Caretaker Prime Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan was appointed last week after a court removed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office. Photo: AFP
Thailand’s new prime minister Monday offered talks with protesters trying to topple the government, as his political rivals pushed for the appointment of an unelected leader to take power.
“We are open for dialogue,” said Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan, who took the helm last week after a controversial court ruling removed Yingluck Shinawatra and nine of her ministers from office.
“Let’s talk. But let’s talk realistically,” he told foreign reporters, playing down fears that the country is teetering on the brink.
“I don’t think there will be a civil war. It has been six months and we manage to run the country quite well,” Niwatthamrong said.
Opposition demonstrators are threatening to step up their six-month campaign to overthrow the government.
But the government’s supporters, known as the “Red Shirts’, say they will not tolerate any move to hand power to an unelected regime, warning it could lead to civil war.
The opposition protesters want the Senate – almost half of whose members are unelected – to remove the weakened cabinet, but it is unclear whether such a move is possible under the constitution.
The country has not had a functioning lower house since Yingluck dissolved parliament in December for elections that were later voided because of disruption by protesters.
Some members of the Senate held a meeting on Monday to seek a solution to the crisis.
Paiboon Nittitawan, an appointed senator and prominent government critic, urged the upper house to choose a new prime minister “immediately, for the sake of security and the economy”.
“We cannot allow the crisis to drag on,” he said.
Senate speaker-elect Surachai Liangboonlertchai told reporters before the talks that he would draft a “roadmap” out of the crisis as soon as possible but did not reveal his plan.
Fewer than 90 senators, out of a total of 150, attended the meeting amid questions about whether the upper house is entitled to hold a debate on the crisis in the present circumstances.
Niwatthamrong said he would hold talks with poll officials on Wednesday about a new general election scheduled for July 20, rejecting the opposition’s demand to delay the vote until reforms have been introduced to tackle corruption.
Story: AFP
