BANGKOK: The heads of Thailand’s powerful military agreed yesterday to a weekend meeting with the leader of the movement seeking to overthrow Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, deepening uncertainty about the country’s immediate political future.
Yingluck has called a snap election for February 2, but that has done nothing to satisfy a protest group that wants an unelected leadership to run the country, aware that a nationwide vote would likely return another government controlled by the premier’s divisive billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.
The armed forces issued a statement late yesterday saying it had invited protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban to join the heads of the army, navy and air force at a seminar on Saturday “to find a way out for Thailand.” The supreme commander would be the mediator and other “stakeholders” would join, it said, without elaborating.
The motives of Thailand’s politicised, coup-prone military are unclear. It has sought to remain officially neutral but Suthep has tried to drag the generals into the conflict during daily televised speeches, asking them to take sides.
The protesters see Yingluck as a puppet of Thaksin, the tycoon who remains at the heart of Thai politics, despite being overthrown in a 2006 military coup and fleeing overseas to dodge a jail sentence for graft.
They want the entire Shinawatra family to join him in exile, accusing them of corruption, crony capitalism and of using taxpayers’ money to buy-off the rural poor with populist giveaways.
The military is being closely watched because of its tacit support over the past eight years for Thaksin’s enemies in the royalist Bangkok establishment, who are threatened by his rise and the unassailable political mandate from millions of working class voters in every election since 2001.
Reuters
