Date:19/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/19/stories/2008011953621400.htm

International

Pro-Thaksin party’s legality upheld

P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: Thailand’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld the legality of the People’s Power Party (PPP), headed by the loyalists of military-deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra. With this, the possibility of “democracy restoration” in that country has brightened considerably.

The PPP emerged front-runner in the general election that the ruling military junta held last month with a pledge to revive democracy through that exercise. Mr. Thaksin, twice elected Prime Minister, was toppled in a military coup in September 2006, and he was subsequently barred from politics for five years. And, the junta indicated that any political party with direct links to him could not be allowed to assume power on the basis of the results of the latest general election. It was in this context that a member of Thailand’s long-established Democrat Party had filed a petition against the PPP in the case that the Supreme Court now dealt with.

The court ruled that the PPP could not be deemed to be a nominee of either Mr. Thaksin or the now-dissolved Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party, which he had founded, according to independent observers monitoring this judicial process.