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| By Manager Online | 6 May 2010 12:32 |
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by Anusak Konglang, May 6, 2010
BANGKOK (AFP) - Thailand's embattled premier Abhisit Vejjajiva said Thursday he was ready to dissolve parliament in September, paving the way for elections aimed at ending a crippling political crisis.
Thailand's anti-government "Red Shirts", who have been waging a campaign of protests to force snap polls, have signed up to Abhisit's reconciliation "roadmap" which envisages holding national polls on November 14.
But after a long and bitter standoff, marred by outbreaks of violence that left 27 dead and hundreds injured last month, they remain suspicious and want more details before leaving their vast protest encampment in central Bangkok.
Abhisit said the lower house of parliament would be dissolved sometime in the second half of September, but he refused to set an exact timeframe during a meeting of ruling party lawmakers, who gave their support for his plan.
"Everybody can calculate the date," Abhisit said when asked to specify the dissolution timing, which the Reds are demanding before they end a rally that has paralysed the retail heart of the capital for weeks.
The election law mandates a 45-60 day election campaign.
Top Red Shirts have voiced optimism that the end is in sight for their supporters at the encampment, which is fortified behind makeshift barricades made of piles of kerosene-soaked tyres, razor wire and bamboo stakes.
One Reds leader, Weng Tojirakarn, told supporters to remain on their guard, accusing the Democrats of having backtracked on promises in the past.
"But it doesn't mean that we won't join the reconciliation roadmap. That's the resolution we have made by consensus and we will definitely take part," Weng told protesters Thursday.
"But we do not trust the Democrats and Abhisit," he said.
A ruling party spokesman warned that the premier might reconsider his election offer if the protesters do not leave Bangkok, which remains under a state of emergency.
"If the Red Shirts continue to rally it's possible that the prime minister will not dissolve the House," said Warong Dechkitvigrom, the Democrat Party's deputy spokesman.
"The roadmap is not between the Red Shirts and the government but for all Thai people. From now on there will be no talks with protesters," he said.
Crowds at the vast Reds camp -- mostly rural poor from Thailand's impoverished north, or urban working class -- have swelled to as high as 100,000 in the past, but numbers have steadily fallen.
Many protesters, however, remain resolute despite the mounting piles of garbage, and the start of the rainy season which has made life hard for those sleeping rough under flimsy shelters.
The Reds, mostly supporters of billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was unseated in a 2006 coup, have been campaigning for snap elections to unseat Abhisit's government.
They condemn the administration as undemocratic because it was appointed with the backing of the army in a 2008 parliamentary vote, after a court ruling ousted Thaksin's elected allies.
The Reds have said the government is intent on clinging to power until September to ensure the new army leadership line-up is appointed and the national budget is approved in parliament before it holds elections.
Thaksin, a telecoms tycoon-turned-politician who lives overseas to avoid a jail term for corruption, had at one point been galvanising the Reds nightly by video addresses, but has now called on the rivals to settle their differences.
Arrest warrants have been issued for many leading Red Shirts, who have been defying a ban on rallies under a state of emergency in the city.
Red Shirt leaders are pushing for an amnesty, but the Democrat Party spokesman said there was no plan to grant such a decree for those protest leaders accused of terrorism or plotting to overthrow the monarchy.
"Leaders must surrender themselves to police or face arrest," he said.
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