Bangkok: Thailand’s Parliament on Monday selected Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as the next prime minister, giving the 44-year-old Oxford-educated politician a slim majority to form the next government. An extraordinary session of the lower house gave Abhisit a thin victory by a 235-198 vote over his rival, police General Pracha Promnok, the Puea Paendin Party leader. Three members abstained.
Abhisit is now slated to become Thailand’s 27th prime minister and the country’s youngest. He heads the Democrat Party, which at 60 years is Thailand’s oldest political party.
The Democrats have been in the opposition since former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party romped to victory on the back of a populist platform in the January 2001 general election.
In the wake of a Constitution Court ruling on December 2 that dissolved the People Power Party (PPP), which led the last government, and banned its top executives from politics, the Democrats have managed to rise to power even though they came in second in the last general election.
The pro-Thaksin PPP won about 230 of the 480 contested seats in the December 2007 polls, compared with the Democrats’ 167. After the dissolution of three political parties, including the PPP, as well as deaths and illnesses, only 435 lawmakers voted Monday.
In the aftermath of the PPP’s dissolution, the Democrats managed to win the support of four smaller political parties and a breakaway faction from the Puea Thai, the reincarnation of the PPP.
Last-minute jockeying to win support from members of Parliament was intense, in keeping with Thailand’s long history of “money politics” and making the outcome of Monday’s vote uncertain.
Thai newspapers reported that lawmakers had been offered as much as 50 million baht (1.4 million dollars) to skip Monday’s session to avoid voting for Abhisit.
About 400 “red shirts,” or followers of Thailand’s fugitive former prime minister Thaksin, rallied outside Parliament Monday to put pressure on its members to vote for Pracha. They booed the election of Abhisit and threw barriers in front of Parliament’s entrance in a show of protest against the Democrat victory.
Pracha had the backing of members of his Puea Paendin Party, the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai and smaller Phracharaj Party.
There were fears that if Pracha became the next prime minister, Thailand’s political impasse would continue and street protests that undermined the last government would resume.
The anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement seized and shut down Bangkok’s two airports from November 26 to December 3 in their successful bid to topple the previous government.
The protest speeded up a Constitution Court ruling December 2 on the PPP, which ended in its dissolution and came with a five-year ban on its executives from politics, forcing premier Somchai Wongsawat to stop down with half his cabinet.
The PAD has promised to return to the streets if the next government is run by a Thaksin proxy.
The last government was headed by Somchai, Thaksin’s brother-in-law. Thaksin, a former billionaire telecommunications tycoon, was prime minister from 2001 to September 2006 when he was ousted by a bloodless military coup.
He has been sentenced to two years in jail on a corruption charge and now lives in self-imposed exile but remains a central player in Thailand’s political drama.
The PAD, which has the tacit support of the military and other elements of Thailand’s so-called “political elite,” is dedicated to preventing Thaksin and his cronies from returning to politics. (dpa)
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