Thai Parliament dissolved, new elections underway

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/02/24/thailand.government/

So opebo, does this show weakness on Thaksin's part? We can hope this results in Thaksin's ouster, even though that seems like a long shot. A more likely favorable scenario would be his majority greatly diminished.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Elections set for April 2.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

bad news, the opposition is considering a boycott: http://bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=81766

Although that's possibly good news. The closer Thaksin gets to an out and out dictator, the higher a possibility of a military coup, or the King sacking him in some way.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Pressure against him will continue though.

Who else thinks Thaksin will be gone by the time opebo returns to Thailand?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well Thaksin has now resigned after a meeting with the King. Looks like that did go through after all.

The King is still officially a constitutional monarch, so when Thaksin asked him to dissolve parliament and call new elections, it was just a formality to do so. But it has been known for quite some time that the King was largely opposed to Thaksin. In fact the slogans on this girl's shirt from an anti-Thaksin demonstration:



Are "Liberation the nation" and "We will fight for the King". Also the color yellow is the royal color and has basically been adopted as the official color of the opposition.

I suspect we might see another round of elections with full participation soon.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Constitutional Court just nullified the election results and has called for new ones: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/08/asia/web.0508thai.php

Looks like we'll finally get relatively fair elections now hopefully, and best of all, without Thaksin.