Ousted Thai prime minister banned from politics, faces charges

BANGKOK: Thai authorities dealt a double blow to ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her powerful family yesterday, banning her from politics for five years and proceeding with criminal charges for negligence that could put her in jail.

The moves could stoke tension in the politically divided country still living under martial law after the military seized power in May, toppling the remnants of Yingluck’s government to end months of street protests.

The ban and the legal case are the latest twist in 10 years of turbulent politics that have pitted Yingluck and her brother Thaksin, himself a former prime minister, against the royalist-military establishment which sees the Shinawa- tras as a threat and reviles their populist policies.

Yingluck will face criminal charges in the Supreme Court and if found guilty faces up to 10 years in jail, the attorney general’s office said yesterday.

The charges against the country’s first female premier, who was removed from office for abuse of power in May days before the coup, concern her role in a scheme that paid farmers above market prices for rice and cost Thailand billions of dollars.

Yingluck vowed to fight the charges. “Thai democracy has died along with the rule of law,” she said in a statement posted on her Facebook page.

“I will fight until the end to prove my innocence, no matter what the outcome will be. And most importantly, I want to stand alongside the Thai people.”

There was no sign of protests on the capital’s busy streets yester- day, as residents adhered to the junta’s ban on public gatherings.

Security was tightened around the parliament building where the military-stacked legislature voted Yingluck guilty in a separate impeachment case for failing to exercise sufficient oversight of the rice subsidy scheme.

The retroactive impeachment at the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) carries with it a fiveyear ban from politics.

Yingluck defended the rice scheme and disputed the charges in a hearing at the NLA on Thursday, but did not appear yesterday.

A vote to impeach required a three-fifths majority among NLA members, who were hand-picked by the junta of coup leader and Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha. Around 100 of the 220 members are former or serving military officers.

Prayuth said he had not ordered the NLA to vote against Yingluck, who remains popular among the rural poor that handed her a landslide electoral victory in 2011 and benefited from the rice scheme.

The impeachment was expected by Yingluck supporters, who see the courts and NLA as biased and aligned with an establishment intent on blocking the Shinawatra family from politics.

Around 150 members of the Shinawatra political movement have been banned from politics in the last decade, including four who served as prime ministers. – Reuters

REMOVED: Yingluck Shinawatra