Thai opposition says all its MPs to resign

[tragickingdom]

That is what you do when your name is a joke and you are in a matter of fact not interested at all in democracy. If you cannot win elections, you do not take part in elections or your resign, hoping that you are asked to form the new government and can appoint "honest" people. Honest people like Suthep (land scandal, palmoil scandal,bribing scandal).

Hopefully someone in the judiciary have noticed it and disband the party and give all people who resign a life time political ban. Go out and campaign in Izan, take the voters seriously instead of refusing to get your boots dirty and serve the Chinese minority only. IF Bangkok was a normal place, all people living there would be able to register as a voter and even in Bangkok the Democrat Party would not stand any chance.

[DeeMockMark]

CONCLUSION:

The Suthep's People's Council is a really really really really really dumb idea and if used will set up a democratically dangerous precedent.

Yingluck counters this by suggesting instead of a People's Council...... A People's Vote. (Nice!)

Edited December 8, 2013 by DeeMockMark

[KOZMO]

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

[Ricardo]

Interesting move. Does this mean that Chuvit is now opposition leader?

No. Apparently, he has resigned too.

RT@veen_NT: Rak Prathet Thai Party leader Chuwit Kamolvisith is to resign as MP too. he said the parliament could no longer drag on. via @Thairath_News

Thanks for that news, Jolly Good Show, and well done Chuwit !

[Queenslander]

Sadly what Thaksin says the elected, puppet, government does. As long as narcissist/corrupt Thaksin is (informally) running this country democracy will only be a dream.

[peecee]

They're not backstabbing anyone, the people voting them in will be cheering this news loudly, the people voting them in are out their marching now, to keep this country free. It's about time they got on their feet and stood up for their country against these petty dictators.

They are back to their 2006 tactic, if you can't win at the ballot box, you frustrate the system. The democratic party is democratic in name only.

Not only do they backstab all the people that voted for them, they now openly support Suthep and his People's council.

I feel sorry for everyone that voted these clowns in to parliament.

Dictators. Boy, that means an authoritarian government which Thailand is not. If it were there would have been a blood bath in the streets by now, not to mention that many of this forum's members would have long ago been arrested and deported after having the living crap kicked out of them.

I agree; bunch of wannabe dictators calling the government same same! Seems to me that TV has quite an infiltration of yellow shirts, all they can do is call a parliament elected by the people for the people dictators. I think the increase in the minimum wage and other benefits for the proletariat sure upset a lot of the "haves"!!

[bunuel]

The great Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the sacred principle of " one man, one vote"

One can say all sorts of things about the current government, but they won by a landslide, and

the decision by the electorate must be respected.

Let us hope some MPs in the Democrat party remember what the name of their party means,

and refuse to support this disgraceful appeal to fascism by the party elite. They are an

embarassment to Thailand and an insult to the memory of Madiba,

To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill - democracy is a mess, but it ia a hell of a lot better than

any of the alternatives!

Breaking news

Thai opposition MPs pledge to resign

Thailand's opposition MPs to resign en masse, officials say, after weeks of protests aimed at forcing out government

-- BBC 2013-12-08

[sjaak327]

That is what you do when your name is a joke and you are in a matter of fact not interested at all in democracy. If you cannot win elections, you do not take part in elections or your resign, hoping that you are asked to form the new government and can appoint "honest" people. Honest people like Suthep (land scandal, palmoil scandal,bribing scandal).

Hopefully someone in the judiciary have noticed it and disband the party and give all people who resign a life time political ban. Go out and campaign in Izan, take the voters seriously instead of refusing to get your boots dirty and serve the Chinese minority only. IF Bangkok was a normal place, all people living there would be able to register as a voter and even in Bangkok the Democrat Party would not stand any chance.

Yep the democratic party should be disolved. It is quite clear that their only aim is to disrupt the system, and all because they are unable to appeal to enough Thai voters. I have no doubt any general election called by Yingluck will be boycotted as well as any by election that might follow in the case she doesn't disolve the house.

