Thaksin's party splinters in political shake-up

THAILAND: The once-mighty party of Thailand's ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra splintered Tuesday, in a dramatic reshaping of Thai politics just two days after a junta-appointed premier took office.

Surakiart Sathirathai, Thaksin's former deputy and a candidate to become UN secretary general, on Monday led a wave of more than 60 resignations of former ministers and lawmakers.

The mass defection showed the party's biggest faction pulling away from Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais), threatening to sink the party that was built largely on the billionaire premier's personal wealth and charisma.

Thaksin himself chose to stay in London rather than return to Thailand after the military toppled his government on September 19 while he was out of the country.

The resignations pointed to a major realignment in Thai politics, crippling a party that won solid victories in two elections as some of its most powerful members tried to hitch their wagons to the new military-backed government.

Surakiart has been tipped as a possible foreign minister in the new administration headed by former army chief General Surayud Chulanont, who was sworn in as prime minister on Sunday.

Other top Thaksin aides have said they will leave politics, or even the country, altogether.

Their association with Thaksin once put them among the political elite, but their fortunes rapidly dimmed after the junta created powerful anti-corruption panels to investigate and prosecute what they say was systemic graft during his five years in office. The most sensitive case involves claims of wrongdoing when Thaksin's family sold nearly two billion dollars of telecom stock in January, without paying any tax.

That deal sparked months of street protests in Bangkok, widening the political divide that ultimately led to Thaksin's downfall.

Other cases involve dozens of allegations of graft, bribery and mismanagement in government projects, and no one is yet certain how wide a net the military's corruption-busters plan to cast.

The party itself still faces charges of vote fraud from the general election held in April, which was boycotted by the opposition and tossed out by the courts. Surayud, meanwhile, has set about forming his cabinet, which he said he would unveil within a week of taking office.

Thailand's central bank chief, Pridiyathon Devekula, has already agreed to join the government. Thai media have tipped him as a possible finance minister or deputy prime minister. Among the top contenders to head the defense ministry was a retired army officer, General Wichit Yathip, according to press reports.

The new government was taking shape under the watchful eyes of the coup leaders, who on Sunday also unveiled a draconian constitution that retained the stiff limits imposed on the media and political parties imposed after the coup.

The junta has restyled itself as a Council for National Security under their new constitution, and reserved sweeping powers including the right to sack the prime minister and to name every member of parliament.

They say they want to launch a process to write a new constitution that will strengthen democratic institutions and prevent corruption, but they also gave themselves the right to choose all the members of the council tasked with the job.

That has raised concerns among academics about whether the military's intentions are as democratic as they claim.

"It is supposed to be the new era of Thai democracy, but that prospect has been dashed now," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "Now we have to start over."

Bangkok, Tuesday, AFP