Thai ruling may trigger political shift
Wednesday's decision to dissolve former ruling party may ensure the military's political dominance.
By Daniel Ten Kate | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the June 1, 2007 edition
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Bangkok, Thailand - A military-installed court Wednesday dissolved former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's political party, Thai Rak Thai, and banned more than 100 senior members from political activities for five years, solidifying the military's grip on power ahead of elections scheduled for December.
The ruling increases the likelihood that the next government will be on friendly terms with the military, which ousted Mr. Thaksin in a bloodless coup last September. But opposition parties are still wary that Thaksin, who is living in exile in London, could continue to exert influence from afar, possibly via a new political party run by former Thai Rak Thai politicians who escaped censure.
In a lengthy court session that ended at midnight in the Thai capital, nine Constitution Tribunal judges found Thai Rak Thai guilty of bribing small parties to run in the boycotted April 2006 election, which the courts eventually voided. Although Bangkok elites who supported the coup cheered the decision, critics said it was a harsh punishment and another step back for the country's immature democracy.
"The ruling was very political and the court showed a total lack of independence from the junta," said Giles Ungpakorn, a political science lecturer at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University and a prominent anticoup activist. "What we see here is the work of the coup finished by courts so they can hold elections that won't contain Thai Rak Thai… It hasn't solved the problem; it's made the problem worse."
Along with changes to the Constitution that limit the role of elected politicians in favor of appointed judges and senators, the court ruling appears to ensure that the military and royalist elites who conspired to oust Thaksin will keep politicians on a short leash after the next election. The opposition Democrat Party was acquitted by the court on related fraud charges, putting it in a strong position to contest the next elections.
The ruling enforced an ex post facto law dictated by the junta that stripped the voting rights from executive members of dissolved parties for five years, meaning they can't run for public office. The previous punishment said executive members were banned from forming a new party or sitting on a leadership board, but they could still run for office.
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