Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Thursday comfortably survived a no-confidence vote and asked the protesters to call off their sustained demonstration to topple her Government and negotiate.
The no-confidence motion was held after two days of showdown between the Opposition Democrat Party and the ruling coalition led by Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party. Yingluck received 297 votes while 134 MPs voted against her. Five MPs abstained.
The motion was filed by the Opposition which alleges widespread corruption in Government and accuses Yingluck of acting as a puppet for her brother, the ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Yingluck — who denies the accusations — delivered a televised national address following the vote, urging demonstrators to end their rallies since Sunday.
“I propose to protesters to stop protesting and leave government offices so the civil service can move forward. The Government does not want confrontation and is ready to cooperate with everybody to find a solution,” she said. Protesters have vowed to bring down Yingluck’s Government. Thousands of them have occupied the Ministry of Finance and are holed up in a sprawling Government office complex where they camped overnight.
Protesters want to replace the government with an unelected “people’s council” - a demand Yingluck said was impossible under the constitution. Yingluck has ruled out the use of force to end the protests, seeking to avoid a repeat of the bloodshed seen in 2010 which left more than 90 people dead and nearly 1,900 wounded and deepened the country’s political divide.
Protesters entered a major Government complex in the northern outskirts of the capital and also forced staff to leave the Justice Department’s besieged Department of Special Investigations. Outside Bangkok, protesters gathered at about 25provincial halls mainly in the opposition’s southern heartlands — including on the tourist island of Phuket.
However, deputy premier Pracha Promnog said State offices could continue to function even if the protesters blocked more ministries and provincial halls.