By Shen Min & Ling Shuo, Xinhua,
Bangkok : Thailand’s President of Parliament and Speaker of the House of Representatives Yongyuth Tiyapairat announced his resignation here late Wednesday afternoon, one day ahead of the start of court trial on charges of electoral fraud against him.
Yongyuth said at an outdoor press conference at the Parliament that his resignation would not affect the trial against him. He said he resigned because he did not want the dignity of the legislative body to be tainted when he is due to face the charges at the Supreme Court on Friday.
He also said his resignation was a result of the deep conflicts in Thai society due to the political turmoil. He termed the 2007 Constitution, drafted by junta appointees after the Sept. 19, 2006military coup that ousted then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as a trap to dissolve his party. “I hope I am the last prey.”
Yongyuth, a party-list MP and former party leader of the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP), already suspended his duties as House Speaker and Parliament President last month after the Supreme Court accepted an appeal by the Election Commission (EC) which accused Yongyuth of involvement in electoral fraud in the December23 general election.
The 47-year-old Yongyuth was elected as the House Speaker and President of Parliament on Jan. 22, after the PPP declared victory in the Dec. 23 election.
The EC ruled on Feb. 26 that Yongyuth was guilty of vote-buying and resolved to submit the case against Yongyuth to the Supreme Court’s Election Frauds Department, demanding the Court to invalidate Yongyuth’s electoral victory in the Dec. 23 general election as a party-list MP of the PPP and revoke his electoral right on alleged violation of election laws.
According to the EC’s probe, 10 village heads and sub-district chiefs in northern province Chiang Rai, where Yongyuth won a seat in the 480-member House of Representatives as a PPP candidate, had testified that they had each received 20,000 baht (606 U.S. dollars) in cash during the run-up to the December election in exchange for local voters’ support for Yongyuth.
Yongyuth responded immediately by announcing suspension of duties as the parliament chief and vowed to fight the allegations which he described as “set-up” by his political rivals.
If convicted by the Supreme Court, Yongyuth would have lost his seat both as MP and House Speaker if he still held the posts and face a five-year ban from electoral process.
Yongyuth’s undecided fate, in worse scenario, might threaten the PPP’s survival as a political party and the PPP-led coalition government which was sworn in early February.
A conviction from the Supreme Court will give ground to the EC to appeal to the Constitutional Court to dissolve PPP for the alleged offences of Yongyuth, in line with the 2007 Constitution.
In that case, all PPP party executives, most of whom are now part of the PPP-led cabinet, including PPP leader and new Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, would automatically lose their cabinet posts and be banned from political activity for five years, replaying what has taken place with the former ruling Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT), founded by ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The TRT was dissolved last May on electoral fraud charges allegedly committed by party executives, and all its 111 party executives, including Thaksin, were banned from politics for five years, in the aftermath of the 2006 coup that ousted the Thaksin administration.
Many former TRT members then joined the PPP, which won the post-coup general election last December by grabbing nearly half of the480 seats in the House of Representatives, and formed a coalition government with five other parties.
Yongyuth has dismissed speculation that his resignation was aimed at clearing the way for the PPP-led coalition government to place a new House Speaker in order to facilitate the Samak government’s plan to amend the 2007 Constitution. He said a caretaker speaker could perform his job.
The PPP-led push to amend the 2007 Charter has been criticized by opponents as an attempt to rescue the PPP and two other coalition parties facing charges of electoral fraud.