An utter disgrace, no other words.

[Asiantravel]

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

And what are people with your mindset going to do if they simply win again (as Jonathan Head was predicting on BBC world about an hour ago)?

[backtonormal]

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

A military coup...the best option....would that be a good option in your own country for the opposition to incite violence to get the army on the street...Jog on

[hansnl]

'The kingdom has been rocked by several episodes of political bloodshed since Thaksin, a billionaire tycoon-turned-premier, was ousted by royalist generals in a coup seven years ago.'

My, but AFP does love that phrase.

Wrong

It should be: The Kingdom has been rocked by political and non-political bloodshed since Thaksin came into power!

[khunken]

it's funny with the PTP/Red acolytes criticising the Dems for their promised resignations. Isn't a one-party state what the red shirts & particularly Thaksin want?

There will be frantic Skyping to find out what PTP's new orders are.

Personally my hope is that this crisis brings about a body that has the ability to uphold laws in Thailand. Neither PTP or Suthep have any idea of real democracy.

[JRSoul]

The great Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the sacred principle of " one man, one vote"

One can say all sorts of things about the current government, but they won by a landslide, and

the decision by the electorate must be respected.

Let us hope some MPs in the Democrat party remember what the name of their party means,

and refuse to support this disgraceful appeal to fascism by the party elite. They are an

embarassment to Thailand and an insult to the memory of Madiba,

To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill - democracy is a mess, but it ia a hell of a lot better than

any of the alternatives!

Breaking news

Thai opposition MPs pledge to resign

Thailand's opposition MPs to resign en masse, officials say, after weeks of protests aimed at forcing out government

-- BBC 2013-12-08

Trying to drag a dead statesman's name into a completely different scenario is pretty low.

Winston Churchill also said "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." And he had never been to Isaan.

[Mosha]

I think with the Dems gone, there won't be enough MPs for a quorum so parliament won't be able to vote on any bills. So it'll have to be dissolved.

But what does this actually do?

Yes, indeed. What does this actually do? The government can presumably still go on being the government without the opposition, or is there some constitutional requirement that it can only function if there's an opposition? Does the Dems resignation mean that there is an insufficient quorum?

Constitutional experts please?

Remember what happened when the Dems didn't contest the election. Thaksin's party still couldn't get elected down South and the election was declared null and void. IIRC

[marinediscoking]

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

You were obviously not here during the coup years.

[Misab]

Guess you can't buy peoples hearts, and Thais have big hearts and love their country. A lesson for Taksin, although i am not convinced he learns from his mistakes or is prepared to listen to others.

Yingluck should resign and dissolve the house. No point trying to fool the nation any more with outrageous lies.

Is that democracy ?

[MobileContent]

They are back to their 2006 tactic, if you can't win at the ballot box, you frustrate the system. The democratic party is democratic in name only.

Not only do they backstab all the people that voted for them, they now openly support Suthep and his People's council.

I feel sorry for everyone that voted these clowns in to parliament.

Once and for all it is now been officially revealed. The financial muscle behind the Dems is the same group sponsoring the rally. I have just watched that spineless thing that calls himself a leader declaring his intentions in the hope level headed Democrat supporters will head for the streets tomorrow and swell the dwindling numbers.

What amazed me most was the skill of Blue Sky TV to hide the strings of the puppet master controlling Mr Abhisit. If they have resigned they should never be allowed to enter politics again after failing the 11 million that voted for them. The Dems are effectively saying that they dont want to govern in favour of a selected 'Peoples Council". For the 11 million that voted for these worthless people I feel sorry , you deserve better. Dont make the same mistake again, they dont want democracy, the next free election is your chance to resign this political party (term used very loosely) to history and let Thailand move forward.

