Thailand election put off to 2016

Official says draft of constitution needed first

A Thai general election planned for next year will be delayed until 2016, a deputy prime minister said on Thursday, pushing back the promised return to democracy.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led a military coup in May, had previously hinted at a delay to polls promised for late 2015.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who is also defense minister, said elections will take place in 2016, citing groups opposed to the National Council for Peace and Order as one reason for the delay.

"We will be able to organize elections around the start of 2016 once the constitution is drafted," Prawit told reporters.

"Right now there are elements opposed to the National Council for Peace and Order."

Prawit was speaking after Finance Minister Sommai Phasee gave an interview to the BBC late on Wednesday saying any return to democracy was unrealistic before mid-2016.

"As announced by the prime minister, it would take about one year. But, from my feeling, I think it may take, maybe, a year and a half," he told the British broadcaster.

Sommai said he had spoken to Prayut about the feasibility of holding polls as recently as last week.

Prayuth has outlined a year of reforms that are partly aimed at ending the political influence of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The army has said the May coup was necessary to avoid further bloodshed after months of sometimes violent protests that helped oust Thaksin's sister, former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

The military scrapped the constitution shortly after it took power and has appointed a committee to draft a new one.

The military say the changes are needed to rid the kingdom of corruption and close the nation's festering political divide which has seen years of street protests and military coups.

But critics dismiss the process as a naked attempt to dilute the influence of Thaksin who is adored by poor rural voters - particularly in the north - but loathed by much of the military establishment and the country's Bangkok-based royalist elite.

Opponents say the committee tasked with writing the new constitution is stacked with anti-Thaksin figures seeking to erase his legacy rather than craft policies to end years of political turmoil.

Last week, the government said martial law, which the army imposed days before it took power, will not be lifted for the foreseeable future, despite an earlier pledge to lift the law in some provinces to help the tourism sector which has struggled since the coup.

Thailand plunged into political crisis almost a decade ago following the ouster of Thaksin, a former telecoms tycoon who upset the establishment with populist policies that won him votes in Thailand's agrarian heartland.

Thailand has been broadly split ever since between his supporters and detractors.

Prawit appealed for understanding over the delayed polls.

"We are not asking for much. Just a year to resolve past problems."

Reuters - AFP

(China Daily 11/28/2014 page11)