By ANTARA News,
Bangkok : A Thai court on Tuesday dissolved the ruling party and banned the premier from politics, plunging the kingdom into further uncertainty as an occupation of Bangkok’s airports turned increasingly bloody.
Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat — the target of the protesters’ wrath — will now have to step down, after the Constitutional Court ruled that his PPP should be disbanded because an executive was convicted of vote buying.
Somchai was banned from politics for five years, along with 36 other PPP executives, achieving a key goal of royalist anti-government protesters who have blockaded the capital’s two airports for a week.
“As the court decided to dissolve the People Power Party, therefore the leader of the party and party executives must be banned from politics for five years,” said Chat Chonlaworn, head of the nine-judge court panel.
“The court had no other option,” he said.
Somchai has been marooned in the northern pro-government stronghold of Chiang Mai since Wednesday. He was due to attend a military ceremony later Tuesday ahead of the king’s December 5 birthday.
He has so far made no comment on his party’s dissolution.
The judge, wearing a black robe with a scarlet collar, read the order live on national television. He appealed for calm, saying: “No matter whether you are satisfied or not with the verdict, we ask you to accept it.”
About 500 angry government supporters massed outside the administrative court, where judges read the ruling after earlier rallies by the group forced them to change location.
Riot police with bullet-proof shields stood guard, as tensions in Thailand remained on the brink with the anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) continuing their week-long crippling airport siege.
The ruling came after a blast early Tuesday killed one protester and injured 22 others from the rival PAD at the domestic Don Mueang airport. He died from shrapnel wounds to the stomach, an emergency services spokeswoman told AFP.
It also came just hours after the royalist PAD ended a three-month sit-in at the prime minister’s offices in Bangkok following a series of similar attacks, and redeployed supporters to Don Mueang and the Suvarnabhumi international airport.
The PAD launched its campaign in late May, accusing the government of acting as a proxy for Thaksin — Somchai’s brother-in-law — and of being hostile to the monarchy.