Caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her cabinet will face impeachment if they ignore the Constitution Court's ruling that the election can be rescheduled if there are sufficient grounds and insist on going ahead with the election on Feb 2, Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Sunday.
Mr Abhisit's remarks were posted today on his personal Facebook page.
He said the Constitution Court has clearly ruled that the election can be rescheduled and it is the joint responsibility of the prime minister and the Election Commission chairman to work out a new election date.
The court's rulling followed a request by the EC which had concluded that the Feb 2 election, if held, would risk running into a state of chaos and violence and there could be no guarantee of a fair and clean election that would lead to the opening of parliament. Moreover, the budget set for the election would be wastefully spent, he said.
Despite the ruling, Pheu Thai leader Charupong Ruangsuwan, the party's strategic committee and party members had voiced their objection to it in a way that they did not accept the court's power.
Some of them even tried to interpret the constituton by themselves, Mr Abhisit said.
He said the Constituton Court and the EC had talked about rescheduling the election, not just postponing the polls to a later date.
Some cabinet members even said the election could be postponed under the conditions that the ongoing protests by the People's Democratic Reform Committee must end and the election boycott by the Democrat Party must be lifted. This was a challenge to the Constitution Court's ruling, he said.
The Democrat leader said the government should be aware that it was not in a position to raise any conditions for bargaining since this attitude was the cause of all the problems.
What should be done quickly was for the prime minister to hold talks with the EC to set a new election date and for the EC to work with the people's organisations to set the path for a reform process.
This should be done before Feb 2, so that a new royal decree on the election could be issued in time, Mr Abhisit said.
He said he did not know why the prime minister would wait until Jan 28 to meet with the EC, asking if this was a ploy to buy time to continue to cling to power.
If the prime minister and the cabinet insisted on holding the election on Feb 2 they should be prepared to face an impeachment motion for intentionally holding an election which would not serve the constitution's intention, Mr Abhisit said.