Daniel Pedersen

The Courier Mail

February 25, 2006

By Daniel Pedersen

Bangkok

PRIME Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, facing a mounting campaign to force him to quit, last night said he would call an early general election, three years before it was due.

"I dissolve Parliament," he told reporters after an audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

"No reshuffle," he added after a senior official had said a cabinet change was "very likely".

Mr Thaksin’s announcement came as protesters pledged to take their people-power campaign against Mr Thaksin to another level this weekend.

Organisers say they will bring at least 100,000 people on to the streets of central Bangkok tomorrow and stay there until Mr Thaksin goes.

The flashpoint that made such a gathering possible was Mr Thaksin’s tax-free sale of his Shin Corporation to an investment arm of the Singapore Government.

The public outcry over claims that Mr Thaksin had sold the country down the drain drove a group of senators to petition the Constitution Court for his impeachment. Last week he narrowly escaped their first attempt.

Mr Thaksin came to power on a promise to give every village a one-million-baht revolving fund in a bid to reduce poverty.

The plan was that villagers could borrow from the fund, repay it and then other villagers in turn could borrow, in effect giving people a chance to lift themselves from the mire of poverty. But critics say the scheme fell at the first hurdle, and villagers instead bought new mobile phones and motor vehicles with the money and then failed to pay it back.

Many of the new phones were bought from AIS, a division of Shin Corp, until recently owned by Mr Thaksin’s family.

English-language daily The Nation has described Mr Thaksin’s election promises as vote-buying.

But the residents in poor neighbourhoods and rural areas still support Mr Thaksin despite the failure of his populist policies.

In a bid to hold on, Mr Thaksin is promising debt-relief schemes. He recently starred in a reality television program in which he visited the impoverished rural village of At Samat and handed out money.

Political observers believe Mr Thaksin’s only hope of survival is a snap election.

More than 130 universities have called for him to be ousted — unprecedented in a country where educational institutions are traditionally split along ideological lines.

And Mr Thaksin’s former mentor, Major-General Chamlong Srimuang, who introduced him to politics in 1996, has vowed to hound him until he steps down.

If General Chamlong succeeds it will not be the first time. He organised the 1992 Black May protests, which ousted military dictator Suchinda Krapayoon.

The military powerbroker said Mr Thaksin’s sale of Shin Corp for 73 billion baht (more than $24 million) was the straw that broke the camel’s back for him.

The sale went through on January 23, just three days after new foreign ownership rules relating to telecommunications companies came into force. The new rules permit 49 per cent foreign ownership and Mr Thaksin’s family sold 49 per cent of Shin Corp.

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday said Mr Thaksin’s son Phantongtae violated share ownership reporting rules by failing to report indirect holdings in Shin Corp via an offshore company in 2000 and 2002, and also violated a mandatory tender offer rule.

The commission’s secretary-general, Theerachai Phuwanartnaranubal, said Mr Thaksin himself and his daughter had not violated any reporting requirements. Mr Theerachai said Mr Phantongtae could face a fine and as long as two years’ jail.

Security forces were last night preparing for the weekend rallies, with Defence Minister Thammarak Isarangura saying he feared a repeat of bloody protests of three decades ago that left dozens of students dead and triggered a coup.

ENDS