By Xinhua,
Bangkok : Thailand’s House of Representatives, or lower house of parliament on Monday began a debate and voting to elect a new House Speaker, after Yongyuth Tiyapairat resigned from the post pending trial on electoral fraud charges against him.
Chai Chidchob, a veteran member of parliament for the ruling People Power Party (PPP) was the leading contender.
The emergency parliamentary meeting on the new House Speaker nomination was called after the PPP, the core party of the coalition government, last week agreed unanimously to choose Chai as the party’s candidate for the top parliament post.
First Deputy House Speaker Somsak Kiartsuranand, a PPP MP, chaired Monday’s meeting.
The 80-year-old Chai Chidchob, a multi-time MP and veteran politician from the northeastern province of Buri Ram, is father of Newin Chidchob, one of the 111 executives of the former ruling party Thai Rak Thai (TRT) who were banned from political activities for five years after the TRT was disbanded on a court order on electoral fraud charges last May.
Chai won a seat in the House as a PPP party-list MP candidate in the Dec. 23 election in Buri Ram.
The only opposition party Democrat Party, who formed a whip at the parliament, nominated MP Banyat Bantadtan to run against Chai.
The nomination of Chai is expected to pass through the debate on Monday, PPP spokesman Kuthep Saikrachang has said earlier, though there were reports about division inside the PPP and in other coalition parties over the choice.
One of the coalition parties — Chart Thai abstained Monday’s voting following an urgent party meeting on Sunday, during which party leader Banharn Silpa-archa complained about the PPP’s approach in securing votes of coalition parties to support Chai’s nomination.
Chart Thai has 37 seats in the 480-seat House, while PPP controls 233 seats. The six coalition parties altogether have 315 MPs in the House.
Chai, if accepted, will fill the vacancy left by Yongyuth Tiyapairat, a former deputy leader of PPP facing trial for electoral fraud charges in last December’s general election, resigned from his post as House Speaker and Parliament President on April 30.
Yongyuth has denied the charges and said he resigned to uphold the dignity of the institution and to fight his case in the Supreme Court after the Election Commission sought to disqualify him, charging him of having bribed local heads in his hometown in the northernmost province of Chiang Rai where he contended as a PPP MP candidate, to ensure his victory in the Dec. 23 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.
On Monday, the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions will summon Yongyuth to testify in the election fraud case against him.
The search for the new House Speaker has been closely watched as the PPP-led coalition government and its opponents are engaged in a battle over the amendments to the 2007 Constitution, which was installed by the military-backed interim government after a military coup on Sept. 19, 2006 toppled Thaksin Shinawatra administration and abrogated the 1997 Constitution.
The PPP, the reincarnation of the Thaksin-founded TRT, has been pushing for the charter amending since it won the Dec. 23 election and formed the current coalition government.