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. | |
Save Dissent to Save Democracy THE rising instances of physical violence and threats against political opponents and the inability to accept dissent must raise huge concerns amongst all of us who see democracy as perhaps the really stellar achievement since Independence. AAP’s attack on BJP headquarters and acts of arson committed under the very noses of their elite leadership; the attacks on Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia in Gujarat in the last two days; the recent manhandling of the caretaker of journalist Siddharth Varadarajan’s house by some garden variety thugs; and the violence and threats meted out regularly to their political opponents by political parties is surely deplorable and condemnable. This is a fatally flawed trend which will destroy the very foundations of our democratic institutions if not pushed back with all the strength and condemnation that the civil society can mobilise. Replaying the past To begin with, it must be clarified that we should ...
Comments
Post a Comment