Thais voted in parliamentary by-elections yesterday in the first test of political strength for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s ruling coalition since it took power last month after months of unrest.
Polls closed at 3pm, but preliminary official results were expected sometime last night, at the earliest.
Parliament elected Abhisit, the Democrat Party leader, as prime minister by a thin majority last month. His ascendance to form a shaky coalition government followed the dissolution of three parties in the previous governing coalition after a court ruled some of their members had committed election fraud.
The vote can also be seen as a measure of the influence of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a 2006 military coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power, but who retains popularity among the country’s rural majority. He is in exile, defying a court conviction on a conflict of interest charge.
Thaksin’s original party and its successor were both dissolved by the courts for electoral wrongdoing, but his loyalists contested most of yesterday’s races under the banner of the newly formed Phuea Thai Party.
Residents of Bangkok also voted in an election for governor of the capital city. Sukhumbhand Paribatra, a member of Abhisit’s Democrat Party, appeared to be the easy victor, several exit polls organized by Thai media companies and polling organizations showed.
Voters in 22 other provinces cast ballots to fill 29 parliamentary seats made vacant mostly by politicians disqualified by the court. A total of 83 candidates from 13 political parties were on the ballots.
The dissolved parties had been packed with allies of Thaksin, whose proxy People’s Power Party easily topped the Democrats in a December 2007 general election.
Abhisit’s party was able to take advantage of months of political chaos caused by protesters opposed to Thaksin’s political machine.
Their sometimes violent demonstrations culminated in an eight-day blockade of Bangkok’s airports in November that made it difficult for Thaksin’s allies to govern with any credibility.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS