BANGKOK: Thailand’s new prime minister yesterday offered talks with protesters trying to topple the government, as his political rivals pushed for the appointment of an unelected leader to take power.
“We are open for dialogue,” said Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, who took the helm last week after a controversial court ruling removed Yingluck Shinawatra and nine of her ministers from office.
“Let’s talk. But let’s talk realistically,” he told foreign reporters, playing down fears that the country is teetering on the brink. “I don’t think there will be a civil war. It has been six months and we manage to run the country quite well,” Niwattumrong said.
Opposition demonstrators are threatening to step up their six-month campaign to overthrow the government.
But the government’s supporters, known as the “Red Shirts’, say they will not tolerate any move to hand power to an unelected regime, warning it could lead to civil war.
The opposition protesters want the Senate (upper house of parliament) — almost half of whose members are unelected — to remove the weakened cabinet, but it is unclear whether such a move is possible under the constitution.
The country has not had a functioning lower house since Yingluck dissolved parliament in December for elections that were later voided because of disruption by protesters.
Paiboon Nittitawan, an appointed senator and prominent government critic, urged the upper house to choose a new prime minister “immediately, for the sake of security and the economy”. AFP