The people's behind the Democrats are far richer then the Shinawatra clan but they don't go in politics normally but they know who to contact to get their interest made known but with PTP they really have no one to listen to them. I know three companies of which at least two could swallow the little assets that the Shinawatra group has today. Thaksin real mistake was that he left those companies out and didn't shared his pie. I think the first option should have been for Thaksin to sell AIS to Telecom Asia and not to SingTel in Singapore.

The second mistake was he sold ThaiCom to the Singaporean government linked company. He should have offered it to sell to Telecom Asia as well. When he placed that two deals to the Singaporean's he got himself a very big upset Thai company. Then he played games wit DTAC. DTAC can't have majority owned by foreigners but AIS is ok and fine to ahve SIngaporean take over.

Then Thaksin made a tax free transaction in letting the Singapore GCC take over AIS but for Dtac and True they have to pay taxes on the sell of shares.

This was certainly that broke his neck in Thai politics. It's all about business and the other groups knew that any Thaksin linked government doesn't bring any money in their pockets so they are funneling now funds to the democrats.

BTW: Since last month a few hundred thousand demonstrate in Bangkok. Who pays the money of providing food, drinking water and logositics to the demonstrators. Most of them do not have the money to buy their drink and food for them-self, specially the thugs.

Lets say 600,000 bottles x 14 Baht per day = 8,4 million Baht

Two warm meals per day 300,000 meals x 28 Baht per day = another 8,4 million Baht

x 30 days at least 500 million Baht.

Logistics is not even included.

Surely the democrats can't pay for it so it would be great to know who are the financiers. This number above are very conservative numbers and according to some friends in Bangkok, they put the number to as high as 1.5 billion Baht to bring down the government.

[assayer]

Hmmm .... One hellava chess game ?????

You can't compare this <deleted> to chess - politicians from both sides are about as subtle as hand grenades and have the tactical thinking of a 7 year old with dyslexia.

It's all a game of "mine's bigger than yours" being carried out by playground bullies.

They should rename this place Kindergartenland.

Nothing unique to Thailand. Have you forgotten how the opposition in the "world's most powerful nation" recently shut-down government operations because they didn't like legislation introduced by the democratically elected party in power?

Perhaps DOCNO, you have forgotten that the Congress of the USA is a fully elected group. Which is divided into two distinct groups. And all laws must pass both the House and the Senate to be instituted.

You are right that in the Senate the ruling party is the duly elected Democrats, however, in the House the ruling party is the duly elected Republicans.

So, you see, there are two distinctly different governments in the USA and in Thailand.

[DMG333]

Why don't they devote themselves into more positive and productive inputs to Thailand. Rather than just focusing on these limited mindset. That's the result why Thailand is 'reversing' rather than advancing. This is politics of Democratic Party......what a joke for people who are so highly educated yet short sighted....

[TVGerry]

I was here after they threw out Thaksin. What was so bad about it? Life went on. And we didn't have to worry about our tax money being used to fund dodgy trillion baht projects or having hare brained rice pledging schemes that not only cost us taxpayers billions but also made Thailand lose its top rice exporter status. We didn't have anyone disapeared while the army was in charge, did we? And were our rights infringed on any worse then it is now?

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

You were obviously not here during the coup years.

[Crushdepth]

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

You were obviously not here during the coup years.

I was, and they were a doddle compared to the pre-coup years. People were positively cheering his removal.

[backtonormal]

Surely the democrats can't pay for it so it would be great to know who are the financiers. This number above are very conservative numbers and according to some friends in Bangkok, they put the number to as high as 1.5 billion Baht to bring down the government

A question I have raised several times on here without reply. Who is actually paying to maintain this rally...an army needs feeding. Contributions from the general public does not wash. Maybe instead of financing this rabble they should have paid for some more votes and got into power

[backtonormal]

The lesser of two evils is the Military COUP.. Anything is better than the Thaksin and red SHIrT running Thailand now!!!

You were obviously not here during the coup years.

I was, and they were a doddle compared to the pre-coup years. People were positively cheering his removal.

