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Thailand: election commission urges poll delay after violent clashes | Thailand: election commission urges poll delay after violent clashes |
(about 9 hours later) | |
Thailand’s election commission has called for upcoming polls to be delayed as street battles between security forces and protesters seeking to disrupt the ballot left one police officer dead and injured nearly 100 people. | |
The beleaguered government quickly rejected the call. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra wants the 2 February polls to take place as scheduled, believing she will win and renew her mandate. The renewed street violence has heaped pressure on the Thai leader to take a tougher line against protesters attempting to force her from office, raising the likelihood of army intervention. | |
Thursday’s violence concentrated outside a Bangkok sports stadium where election candidates were gathering to draw lots for their positions on ballots. Protesters threw rocks and attempted to break into the building to halt the process, while police fired teargas and rubber bullets. Police said protesters retaliated with live fire, which hit one police officer who was airlifted from the scene but died of his wounds in hospital. | |
Election commissioners were forced to evacuate the stadium by helicopter to escape the clashes - some of the sharpest since a long-running dispute between bitterly divided political factions flared two months ago, pitching Thailand into fresh turmoil. | |
The protest movement regards the Yingluck administration as corrupt, illegitimate and a proxy for her brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a military coup in 2006. Government opposition groups demand that elections be delayed until Yingluck leaves office and reforms are implemented. | |
The election commission issued a statement urging the government to consider postponing the elections, citing the dire threat to security they would pose. Commission head Somchai Srisutthiyakorn denied the body was “involving itself in politics” by requesting a delay in the polls. “We have good intentions and want to see peace in this country,” he told reporters. | |
Nonetheless, Deputy Prime Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana said the government was unable to change the election date. | |
“February 2 2014, was set as the election date in the royal decree dissolving parliament, and there is nothing within the constitution or the law that gives the government the authority to change this date,” he said. He reiterated that the government was willing to discuss reforms with protesters, but insisted elections must take place as scheduled. | |
According to the constitution, elections must be held 45 to 60 days from the date that parliament is dissolved. | |
Waves of anti-government protests began in late October, but Thursday’s violence was the first in nearly two weeks of calm. | |
At least 96 people were injured from both sides as protesters armed with sling shots and wearing gas masks fought with police. | |
Protesters stormed a government building, vandalised cars and blocked a major road leading to the smaller of Bangkok’s two airports. | |
Police have made no move to arrest the protest movement’s ringleader, Suthep Thaugsuban, who is demanding the country be led by an unelected council until reforms can be implemented. The authorities have chosen to tread carefully, believing that any crackdown would provoke greater violence and chaos providing the military - which has staged 11 successful coups in the past - a pretext to intervene again. | |
In a speech to supporters on Thursday night, Suthep said he regretted the violence but denied that the protesters were responsible, instead blaming infiltrators or supporters of Yingluck. He vowed that protesters would succeed in toppling the government. | |
Thailand has been wracked by political conflict since Thaksin was deposed seven years ago. The former prime minister now lives in self-imposed exile to avoid jail time for a corruption conviction, but continues to wield influence in the country. | |
Thaksin or his allies have won every election since 2001 , carried by strong support in the north and north-east of the country. His supporters say he is disliked by Bangkok’s elite because he has shifted power away from the traditional ruling class, which has strong links to the popular royal family. | |
On Wednesday, Yingluck proposed a national reform council todevise a compromise, but the suggestion was rejected by protesters. The country’s main opposition party, which is allied with the protest movement, has announced it will boycott the elections. | |
Yingluck led the country for two years relatively smoothly. But in October, her government tried to introduce an amnesty law that would have allowed Thaksin to return to the country as a free man, prompting the latest round of unrest. | |
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