Thai protesters march to oust PM, hit out at United States
20 Dec 2013 12:45 AM GMT
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban is demanding political and electoral reforms before any vote is held and wants these to be overseen by a ‘people’s council’ that his movement will help nominate rather than by Yingluck, who is caretaker prime minister until the election, set for 2 February.
Thailand’s National Security Council said only 6,500 people gathered at the busy Asoke intersection in central Bangkok at around mid-day, although office workers and others lined the route of the march to voice support.
A separate group of about 1,000 student-led protesters marched to the US embassy. The United States has annoyed the protesters by calling for the democratic process to be respected, effectively endorsing the holding of an election.
Nititorn Lamlua, a protest leader, said US Ambassador Kristie Kenney ought to be transferred. ‘If she needs to leave the embassy, she’ll have to go by helicopter because she has badmouthed the protesters,’ he said. On 9 December, when Yingluck called the election, about 160,000 protesters had massed around her office complex, and before that some had occupied ministries and other state buildings, but police say no more than 2,000 people are now camped out at the main protest sites in Bangkok’s historic quarter. Demonstrators on Thursday held banners saying ‘We are anti-corruption’ and ‘No elections before reform’.
One sign read: ‘We will not accept Square Face’, a nickname given to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s brother and the figure at the centre of Thailand’s eight-year, on-off political crisis. Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon, is adored by the rural poor because of cheap healthcare and other policies brought in while he was in power, but he was toppled by the military in 2006 and now lives in self-exile.
Yingluck won a landslide victory in 2011 and her Puea Thai Party is well placed to win the next election because of Thaksin’s enduring support in the populous north and northeast. Ranged against them are a royalist establishment that feels threatened by Thaksin’s rise and a middle class that resents what it sees as its taxes being spent on wasteful populist policies that amount to vote-buying.
Thailand’s National Security Council said only 6,500 people gathered at the busy Asoke intersection in central Bangkok at around mid-day, although office workers and others lined the route of the march to voice support.
A separate group of about 1,000 student-led protesters marched to the US embassy. The United States has annoyed the protesters by calling for the democratic process to be respected, effectively endorsing the holding of an election.
Nititorn Lamlua, a protest leader, said US Ambassador Kristie Kenney ought to be transferred. ‘If she needs to leave the embassy, she’ll have to go by helicopter because she has badmouthed the protesters,’ he said. On 9 December, when Yingluck called the election, about 160,000 protesters had massed around her office complex, and before that some had occupied ministries and other state buildings, but police say no more than 2,000 people are now camped out at the main protest sites in Bangkok’s historic quarter. Demonstrators on Thursday held banners saying ‘We are anti-corruption’ and ‘No elections before reform’.
One sign read: ‘We will not accept Square Face’, a nickname given to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s brother and the figure at the centre of Thailand’s eight-year, on-off political crisis. Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon, is adored by the rural poor because of cheap healthcare and other policies brought in while he was in power, but he was toppled by the military in 2006 and now lives in self-exile.
Yingluck won a landslide victory in 2011 and her Puea Thai Party is well placed to win the next election because of Thaksin’s enduring support in the populous north and northeast. Ranged against them are a royalist establishment that feels threatened by Thaksin’s rise and a middle class that resents what it sees as its taxes being spent on wasteful populist policies that amount to vote-buying.
Next Story
