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Opposition parties to boycott Thai poll
 Thailand's three opposition parties say they will boycott snap elections on April 2. The move deepens a political crisis and raising the pressure on embattled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Mr Thaksin is the focus of an increasingly strident campaign by groups accusing him of abuses of power and tailoring government policies to benefit his family's business. He has shrugged off the boycott. "It is each party's decision. We've done our best. I've done my best. However, I don't foresee any problem," he said. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of the Democrats says the three parties refuse to run in the vote because it did not guarantee political reform, reflecting their charges Mr Thaksin had undermined institutions. "The Chart Thai, Democrat and Mahachon parties agreed unanimously that we will not field candidates in this election," he said after a meeting of the three parties. Ms Thaksin says he is taking the constitutional path to resolve the crisis by calling an election. His party accused the opposition of betraying democracy by calling for a boycott. His Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party was expected to win the election comfortably without a boycott, albeit with a smaller majority than the 377 of the 500 parliamentary seats it had a year ago. But some analysts say the boycott, which is likely to bolster the anti-Thaksin campaign and its attendant risks of street violence, does raise thoughts of a coup in a country with a long and relatively recent history of military interventions. "Every time when there was a coup in the past, military juntas felt the country was in crisis and there was no democratic way out," Somkit Lertpaithoon, a public law professor at Bangkok's Thammasat University, said. "Such a move has increased the possibility of a coup." Posted by: Fred 2006-02-28 |
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