Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, right, and his deputy Suthep Thuagsuban watch the voting scores on a screen from their seats during a vote on censure motion against both of them at parliament in Bangkok, June 2, 2010.
By JAMES HOOKWAY
BANGKOK – Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva survived a no-confidence vote in the country's parliament Wednesday after two days of acrimonious debate over his government's handling of bloody street protests in the Thai capital last month.
The censure motion brought by Thailand's opposition parties accused Mr. Abhisit and other key government members of using excessive force to quash months of antigovernment Red Shirt protests in Bangkok. Over the course of over two months, at least 89 people—the vast majority of them civilians—were killed in street clashes, sniper attacks and a series of grenade bombings while around 1,800 were injured.
Mr. Abhisit, 46 years old, defended himself by saying armed protesters instigated much of the violence as security forces attempted to confine them to their main rally site in one of Bangkok's main shopping districts, and has promised an independent investigation into the deaths. "Parliament has to investigate the matter further," Mr. Abhisit said on Tuesday, the second day of the debate.
As expected, Mr. Abhisit easily dealt with the parliamentary bid to force him to resign or have the legislature dissolved, as might have been triggered if he didn't get the support of at least 50% of lawmakers in the lower house Members voted 246 to 186 to reject the motion against Mr. Abhisit, while five other government ministers also survived no-confidence votes.
The parliamentary debate was the first open forum to discuss the unrest, which threatens to escalate a sharp political divide between Thailand's ruling establishment and its middle class supporters in Bangkok on one side, and the populist, mostly rural-based Red Shirt movement that's calling for new elections on the other.
Many of the Red Shirts, so named for their choice of clothing, are supporters of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup four years ago. Their leaders—now under military detention—said new elections were the only way of re-establishing democracy. They accuse Mr. Abhisit of rising to power in 2008 after Thailand's powerful bureaucrats and courts forced the collapse of a pro-Thaksin administration.
When negotiations for a peaceful end to the protests collapsed in May, Mr. Abhisit withdrew an offer of early elections and sent the Thai army in to shut down demonstrations. Radical protesters, some armed with homemade weapons and military-grade equipment, fired back at security forces and later torched Thailand's largest shopping mall and the country's stock exchange headquarters.
Political analysts say the no-confidence debate would likely do little to heal Thailand's political wounds, many of which center around the role of Mr. Thaksin, a 60-year-old former telecommunications magnate who faced a barrage of corruption and human rights allegations while in office, and the timing of any future election.
The government calls Mr. Thaksin and some of his followers "terrorists" for allegedly organizing the violence, a move that appears designed to separate moderate Red Shirts from hardliners bent on overthrowing the government. Mr. Abhisit and other leaders have repeatedly referred to acts of terrorism amid the Red Shirt protests and a Thai court last week issued a warrant for Mr. Thaksin's arrest on charges of terrorism.
Mr. Thaksin, who lives abroad to escape imprisonment for a 2008 corruption conviction, describes the case as "politically motivated" and designed to divert attention from the army's actions against the Red Shirt protesters.
Many Red Shirts deny the terrorism label, and some have said they plan to resume their protests when the government lifts a state of emergency. People familiar with the thinking of some Red Shirt leaders say that if they decide to stage further protests, they'll try to do it without Mr. Thaksin's involvement. That's because his checkered past and authoritarian tendencies as prime minister undermine the protesters' use of democracy as a rallying point, and provide an easy target for government criticism. "We've learned a lot," said one person involved with protest leaders.
Bangkok and 23 other provinces are still under emergency rule, although a night-time curfew was lifted at the weekend.
Mr. Abhisit, meanwhile, said at the weekend it would be difficult to hold elections by end of this year, as he had initially offered the protesters. By law, he has to call a vote by the end of 2011.
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