Thai court ruling brings down government

BANGKOK – A Thai court dissolved yesterday the ruling party and banned the prime minister from politics, plunging the kingdom into further uncertainty as industries crumble and fresh violence threatens to erupt.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat – the target of months of protests – will now step down after the Constitutional Court ruled that his party should be scrapped because former House speaker and ex-deputy leader of the pro-government People Power Party Yongyuth Tiyapairat was involved in electoral fraud in the previous general election.

After the ruling, anti-government protesters agreed to allow flights to resume from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.

Somchai was banned from politics for five years, along with 36 other People Power Party executives, achieving a key goal of royalist demonstrators who have blockaded the capital’s two airports for the past week.

“My duty is over. I am now an ordinary citizen,” Somchai, 61, told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai from where he has been governing since an opposition blockade of the airports began.

“But it is unexpected that the decision would come out this way. In the past I have done my best, not for myself but for our country,” said Somchai, the brother-in-law of exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

The former lawyer spent less than three months in power, beset by protesters from the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) who accused his government of acting as a proxy for Thaksin and of being hostile to the monarchy.

Government spokesman Nattawut Sai-kau said Somchai and his six-party ruling coalition would step down.

“We will abide by the law. The coalition parties will meet together to plan for its next move soon,” he said.

Protesters at the Suvarnabhumi international airport cheered and hugged after they heard news of the verdict.

“My heart is happy. My friends are very happy,” said Pailin Jampapong, a 41-year-old Bangkok housekeeper choking back tears as she jumped up and down.

Airport siege ends

“As of this moment, the PAD has allowed flights to take off and land immediately, both passenger and cargo flights,” senior PAD member Somkiat Pongpaiboon said in his announcement of the protesters’ decision to leave Suvarnabhumi airport.

About 500 angry government supporters massed outside the administrative court, where judges read the ruling live on national television after earlier rallies by the group forced them to change location.

“As the court decided to dissolve the People Power Party, therefore the leader of the party and party executives must be banned from politics for five years,” said Chat Chonlaworn, head of the nine-judge court panel.

“The court had no other option,” he said.

Riot police with bullet-proof shields stood guard, as tensions in Thailand remained on the brink with the anti-government PAD continuing their siege of the smaller Don Mueang airport where a blast killed one protester and injured 22 others early yesterday.

The court ruling came just hours after the PAD ended a three-month sit-in at the prime minister’s offices in Bangkok.

The PAD, who dress in yellow which they say symbolizes their devotion to Thailand’s much-revered king, are backed by the Bangkok business elite and middle classes, along with elements in the military and the palace.

Thaksin, whose supporters dress in red, is hugely popular with Thailand’s rural and urban poor, especially in the north, his native area.

Two of the PPP’s coalition partners were also dissolved because some of their executives were convicted of vote fraud after elections in December 2007 – the first since the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin.

Together the three banned parties controlled about a third of parliament.

The PPP was ready to move lawmakers into a shell party called Pheu Thai (For Thais) formed in anticipation of the verdict and continue administering the country, spokesman Kudeb Saikrajang said.

The PPP had boycotted the court proceedings.

“I am sad to hear this devastating ruling which we had no chance to defend,” Kudeb told AFP. “But our remaining 216 MPs will move to the Pheu Thai party and bid to open the house to elect a new prime minister.”

Toll on travelers

The unrest continued to take a heavy toll on the 350,000 travelers stranded in Thailand by the crisis, with three tourists including two Canadians dying in road accidents as they tried to flee the “Land of Smiles.”

A Hong Kong national was also killed in the same accident, according to some reports.

Airline passengers have been flooding to a naval base southeast of Bangkok and to the southern tourist town of Phuket to try to escape the country, along often-dangerous roads.

The turmoil also forced Thailand to postpone a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which was due to be held in Chiang Mai in mid December.

Wilting industries

As protesters blockaded Bangkok’s international airport for an eighth day - stranding 300,000 travelers and all but paralyzing air links with the outside world – Thailand’s economy began to feel the pinch.

From shortages of fine wines to salmon, the airport shutdown has mostly affected the capital’s upper class and foreigners. Top hotels and restaurants scrambled for fast dwindling stocks of imported delicacies, and a private hospital organized limousines to ferry foreign patients recovering from surgery to a resort island airport 12 hours south of Bangkok.

But pain is beginning to seep into the broader economy, and up to one million workers in the vital tourism industry could lose their jobs if foreign visitor numbers plunge by half next year, as the Tourism Council predicts. The economy, which grew 4.7 percent last year, will slow or even contract, experts have warned.

Already, the orchid industry says it is losing $1 million a day.

“The domestic market cannot absorb the flowers. A few exporters are selling export-quality orchids locally but most have to be thrown away,” said Wittaya Yukpan, managing director of Siam Flower 1985 Co., one of the largest orchid exporters.

He said up to 5,000 families who grow orchids are losing money.

“Buyers will use other types of flowers in bouquets and once they get used to them they may not come back to orchids,” said Wittaya, 42, whose father helped pioneer Thailand’s orchid industry. – AP