Thai Opposition Party to Boycott February Elections

Dec. 21, 2013 6:55 a.m. ETBANGKOK—Thailand’s opposition Democrat Party Saturday said it would boycott upcoming national elections slated for Feb. 2, raising the stakes in an escalating standoff with the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said the country’s democracy had been manipulated by powerful interest groups—a thinly veiled reference to the influential Shinawatra clan—resulting in other Thais “losing faith” in the democratic system.

Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva speaks, with party members behind him, during a press conference Saturday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The boycott adds to the growing pressure on Ms. Yingluck to postpone the election or to step aside to allow an appointed government to take over and pursue a series of reforms before the ballot goes ahead.
Democrat lawmakers earlier resigned their seats in the country’s parliament in a bid to delegitimize Ms. Yingluck’s administration and join the tens of thousands of protesters who have for weeks campaigned against her government and the perceived influence of her brother, former leader Thaksin Shinawatra.

Tens of thousands of antigovernment demonstrators marched through central Bangkok on Thursday and Friday to drum up support for a mass rally planned for Sunday. Organizers are hoping to attract hundreds of thousands of Thais in a bid to force Ms. Yingluck to step down.
Many antigovernment protesters are angry with Ms. Yingluck’s aggressively populist policies, including a rice subsidy that buys up the grain from farmers at up to the double market rate but which has so far cost the country at least $4 billion in losses since it was introduced in 2011.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister in a previous Democrat-led government, argues that Ms. Yingluck is effectively bribing voters with easy-money, pro-poor policies to secure large majorities in parliament and ensure her family’s control over Thailand.
Earlier this year, Ms. Yingluck’s government attempted to use its dominance in the legislature to introduce an amnesty that would have enabled her brother, Mr. Thaksin, to return to Thailand from his self-imposed exiled in Dubai without serving any prison time for a 2008 corruption conviction.
Mr. Thaksin, who remains wildly popular in many poorer parts of the country, says the charges were politically motivated and designed to end his political influence after the country’s armed forces removed him from office in a military coup.
The Democrats, who haven’t won a national election since 1992, have successfully boycotted elections before. In 2006, they refused to participate in a snap vote called by Mr. Thaksin, resulting in a voter turnout below legally-required minimum levels in many constituencies. Thailand’s courts subsequently nullified the vote, adding to a mounting sense of crisis in the country that helped paved the way for the military to seize power.
This time, smaller parties are likely to contest the vote against Ms. Yingluck’s Pheu Thai, or For Thais, Party that so far appears well-placed to win the election.
But Mr. Suthep and his allies in the Democrat Party are urging people to cast a “no vote” on the ballot sheet.
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