Protesting against the regime of outgoing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, voters in southern Thailand wore black and tore up their ballots yesterday, in another round of parliamentary elections to avert a looming constitutional breakdown.
Voting is taking place in 40 constituencies, mostly in Thailand's insurgency-plagued southern provinces, in an attempt to fill seats left vacant in earlier polls for the lower house of parliament because of minimum turnout rules.
But election officials said candidates in at least 10 constituencies were again unlikely to win seats, leading to uncharted constitutional territory.
The law stipulates that parliament should convene within 30 days of an election to form a new government, but also that it cannot convene if all 500 seats are not filled.
Thousands of voters wore black, and at least nine voters tore up their ballots.
Hundreds of black-clad protesters stormed a police station and forced the release of one activist who had been arrested for destroying his ballot.
"The voters in the south are fighting to topple the Thaksin regime. If the Thai Rak Thai party runs alone without opponents they will never ever win, even if they run 100 times in elections," said Dr Kriangsak Liwcharoenpatana, the anti-Thaksin activist who was arrested by police after tearing up his ballot at a polling station in the southern city of Songkhla.
Hundreds of voters shouted "Dr Fight, Dr Fight" and "Thaksin get out," as Kriangsak tore up the ballot, calling it an act of civil disobedience. If charged and convicted for destroying his ballot, Kriangsak could face a one-year jail term and a fine.
All three main opposition parties boycotted the April 2 elections, accusing Thaksin's ruling Thai Rak Thai party of unfairly controlling the political process. That resulted in 40 of 500 seats remaining vacant, since Thai law requires that unopposed candidates receive the support of at least 20 percent of eligible voters to win a seat.
Opponents of Thaksin and the ruling party have called on voters to chose the "no vote," or abstention, option on their ballot in the election or destroy their ballots.
In the province of Nakhon Si Thammarat at least nine polling stations could not open after local election officials left their posts in protest. They were replaced by volunteers and voting began several hours later.
"Reports from the region show that there are several problems in southern Thailand. After three hours the turnout is still very low. This problem makes the Election Commission admit that in at least 10 constituencies where Thai Rak Thai is running without opponents, the candidates may not make 20 percent," said Ekachai Warrunprapa, an Election Commission member, in Bangkok.
"It is impossible for the government candidates to win the election. It is impossible for government to convene the parliament," said Chalee Nopawong na Ayuthaya, a protest leader at the Songkhla No. 2 constituency where a Thai Rak Thai candidate ran unopposed.
Many voters at the polling booth said they had cast a no vote.
"Thousands of Muslim people have been killed since Thaksin came to power and this is the only time that I can demonstrate my hatred of him," said Walai Yonprasert, a 55-year-old Muslim woman who, along with four other voters, tore up her ballot.
Ahead of the vote, four chiefs of provincial election commissions in the south and about 700 volunteers quit in a protest against the Election Commission, which they say favors the Thaksin camp.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
RSS