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Thailand allows resumption of political activities |
Thailand's army-appointed cabinet agreed on Tuesday to let
political parties resume activities days after ousted Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's was disbanded.
But the formation of new parties was still banned as it would take
three weeks for a new law to be written on forming them, Prime
Minister Surayud Chulanont said. That means Thaksin's Thai Rak
Thai (Thais Love Thais) cannot reform under a new name, which it is
expected to do before general elections the government has promised
for December, until that law is passed. The elections will be
staged under a new constitution and a draft, much criticised for
appearing to take authority away from politicians and give it to
bureaucrats, is scheduled to be put to a referendum in September.
Surayud told reporters the resumption of political activities would
"allow all sides to communicate with their people to bring
understanding on the constitutional draft, which will lead to a
referendum". The cabinet planned to approve the party formation law
next week, before forwarding it to the army-appointed parliament
for passage, Surauyd said. "We hope to get the National Legislative
Assembly to pass it in two weeks after that," he said. The
Constitutional Tribunal ordered the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai
for election fraud last week and banned 111 of its leaders,
including Thaksin, from politics for five years. But it absolved
the Democrat Party, Thailand's oldest and the main opposition to
Thaksin until he was ousted last September, of any wrongdoing in
elections early last year. The verdict upset Thaksin supporters,
who demonstrated against the generals who overthrew Thaksin and the
government they appointed. Acting Thai Rak Thai leader Chaturon
Chaisang said the verdict was part of the generals' post-coup
"roadmap" aimed at neutering Thaksin's political network and
strengthening his opponents in the elections. "These attempts have
been planned in the roadmap to either bring extinction to the
former Thai Rak Thai or bring grave weakness to the party,"
Chaturon told Reuters Television. "We shall wait and see whether
they will materialise."
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