BANGKOK, July 13: Thailand’s Constitutional Court will decide today whether government plans to amend the constitution are illegal, an outcome that could lead to the dissolution of the ruling party and bring its “red shirt” supporters onto the street.
Even if the ruling goes in favour of the government, it could still open up another violent chapter in Thailand’s seven-year political crisis because the powerful royalists oppose any change to a constitution enacted under a military-backed government in 2007.
The government maintains its proposed changes are part of efforts to bring reconciliation to Thailand, altering a constitution seen by some as undemocratic.
Opponents argue the changes will threaten the role of the monarchy and that one undeclared aim is to pave the way for former premier Thaksin Shinawatra to return from self-exile without serving time in jail for a graft conviction.
Thaksin is the brother of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and is believed to be the real power behind her government, giving it orders from his villa in Dubai.
A former telecoms billionaire, he is adored by the poor but reviled by the royalist establishment and military, which toppled him in a coup in 2006.
One article in the current constitution gives additional power to the judiciary and independent agencies that helped investigate corruption charges against Thaksin after he was deposed.
If it were to be amended, the legitimacy of any action taken during the coup and the subsequent investigation could be put into question.
The implications of any dissolution of Yingluck’s Puea Thai are not clear-cut. Executives would be banned from politics but Yingluck and other ministers are not executives, so her government may be able to carry on, in the short term at least.
A new party is already thought to have been set up and lawmakers could transfer into it, although the anti-Thaksin opposition might contest that.
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