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Petition claims government of PM Yingluck prevented a fair vote during parliamentary elections last February.
Last updated: 21 Mar 2014 07:58
Thailand's Constitutional Court has declared as invalid the parliamentary elections held last February, throwing the country into a deeper political impasse.
The court said on Friday that the vote did not take place on the same day across the country and that violated a clause in the constitution.
A court spokesman told reporters that judges voted 6-3, according to the AFP news agency.
Polling was disrupted by protesters in around a fifth of constituencies, leaving the House of Representatives without a quorum to convene and select a new prime minister.
With the court ruling, a new voting is expected to be called, according to Al Jazeera Zeina Khodr, who is reporting from the Thai capital Bangkok.
It was unclear when a new vote would be held.
The case is one of a slew of legal challenges facing the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who has withstood calls to resign despite months of political street protests.
Now in their fifth month, the protesters have shut government offices and at times blocked major thoroughfares in Bangkok to try to force Yingluck out. Twenty-three people have died and hundreds have been injured in the violence.
Our correspondent said that following the ruling, there is fear of a new wave of violence.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Thailand's national security adviser, Sean Boonpracong, said the decision was partly expected.
He accused the opposition of disrupting the voting to justify the legal challenge, while insisting that Yingluck will stay until the next vote will take place.
"With this ruling we don't know where we are headed to in the future," he said.
Power grab
The petition, filed by a Bangkok law lecturer, is based on arguments including that the election was not held on the same day in all constituencies, that candidate registration venues were changed without advance notice, and that a state of emergency prevented a fair vote.
A similar bid, submitted by the opposition on the grounds that the failure to hold the entire election on the same day was an attempt to grab power unconstitutionally, was rejected by the Constitutional Court last month.
Yingluck's government, in a caretaker role following the incomplete February 2 election, faces a series of legal challenges that could lead to her removal from office, including negligence charges linked to a rice subsidy scheme.
Her opponents see the moves as a long-overdue effort to clean up politics, while her supporters reject them as a politically-motivated attempt to oust an elected government.
Yingluck has faced more than four months of street demonstrations seeking to force her from office and install an unelected government to oversee reforms and curb the dominance of her billionaire family.
It is the latest chapter in a political crisis stretching back to a military coup in 2006 that ousted Yingluck's brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a divisive tycoon-turned-politician who lives in Dubai to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.
On Tuesday, Thailand ended a state of emergency in force for almost two months in Bangkok and surrounding areas, reflecting an improvement in security since protesters scaled down their rallies at the start of March.
Thailand in political limbo after court declares general election void
Anti-government protesters say they will disrupt vote again as Yingluck Shinawatra faces next test in upcoming dereliction of duty case
People protest against the court's ruling in central of Bangkok. Photo: Reuters
Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Friday annulled last month’s general election, leaving the country in political limbo without a full government and further undermining a prime minister faced with impeachment over a failed rice subsidy scheme.
The court judges ruled in a 6 to 3 vote that the February 2 election was unconstitutional because voting failed to take place on the same day around the country.
Anti-government protesters had stopped voting in about a fifth of constituencies, and in 28 of them voting was not possible at all because candidates were unable to register.
The protests are the latest chapter in an eight-year crisis that pits Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment against supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by the army in 2006 and lives in exile to avoid a jail term for graft.
Over the past five months, the protesters have shut government offices and at times blocked major thoroughfares in Bangkok to try to force Yingluck out. Twenty-three people have died and hundreds have been injured in the violence.
The number of protesters has dwindled in recent weeks and the streets have been relatively calm since several big protest camps were shut at the start of March, allowing the government to lift a state of emergency on Wednesday.
Thai district office workers check and secure ballot boxes in preparation of the elections in Bangkok. Photo: EPA
But the focus has shifted to the courts, in particular to the prospect of Yingluck being impeached over a rice scheme that has gone disastrously wrong, with hundreds of thousands of farmers not getting paid for grain sold to the state since October.
“Independent agencies are being quite obvious that they want to remove her and her entire cabinet to create a power vacuum, claim that elections can’t be held and then nominate a prime minister of their choice,” said Kan Yuenyong, a political analyst at the Siam Intelligence Unit, referring to the courts and the anti-corruption commission.
“If they run with this plan, then the government’s supporters will fight back and the next half of the year will be much worse than what we saw in the first half,” he said.
Militant noises
Thaksin’s “red shirt” supporters, who are strong in the north and northeast, are beginning to sound more militant, raising the prospect of more violence if Yingluck is forced out by the courts, the anti-corruption commission or by other means.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission could recommend impeachment in coming days, probably by March 31.
She could then be removed from office by the upper house Senate, which is likely to have an anti-Thaksin majority after an election for half its members on March 30.
Anti-government protestors wave the Thai national flag during a protest in front of the gates of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok. Photo: AFP
Some analysts say it will fall to the Senate to then appoint a “neutral” prime minister, probably the type of establishment figure the protesters have been demanding all along.
It is unclear when a new election will take place.
Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, an Election Commission member, offered two options: “The commission could discuss with the government about issuing a new royal decree for a new date or we could ask the heads of all political parties to decide together when best to set the new election date,” he told reporters.
A spokesman for the opposition Democrat Party has been quoted as saying it would boycott any vote, as it did in February, but after Friday’s decision he said it might be prepared to take part.
“We’re ready to join a new election but it depends on the government and whether the political situation is stable enough to hold a new vote,” Chavanond Intarakomalyasut told reporters.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, who was a deputy prime minister under the previous Democrat-led government, has shown no willingness to compromise.
“If the court rules the election void, don’t even dream that there will be another election. If a new election date is declared, then we’ll take care of every province and the election won’t be successful again,” he told supporters late on Thursday.
There was no immediate comment from the government but Yingluck’s Puea Thai Party said the verdict was a loss for those who had exercised their right to vote.
“The vote was nullified because protesters stopped it from taking place across the country,” spokesman Prompong Nopparit told Reuters. “Today, Thais have lost an opportunity to move on towards completing the election and solving this crisis.”
Yingluck called the election in December to try to defuse the protests and since then has headed a caretaker government with limited powers. Puea Thai had been expected to win.
The protesters want electoral changes pushed through before any vote, seeking to reduce the influence of Thaksin. Parties led by or allied to him have won every election since 2001.