Links to people cheering his removal please....footage outside Bangkok if possible

[philw]

They are back to their 2006 tactic, if you can't win at the ballot box, you frustrate the system. The democratic party is democratic in name only.

Not only do they backstab all the people that voted for them, they now openly support Suthep and his People's council.

I feel sorry for everyone that voted these clowns in to parliament.

Once and for all it is now been officially revealed. The financial muscle behind the Dems is the same group sponsoring the rally. I have just watched that spineless thing that calls himself a leader declaring his intentions in the hope level headed Democrat supporters will head for the streets tomorrow and swell the dwindling numbers.

What amazed me most was the skill of Blue Sky TV to hide the strings of the puppet master controlling Mr Abhisit. If they have resigned they should never be allowed to enter politics again after failing the 11 million that voted for them. The Dems are effectively saying that they dont want to govern in favour of a selected 'Peoples Council". For the 11 million that voted for these worthless people I feel sorry , you deserve better. Dont make the same mistake again, they dont want democracy, the next free election is your chance to resign this political party (term used very loosely) to history and let Thailand move forward.

The people's behind the Democrats are far richer then the Shinawatra clan but they don't go in politics normally but they know who to contact to get their interest made known but with PTP they really have no one to listen to them. I know three companies of which at least two could swallow the little assets that the Shinawatra group has today. Thaksin real mistake was that he left those companies out and didn't shared his pie. I think the first option should have been for Thaksin to sell AIS to Telecom Asia and not to SingTel in Singapore.

The second mistake was he sold ThaiCom to the Singaporean government linked company. He should have offered it to sell to Telecom Asia as well. When he placed that two deals to the Singaporean's he got himself a very big upset Thai company. Then he played games wit DTAC. DTAC can't have majority owned by foreigners but AIS is ok and fine to ahve SIngaporean take over.

Then Thaksin made a tax free transaction in letting the Singapore GCC take over AIS but for Dtac and True they have to pay taxes on the sell of shares.

This was certainly that broke his neck in Thai politics. It's all about business and the other groups knew that any Thaksin linked government doesn't bring any money in their pockets so they are funneling now funds to the democrats.

BTW: Since last month a few hundred thousand demonstrate in Bangkok. Who pays the money of providing food, drinking water and logositics to the demonstrators. Most of them do not have the money to buy their drink and food for them-self, specially the thugs.

Lets say 600,000 bottles x 14 Baht per day = 8,4 million Baht

Two warm meals per day 300,000 meals x 28 Baht per day = another 8,4 million Baht

x 30 days at least 500 million Baht.

Logistics is not even included.

Surely the democrats can't pay for it so it would be great to know who are the financiers. This number above are very conservative numbers and according to some friends in Bangkok, they put the number to as high as 1.5 billion Baht to bring down the government.

This is a very perceptive post.

[jackrich]

The Democrate Party knows that their days are numbered and so resigned to avoid being dissolved....well, to save face really.

They could still be dissolved, unless they resign from the party as well, which they haven't done.

Maybe they can found a new party and call themselves "The Mock Rats" instead. Same same but not same.

Edited December 8, 2013 by jackrich

[lostinsurin]

Really it's that clear "who are the whack jobs are"? Not those who pulled soldiers out of trucks and murdered them, not those who tried to burn down Bangkok?

So let me understand this

This legally elected gvernement has offered to stand down and hold elections within 2 months but the opposition says that is not good enough

I think it clear who are the whack jobs are.

You really do hate the red shirts, don't you timo!

[TVGerry]

Surely the democrats can't pay for it so it would be great to know who are the financiers. This number above are very conservative numbers and according to some friends in Bangkok, they put the number to as high as 1.5 billion Baht to bring down the government

A question I have raised several times on here without reply. Who is actually paying to maintain this rally...an army needs feeding. Contributions from the general public does not wash. Maybe instead of financing this rabble they should have paid for some more votes and got into power

What an intelligent question! If we had any more insight then you did which cabal of evil businessmen are secretly funding this mob, we would share it with you for sure! Unfortunately, we're all lowly armchair TV posters with no link to the inside of backroom deals evil politicians and billionaires make.

