Newley Purnell
Tonight is the annual prime minister’s dinner with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT). Details on the event are here.
Just as I did last year and the year before, I’ll be sharing some thoughts on the evening. Stay tuned…
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A Reuters story from yesterday: Exclusive: Thai PM says has the edge in close election:
Thailand’s prime minister said on Wednesday his Democrat Party would have the edge in a mid-year election but he would probably need to form a coalition to govern, signaling a close and potentially volatile poll.
In an interview with Reuters, 46-year-old, Oxford University-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva said he expected the election to bring stability to the troubled country, regardless of who wins, and an alliance with smaller parties would probably pave the way for him to form a government.
“We are looking at some time around the first half of this year,” Abhisit said of the election, his firmest indication yet of the timing for a poll. “It is a close election like last time, except that we are slightly ahead. The latest polls show we are ahead in all polls except the northeast.”
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AFP: Thailand invites Obama to patch up:
As the United States steps up its focus on Southeast Asia, its oldest regional ally Thailand is inviting President Barack Obama to visit as it tries to shed images of last year’s political violence.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sent a special envoy to Washington this week to convince US policymakers that the kingdom is returning to stability and is committed to shift its fractious politics from the street to the ballot box.
“Our mission is to tell them that we’re back in business,” envoy Panitan Wattanayagorn, who also serves as the Thai government’s acting spokesman, told AFP on Wednesday.
And:
Obama has promised to attend the next East Asian Summit, tentatively slated for October on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali. A month later, Obama will welcome Asia-Pacific leaders to his native Hawaii for an annual summit.
Panitan said that Thailand welcomed the warming US relationship with Indonesia, which the Obama administration sees as an ideal partner in light of its vast, moderate Muslim population and its rapid shift to democracy.
But Panitan said that Thailand also sought a stop by Obama.
“We are working hard for that,” he said. “A visit would be very good. By that time, we should have a new government in office.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Image: AFP.
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WSJ:
Former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra’s lawyers Monday said they have filed a petition to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands to investigate the way Thailand’s security forces suppressed massive street protests in the Thai capital last year. The move could embarrass the country’s army-backed government and further fray nerves in a country still coming to terms with the extent of last May’s violence, in which 91 people were killed and hundreds more injured.
It’s unclear whether the court will accept the petition; Thailand isn’t one of the 144 members of the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Some analysts portrayed the petition as a way to seek to invigorate a fresh round of antigovernment protests in Bangkok or otherwise generate publicity for Mr. Thaksin, a former prime minister deposed in a 2006 coup.
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Thai PM: Leaders must exercise restraint against protesters
Thailand’s Prime Minister has called on leaders troubled by civil unrest to exercise restraint, less than a year after a bloody military crackdown on the streets of Bangkok.
Abhisit Vejjajiva sent in government troops to quell long-running Red Shirt protests in the Thai capital last May. Ninety-one people died and hundreds were injured in the street battles that followed.But as thousands gathered on the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez to demand an end to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-rule, Abhisit — speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — told CNN leaders should respect the wishes of their people.
Abhisit said as long as demonstrators did not resort to violence, governments had a responsibility to restrict the use of force.
“When the protesters were peaceful [when they] were exercising their constitutional rights, there was absolutely no need for any kind of force to be used.
“Unfortunately in the protests in April and May there was violence — grenades launched, invading hospitals and so on — and we had to make sure that order had to be preserved.”
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I'm Newley Purnell, an American journalist in Bangkok. I report for Bloomberg BNA, ABC News Radio, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and more.