Thai PM easily survives no-confidence vote amid protests
| |
| |
Thailand's embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Thursday easily survived a parliamentary no-confidence vote against her, the house speaker said, as raucous protests continued on Bangkok's streets.
| |
"Prime Minister Yingluck won the vote of confidence," said Somsak Kiatsuranont, with 297 lawmakers voting in her favour and 134 against. The vote, which pivoted on a slew of allegations of corruption, comes amid ongoing mass street protests in Bangkok by opposition protesters seeking to topple Yingluck's elected government. Demonstrators have paralysed government ministries in Bangkok to challenge Yingluck and the self-exiled Thaksin, in the biggest street protests since mass rallies in 2010 that turned deadly. Protesters accuse Yingluck and her government of acting as a stooge to her brother, the billionaire tycoon-turned-politician who is adored by many of the country's rural and urban working class. But he is reviled by many in the elite and the middle classes. The opposition Democrat Party brought the no-confidence motion alleging Yingluck and her government had overseen widespread corruption, including in a controversial rice subsidy scheme which is seen to have benefitted the rural heartlands of her Puea Thai party. On Wednesday, protesters entered a major government complex in the northern outskirts of the capital and also forced staff to leave the Justice Department's besieged Department of Special Investigations. Outside Bangkok, protesters gathered at about 25 provincial halls mainly in the opposition's southern heartlands -- including on the tourist island of Phuket. While the demos have so far been largely peaceful, there are fears they could degenerate into another bout of street violence in a country that has seen several episodes of political unrest since Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 coup. | |
Rouhani wins Iran's Presidential election Moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani won Iran's presidential election on Saturday, the interior ministry said, scoring a surprising landslide victory over conservative hardliners without the need of a second round run-off.Interior minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced on state television that Rouhani secured just over 50 percent of the ballot based on a 72 percent turnout of 50 million eligible voters. Mr Hassan Rouhani ... got the absolute majority of votes and was elected as president," Najjar said. Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, a hard-line conservative, lagged behind with about 16 percent of the votes. Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, he too a hard-line conservative, earned 11 percent. The voter turnout was 72.7 percent. President-elect Hassan Rohani, sixty four years old, is known as a moderate conservative. He has been stressing the need to improve ties with Western nations, and is back...
Comments
Post a Comment