The Constitutional Tribunal has banned Thaksin Shinawatra and 110 other Thai Rak Thai officials from political office for five years. They have also ordered the party to be dissolved after it was found guilty of violating electoral laws. Apparently thousands of troops are on the streets of Bangkok in case of unrest and one former Thai Rak Thai deputy had threatened to mobilise thousands of protesters.
The caretaker leader of Thai Rak Thai Chaturon Chaisang said last night that the verdict was "highly unexpected", and expressed his worry over "setbacks" towards the development of democracy in Thailand. He called upon the party's 14 million supporters to respect the verdicts, and not protest.
However, according to The Nation he then vowed to fight on and said that "the verdicts proved that he who controlled the state power could make anything right". He said "the public would not accept the verdicts". "This is not acceptable. The country is now ruled under dictatorship."
According to the report in The Nation he continued his verbal attacks before his speech was take over by a newscaster!!
State censorship will not solve this problem. Even if Thai Rak Thai is successfully and peacefully disbanded the ideas that were central to the philosophy of Thai Rak Thai will find a home in another (probably new) party and I suspect that this is the real problem which will not go away when and if further elections are held.
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