The Big Issue: Will she or won't she?

The Big Issue: Will she or won't she?

Yingluck Shinawatra will mark her third Songkran as prime minister next Sunday. Sane bookies are not betting on a fourth. In fact, you can find pretty good odds today she won't be in office to celebrate her third Visakha Bucha Day, little more than a month away.

So what are the chances of the second premier to appear directly in front of the Constitutional Court?

Chiang Mai, 2012. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, husband and son enjoyed Songkran. Fast forward to 2014, and it appears the country will soon be trying to figure out how to replace the country's first female prime minister. (File photo)

The court unanimously dismissed the first prime minister to appear, five and a half years ago, because showing on a TV show how to cook chicken soup was not good for his soul.

The Kamnan, aka Suthep Thaugsuban, founder of the People's Democratic Reform Committee, announced that right after Songkran, on the day the Constitutional Court reads Ms Yingluck's fate, he will lead the biggest protest march in history. Ever. And it will be the final push that will win, for the eighth time in five months.

The legal facts of the Yingluck case are as clear and simple as the late Samak Sundaravej's Tasting and Grumbling lawsuit, which gave Samak political food poisoning.

When Ms Yingluck became prime minister after the July, 2011, elections, she removed secretary-general Thawil Pliensri of the National Security Council. Mr Thawil went to the Administrative Court to get his job back, and eventually he won. Ms Yingluck abided by the court order, and Mr Thawil is back in the NSC catbird seat.

Meanwhile, a group of 28 senators led by the forward-thinking appointed representative Paiboon Nititawan signed and filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court. In essence, it charges Ms Yingluck with malfeasance in office by illegally moving Mr Thawil. We know the order removing Mr Thawil was illegal - claims the lawsuit - because the Administrative Court ordered it reversed.

In the first hours after the Constitutional Court ordered her appearance, the premier settled quickly on the simplest defence of all: She didn't do it. In other words: Mr Thawil's removal from his job followed every piece of red tape, obeyed every regulation, was justified by bureaucracy's rules and, in summary, was legal. In different other words, she not only broke no law including the constitution, she specifically made certain she followed every law, in spirit and to its most extreme letter. That's the legal part.

There's more, of course. It is a completely political case involving totally partisan politicians in the constantly moving eye of a political hurricane, so of course there is more.

Start with this. After the peaceful, honest senate elections last Sunday, there is no realistic chance the prime minister will be impeached. Her Pheu Thai Party controls the votes. The unique chance at hand of using the law to dump Ms Yingluck, and possibly her entire government, is a lawsuit in the hands of nine Constitutional Court judges.

And they are in a hurry. They gave Ms Yingluck 15 days from last Wednesday to contest the senators' lawsuit, and that includes the five-day Songkran holiday.

The back story to her opponents' case is equally simple. It states the removal of Mr Thawil was part of a three-move plot of classic cronyism and nepotism by Ms Yingluck and her master, Darth Vader na Dubai. Mr Thawil was thus the victim of a conspiracy whose only goal was to make Pol Gen Priewpan Damapong chief of national police. (Continued after the photo)

Members of the crowd at Saturday's red shirt rally were backing Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, but not feeling optimistic about her chances. (Photo by Pattarachai Prechapanich)

And in fact, Pol Gen Priewpan, the brother of Vader's ex-wife, did become police chief. First, Mr Thawil was moved out. Then the police chief at the time, Wichean Potephosree, was moved over to replace Mr Thawil. Final move: Pol Gen Priewpan slotted smoothly into the chief's office.

Ms Yingluck has several possible lines of legal defence apart from "Me? Guilty? Pshaw!" but is severely limited in preparing them by the 15-day deadline, a radical concept of the right to a speedy trial. The first defence is that transferring Mr Thawil to an advisory post had nothing to do with the constitution, and the court is out of its league. This would normally be a promising avenue for the defence, since the two Administrative Courts that ordered Mr Thawil be reinstated never mentioned any breach of the supreme law or, in fact, any law.

Another is that no specific law or regulation forbids the transfer of government officials. Both levels of the Administrative Court ruled the prime minister should not have transferred Mr Thawil, but (goes the possible defence) she could not know this until a ruling on the matter. Transferring officials, after all, is fairly routine, cf: inactive posts.

Senator Paiboon has spoken strategically. Unreservedly anti-Yingluck, he is looking beyond her departure, forcing Pheu Thai to do the same.

The senator first: When the PM goes, the House of Representatives will have to vote on a new premier. But isn't it a shame there is no Lower House? That means the Senate must take charge and appoint an entire new acting government, from prime minister all the way down. And Pheu Thai? Eat your hearts out.

Chalerm Yubamrung: It's a caretaker government, and there is no legal method to remove it, bar election of a new parliament. If Ms Yingluck is set down by the court, caretaker ministers will select another caretaker PM. The replacement must be an MP elected in 2011. That's the law, right out of the constitution.

Nattawut Saikuar, red shirt extraordinaire, said it's why the rally began at Buddhamonthon yesterday. "Our rally will show, loud and clear, that Thailand will only accept a democratically elected prime minister and nothing else."

Bottom line: We've not been here before. Opinions are like eyebrows. Everyone can raise two. Meanwhile, mobs mobbed and small acts of coldness continued as reminders that no matter how bad things look today, they can always get worse.

A caravan of the Kamnan and acolytes of the PDRC made a tour of northern Bangkok, especially the immoveable roadblock run by the monk Luang Pu Buddha Issara. On the way back to Lumpini park, a lorry and a bus ran into a crude, lethal, two-man ambush. The shooting killed a 53-year-old security guard for the Network of Students and People for the Reform of Thailand "student" group, and wounded four PDRC supporters.

The nation's chief peacekeeper, Chalerm Yubamrung, explained the shooting was the fault of anti-government protesters. To be fair, he singled out the NSPRT from the main body of demonstrators, but he was clear about it: "By causing disturbance at government buildings, they are bound to upset many people."

Where "upset" means "pick up guns and go looking for people to shoot and kill".

If it doesn't stop soon, it's not likely to stop at all.

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT (10)