[whybother]

They are back to their 2006 tactic, if you can't win at the ballot box, you frustrate the system. The democratic party is democratic in name only.

Not only do they backstab all the people that voted for them, they now openly support Suthep and his People's council.

I feel sorry for everyone that voted these clowns in to parliament.

Once and for all it is now been officially revealed. The financial muscle behind the Dems is the same group sponsoring the rally. I have just watched that spineless thing that calls himself a leader declaring his intentions in the hope level headed Democrat supporters will head for the streets tomorrow and swell the dwindling numbers.

What amazed me most was the skill of Blue Sky TV to hide the strings of the puppet master controlling Mr Abhisit. If they have resigned they should never be allowed to enter politics again after failing the 11 million that voted for them. The Dems are effectively saying that they dont want to govern in favour of a selected 'Peoples Council". For the 11 million that voted for these worthless people I feel sorry , you deserve better. Dont make the same mistake again, they dont want democracy, the next free election is your chance to resign this political party (term used very loosely) to history and let Thailand move forward.

The people's behind the Democrats are far richer then the Shinawatra clan but they don't go in politics normally but they know who to contact to get their interest made known but with PTP they really have no one to listen to them. I know three companies of which at least two could swallow the little assets that the Shinawatra group has today. Thaksin real mistake was that he left those companies out and didn't shared his pie. I think the first option should have been for Thaksin to sell AIS to Telecom Asia and not to SingTel in Singapore.

The second mistake was he sold ThaiCom to the Singaporean government linked company. He should have offered it to sell to Telecom Asia as well. When he placed that two deals to the Singaporean's he got himself a very big upset Thai company. Then he played games wit DTAC. DTAC can't have majority owned by foreigners but AIS is ok and fine to ahve SIngaporean take over.

Then Thaksin made a tax free transaction in letting the Singapore GCC take over AIS but for Dtac and True they have to pay taxes on the sell of shares.

This was certainly that broke his neck in Thai politics. It's all about business and the other groups knew that any Thaksin linked government doesn't bring any money in their pockets so they are funneling now funds to the democrats.

BTW: Since last month a few hundred thousand demonstrate in Bangkok. Who pays the money of providing food, drinking water and logositics to the demonstrators. Most of them do not have the money to buy their drink and food for them-self, specially the thugs.

Lets say 600,000 bottles x 14 Baht per day = 8,4 million Baht

Two warm meals per day 300,000 meals x 28 Baht per day = another 8,4 million Baht

x 30 days at least 500 million Baht.

Logistics is not even included.

Surely the democrats can't pay for it so it would be great to know who are the financiers. This number above are very conservative numbers and according to some friends in Bangkok, they put the number to as high as 1.5 billion Baht to bring down the government.

Why would 10,000 people be having 30 meals and 60 bottles of water each per day?

On the largest protest day, there were possibly 300,000 people, and a large proportion of those would have bought their own food and drink, if they were there long enough to need it. On many of the other days people were coming to the protests for a few hours and then going home.

Aren't the anti-Thaksin protesters supposed to be middle class and elite? And you're saying they can't afford 50 baht per day to feed themselves?

Get your stories straight, will you?

[thaigold]

Many people of good will always wish the Thais good fortune - we all hold those hopes for the kingdom. However, seeing the Democrats resigning en-mass is a call to lawlessness and anarchy. What ever a person's political persuasions, those who leave their seats of responsibility in Parliament - let loose the hounds of civil strife.

Many would suggest, and hope, that Thais will take the middle road. Sure in the knowledge that the servant class has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the hour-glass turned over by Mr. Thaksin can never be undone.

Long Live The King.

[whybother]

This is a very perceptive post.

Ignoring the fact that they're completely made up numbers.