Thai Coalition Partners In Full Support Of PM's Roadmap

Coalition partners in full support of PM's roadmap

By The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Coalition partners are fully backing the roadmap for the dissolution of Parliament in nine months, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said yesterday.

The partners rallied behind Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva while attending their war-room session to assess the situation.

"Each coalition party agreed to dispatch MPs to explain the real situation to their constituents to counter the distorted information being churned out by the red shirts," Suthep said.

He added that the coalition would not waver from the timetable for a snap election and that the government was determined to serve its term if the red shirts refused to take part in a new round of negotiations.

None of the coalition partners want to be present at the negotiations, he said, adding that resuming talks was up to the red shirts now.

He also said that coalition MPs would explain to the public why the government needed nine months to prepare for elections.

In a related development, House Speaker Chai Chidchob said preparations for the charter rewrite were complete and that it would take no more than three months to amend the charter if that was the only condition to the pave way for a snap election.

The parliamentary debate on the amendments could conclude in two months and the referendum would take another month to complete, he said, explaining how he came up with the three-month schedule.

The road map, as suggested by Abhisit, factors in the budgetary allocations for the next fiscal year and the economy on top of the charter rewrite.

Democrat Party deputy spokesman Warong Dejwikrom, meanwhile, said the ruling party was concerned that the red-shirt rally on Saturday might degenerate into violence.

Warong said the Democrats had received a number of disturbing reports that rally organisers might be instigating the red shirts to engage in arson attacks.

-- The Nation 2010-04-01

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