Thailand Falls

Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was given the boot today in a bloodless coup led by General Boonyaratkalin, head of the Thai armed forces.

An army spokesman in Thailand says a general who has close ties to the country's king will serve as Thailand's acting prime minister.

This, after the army commander staged a coup and ousted the country's prime minister while the leader was in New York for the UN General Assembly session. The prime minister (Thaksin Shinawatra) had been scheduled to address the General Assembly later Tuesday, but that speech has now been canceled.

Back home, the army commander has declared martial law, and has revoked the constitution. He's surrounded the prime minister's offices with tanks.

The general who's been named as acting prime minister, Sondi Boonyaratkalin, is a Muslim in a country that is dominated by Buddhists.

In a statement on national TV, the new leaders say they took power without a struggle, and are asking for the cooperation of the public. The military says a provisional authority loyal to the country's king Bhumibol Adulyadej will soon return power to a democratic government.
Boonyaratkalin is on record saying "military coups are a thing of the past." Apparently not, although hopefully his pledge to return governmental control to elected officials is sincere; PM Thaksin has been weathering a brutal storm of criticism from what were widely perceived as his abuses of power, particularly in his family's sale of Shin Corp. stock earlier this year that netted them almost two billion dollars, that just happened to be tax free. Go figure? Being head of state has its perks.

Thaksin said he would step down after protests threatened to tear the country apart and a general election failed to gain even 20% of the required constitutional votes necessary for incumbents to retain office, leaving Thaksin in the "caretaker" Prime Minister position until the situation could be resolved. Seven months later he still hadn't left.

While coups are usually not a good thing, neither are corrupt democracies that refuse to respect the will of the electorate. Better times may lie ahead for Thailand.

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