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Thai Election Body Urges Delay in Polls Amid Clash Thai Election Body Urges Delay in Polls Amid Violence
(about 3 hours later)
BANGKOK — Thailand’s Election Commission on Thursday urged the government to delay polls scheduled for Feb. 2 after hours of violent protests, adding to political uncertainty in the country. BANGKOK — After chaotic clashes between the police and antigovernment protesters in Bangkok Thursday that left one police officer dead and dozens of people injured on both sides, the Election Commission of Thailand urged the postponement of the country’s Feb. 2 elections, further clouding the way forward for Thailand after a month of debilitating street protests.
The government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been insisting the polls should go ahead as planned. The protest movement seeking to oust her is demanding they be delayed, and has vowed to disrupt them. A postponement would be a victory for the protesters, who oppose the elections on the grounds that they will probably return to power the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose party is very popular in the northern half of the country but despised by many southerners and members of the Thai elite.
In a statement, the commission said it was urging the government to consider “postponing the elections,” citing the lack of “peace” between the government and protesters. Charupong Ruangsuwan, the head of the governing party, who is also interior minister in the outgoing government, reacted angrily to the proposed postponement.
Government officials didn’t immediately answer calls seeking a response. “I insist that the Election Commission has to comply with the law,” he said in televised remarks. “The Election Commission has a duty to carry out the whole process.”
The development followed violent protests between demonstrators and police outside a sports stadium where candidates were gathering to draw lots for their position on polling papers. Over the past month, protesters have raided government ministries, cut power to government offices and police stations and marched through Bangkok in huge numbers. On Thursday, they attempted to raid the Bangkok stadium where political parties were completing pre-election formalities.
The demonstrators, some armed with sling shots, threw rocks and attempted to break through police lines. Officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets. At least 48 people were injured. Police said one of its officers had sustained a bullet wound, presumably fired by protesters. Their attempts to seize the stadium were thwarted by riot police. One police officer was killed by gunfire and 24 others were wounded, including 10 in critical condition, the police said. In addition, several dozen protesters were injured by tear gas and rubber bullets.
Inside the stadium, candidates for at least 27 parties took part in the lot-drawing process, which went on unaffected despite the turmoil outside the gates. Election Commission officials were evacuated from the site by helicopter.
Four election commissioners left the stadium on a helicopter, according to a spokesman for the body. Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher in Thailand at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Twitter that democracy in Thailand had been “hijacked by violence & thuggery.”
Three officers were injured, said police Col. Anucha Romyanan. He urged the demonstrators to assemble peacefully and said “attempts are being made to escalate the political situation by causing violence.” “Shame!” he wrote.
The clashes were contained to the area around the stadium but stretched into the morning. It was the first violent incident in nearly two weeks of daily protests on the streets of Bangkok. In comments to reporters Thursday, the head of the Election Commission, Somchai Srisuthiyakorn, said he “urged” the government to postpone elections. But he also said the elections would not take place on Feb. 2 unless protesters reached an accommodation with the government.
The protesters have been demanding that Yingluck step down since mid-October, and street unrest has occasionally broken out. They oppose the polls because Yingluck is seen as sure to win them. “If there’s no understanding or agreement in our society, the election on February 2 is not going to happen,” he said.
Police have largely shown restraint and have made no move to arrest the ringleader, Suthep Thaugsuban, who is demanding the country be led by an unelected council until reforms can be implemented. Thailand is politically divided between its north and south and between allies and detractors of the Shinawatra clan, the country’s most influential political family.
Thailand has been wracked by political conflict since Yingluck’s brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was toppled by a 2006 military coup. The protesters accuse Yingluck of being a proxy for Thaksin, who lives in self-imposed exile to avoid jail time for a corruption conviction but still wields influence in the country. The political crisis appears to have contributed to a drop in the baht, the Thai currency, and has been blamed for a decline in the stock market. Although the protests have on most days been confined to a limited area of Bangkok, hoteliers say the crisis has also caused cancellations during what is traditionally Thailand’s peak tourism season.
Thaksin or his allies have won every election since 2001 thanks to strong support in the north and northeast 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 have strong links to the royal family. The protesters are closely allied with Thailand’s Democrat Party, the oldest political party in the country, which has struggled over the past decade to compete with the popularity of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister who is Ms. Yingluck’s older brother.
On Wednesday, Yingluck announced a proposal for a national reform council to come up with a compromise to the crisis, but it was rejected by the protesters. They now plan more civil disobedience and street protests in a bid to provoke such chaos that Yingluck will be forced to resign as caretaker. The Democrats announced last weekend that they would boycott the Feb. 2 elections. Every other major party in the country has said it will participate.
The country’s main opposition party, which is allied with the protesters, is boycotting the elections, which Yingluck called early in hopes of giving her a fresh mandate and defusing the crisis. The crisis has confounded many observers because the protesters — who on some days have numbered in the hundreds of thousands in Bangkok — are marching against 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, sparking the latest round of unrest. Chuwit Kamolvisit, the leader of a small opposition party, Rak Prathetthai, decried what he called a “bloody election.”
“I don’t know why elections, which are accepted as international standards of democratic systems, are heavily opposed like this,” he said in a Facebook posting Thursday. The government and the protesters differ over whether they want reforms before or after elections, he said. But “at the end of the day it will come down to elections.”
Ichal Supriadi, the executive director of the Asian Network for Free Elections, an organization that observes and monitors elections, said there have been cases in other countries in which people opposed elections, sometimes on security grounds, but this was the first time he had witnessed such a mass movement against elections.
Mr. Ichal issued a statement on Tuesday lauding the “unique role that elections hold in a democracy” and urging protesters to allow the voting process to proceed.
“All efforts and plans to forcibly impede the election process should cease,” the organization, known as Anfrel, said in the statement.
Mr. Ichal, who is from Indonesia, said Thailand had “shown a degree of professionalism” in conducting elections in the past.
The governing party, Pheu Thai, won a landslide in the last election in 2011 with a turnout of 75 percent. The Democrats conceded defeat.
“We are not taking sides but we believe that elections are the only mechanism to count every individual in Thailand,” Mr. Ichal said in an interview.

Poypiti Amatatham contributed reporting.