Thai ex-PM’s impeachment hearing begins

The proceedings could see ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra banned from politics for five years.

Thailand's army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in a coup d'etat on 22 May 2014 [EPA]

Thailand’s ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra is facing an impeachment hearing, proceedings that could see her banned from politics for five years and reignite the country’s bitter divisions.

Yingluck, Thailand’s first female premier and the sister of self-exiled former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, was dumped from office by a controversial court ruling shortly before the army seized power in a coup on May 22, 2014.

She faces impeachment over her administration’s loss-making rice subsidy programme which, while popular among her rural powerbase, cost billions of dollars and was a driving force behind protests against her now toppled government.

Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler, reporting from Bangkok, said there were some concerns over what would happen if she was impeached. 

“Yingluck was smiling as she went in to the building, saying she is confident in the face of these allegations,” he said. “The question is how this body, appointed by the military government, are able to impeach her.”

Analysts say the impeachment proceedings are the latest attempt by the royalist elite to neuter the political influence of the Shinawatras, whose parties have won every election since 2001.

Impeachment by the millitary-appointed National Legislative Assembly carries an automatic five-year ban from politics, but could also galvanise her family’s ‘Red Shirt’ supporters to protest after months of silence under martial law.

“We are confident it [the vote] will be done before the end of the month, roughly the 22nd or 23rd,” NLA deputy speaker Surachai Liengboonlertchai told AFP.

The hearing started around 0300 GMT on Friday.

A successful impeachment needs three-fifths of the 250-strong national legislature to vote in favour.

Prosecutors are also in the process of deciding whether Yingluck should face a separate criminal case over the rice subsidy scheme.

Yingluck’s supporters say the proceedings and the criminal charges are part of a wider campaign to cripple the Shinawatra clan.

But the move is not without risks. A vote to impeach Yingluck could stir the Red Shirts to protest, ending months of relative calm since the army grabbed power and imposed martial law on the kingdom.

Costly scheme

Yingluck’s billionaire brother Thaksin, who was deposed as premier in a 2006 coup, sits at the heart of Thailand’s deep schism, despite living overseas to avoid jail for a fraud conviction.

He is loathed by the Bangkok-centred establishment, its supporters, known as Yellow Shirts, in the south and among the judiciary and army, but still draws loyalty in the nation’s poor but populous northern half.

Since Thaksin swept to power in 2001, Shinawatra governments have been floored by two coups and bloodied by the removal of three other premiers by the kingdom’s interventionist courts.

Critics say the rice scheme tapped Thai coffers to lavish money on the Shinawatras’ rural heartlands.

It also resulted in huge rice stockpiles as buyers baulked at the attempt by Yingluck’s administration to fund the costly scheme by hoarding the grain to force up prices.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies