Ex-Thai PM banned from politics

Exiled former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was banned from politics for five years yesterday and his party, the first to win an absolute majority in the country's history, disbanded.

The Constitutional Tribunal, at the end of a marathon 10-hour televised explanation of its verdicts on charges of breaches of election laws, said the ban extended to the entire 111-member executive committee of his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais).

The party will reform under a new name, but without the charisma of the billionaire Thaksin who was idolised by millions in the countryside and among the urban poor as the one Thai politician they believed really cared about them.

"This is not the last day of Thai Rak Thai, brothers and sisters," party spokesman Laddawan Wongsriwong told a distraught crowd of 1,000 people at party headquarters which hissed and booed at the verdict.

The time the tribunal took to explain the cases for and against Thai Rak Thai and the opposition Democrat Party - Thailand's oldest party which was absolved of any wrongdoing - and their verdicts may have been an effort to head off feared trouble from Mr Thaksin's supporters, analysts said.

But with so many Thai Rak Thai officials banned, that possibility was not dead, they said.

"It's a big surprise because banning more than 100 people will make the political game unfair. It's negative for the country's political climate, which needs checks and balances," leading financial analyst Thanawat Patchimkul said.

"It's a political massacre," said Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, head of a leading brokerage.

Mr Thaksin, living in exile in London, was saddened by the punishments, his lawyer said.

"It is an unexpected ruling and we are disappointed by the verdict. It's too harsh on Thai Rak Thai," Mr Thaksin's lawyer and spokesman Noppadon Pattama said in Bangkok.

The tribunal found Thai Rak Thai guilty of paying a small party to run in elections last year to circumvent rules on single candidate polls.

It also said Thai Rak Thai paid two small parties to bribe an election official to falsify their records to show candidates were eligible to run in elections Mr Thaksin called as street protesters accused him of abusing power and corruption.