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Friday June 1, 5:07 PMINTERVIEW - Thai Democrat Party to woo Thaksin's rural baseTOKYO (Reuters) - Thailand's oldest party will have to conquer the rural strongholds of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, now banned from politics, if it is to replace him in power, a former foreign minister said Friday.Surin Pitsuwan, a leading member of the Democrat Party which survived election fraud charges this week that saw Thaksin banned and his party disbanded, said poor Thais who had voted Thaksin into power were now "centre-stage". "The landscape of politics has changed since Mr Thaksin because of his very effective populism," Surin told Reuters in an interview in Tokyo as his country prepared for elections in December following last year's coup. "Any government from now on will have to take that into consideration: 'We heard you people from the countryside. Now you are centre stage. We will listen to you and we will take care of you,'" he said. Thaksin, a charismatic billionaire, was seen by millions of rural and poor urban Thais as the only politician who really cared about their plight, and their vote helped his party win the first absolute majority in the country's history. On Wednesday, the Constitutional Tribunal banned the exiled leader from politics for five years and disbanded his Thai Rak Thai (Thais love Thais) party, which will reform under a new name. "I think that was a close of that chapter. Unfortunately you have to go that extreme," Surin said of the ban. The Democrats, the main opposition during Thaksin's rule, were acquitted. Thaksin has been accused of abusing his power, bending institutions meant to be independent to his will and presiding over rampant corruption, while suppressing opponents and fanning the insurgency in the Muslim south through a brutal crackdown. Surin, himself a Muslim, said the military coup that brought down Thaksin in September had been "unjustifiable", but there was now a chance for reconciliation and a return to democracy. "The spirit of democracy is reasserting itself and the junta, the military leaders, know it well," he said. Surin sees a peaceful solution to the separatist insurgency raging in the far south as part of such a reconciliation. More than 2,100 people have been killed in the latest insurgency in the region, an independent sultanate until annexed by mainly Buddhist Thailand a century ago, which flared up in January 2004. While it is unclear who is leading the insurgency, Surin said it seemed to be largely a domestic issue and exploratory talks were under way with a number of groups to seek a solution. "Talks are taking place, not all of them in the open, not all of them in Thailand," said Surin, a member of the Thai parliament since 1986 and foreign minister from 1992 to 2001. |
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