Thailand - Plan for mass pardon could include Thaksin

A royal pardon for convicted criminals that could also free former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra from a corruption conviction signals more political turbulence for a country grappling with its worst flooding in half a century.

Details of the pardon, discussed at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, are sparse, with those who attended the meeting remaining tight-lipped.

What is known is that the royal pardon will apply to convicts who are 60 or older and sentenced to less than three years in jail. Up to 26,000 would be eligible. Most politically explosive, though, is that the pardon would also apply to Thaksin.

The royal pardon is a Thai tradition. King Bhumibol Adulyadej has granted mass pardons on auspicious occasions several times. On Dec 5, he will turn 84 - a birthday considered especially auspicious in the Buddhist calendar because it completes the end of his seventh 12-year cycle of life.

The government has followed normal procedure, although Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra - Thaksin's younger sister - was absent from the Cabinet meeting because she was held up in the nearby province of Singburi.

Her critics have charged that the delay was engineered so she would not chair the meeting and expose herself to accusations of conflict of interest.

Opposition Democrat Party figures reacted with dismay. On Tuesday, party MP Sirichoke Sopha wrote on Facebook: "It is one of the saddest days in Thailand."

Yesterday, party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said the royal decree, in its reported form, was unacceptable.

Senator Anusart Suwannamongkol, a critic of Thaksin, said: "The question is whether this amnesty has been created for one person - Thaksin. This is going to be a very big issue in coming weeks."

Thaksin is loathed by many Thai royalists and conservatives, who are wary that his immense popularity with the masses poses a threat to the monarchy itself. He became prime minister in 2001 and was re-elected by a landslide in 2005 - but was kicked out of office in a coup in September 2006.

The generals who removed him accused him of corruption, cronyism and disrespect for the monarchy.

In 2008, he was handed a two-year jail term by a Thai court on the grounds that he favoured his wife, while he was prime minister, in a real estate deal. He left the country before the guilty verdict and has not returned since, making him a fugitive from the law. He maintains that the case was politically motivated.

At 62, he would be covered by the royal pardon. In at least two changes made by the Cabinet in what critics charge was a "secret" meeting of just a few ministers, an exemption from the pardon for those convicted of corruption and drug trafficking was removed.

The draft decree will be referred through the Ministry of Justice to the Council of State, which rules on major legal issues. Then, it would go back to the Cabinet, which would pass it to the office of the King. The monarch's signature would normally be routine.

Clashes in Bangkok between the army and Thaksin's supporters in the summer of last year left 91 dead. The scars are still raw, and Thaksin's sister decisively won an election this year, underscoring his popularity.

In effect, the draft decree puts the ball in the King's court. If Thaksin benefits from the royal pardon, it will inflame conservatives; if he is specifically excluded, his supporters will be incensed.

"It leaves little room for the palace," said Mr Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.

"The monarchy is being used again as a weapon. This issue is the one thing which could trigger another round of street demonstrations."

Nirmal Ghosh

The Straits Times

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