and unacceptable behaviour. The whole course of affairs surrounding the amnesty law (making, changing, dealing with it in the chamber) is an example of this.
Nor have I yet seen that even the government's own constituency (the rice farmers) join the opposition movement in their protest. That this is not a one-off incident is evident from the turnout percentages and voting behavior (the number of no-votes) in regions that previously turned up in large numbers and voted 'red', such as Udonthani.
In another posting I have already explained that ALL major political parties in this country have been founded, merged, financed and run by wealthy industrialists. None of them can be regarded as emancipation vehicles, as was the case in the Netherlands. Indeed, this stance cannot be ignored.
Is it really strange that you let someone who is facing all kinds of lawsuits look after the store (Ying Luck caretaker)?
I know decaf, coffee with less caffeine, but is Yingluck déconfiture also something like that, Dick? Nice use of words!