{"id":84865,"date":"2015-01-23T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=84865"},"modified":"2015-01-23T07:29:30","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T07:29:30","slug":"thai-ex-pm-impeached-rice-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=84865","title":{"rendered":"Thai ex-PM impeached for rice scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thailand’s legislators have voted to impeach former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and ban her from politics for five years.<\/p>\n

The move relates to her involvement in a controversial rice subsidy scheme.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Friday, the attorney general also announced that Ms Yingluck would face a criminal charge over her role in the scheme.<\/p>\n

A court removed Ms Yingluck as PM in May 2014, days before the military ousted her government in a coup.<\/p>\n

On Friday, 190 out of 219 lawmakers present in the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) voted to impeach her. Eighteen voted against impeachment while the others abstained. One lawmaker was absent for the vote.<\/p>\n

The votes were written on a whiteboard as they were tallied, and broadcast on national television.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Bangkok says the impeachment sends a strong signal that there will be no compromise and her family will be removed from politics.<\/p>\n

Ms Yingluck and her brother, tycoon and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, remain hugely popular among Thailand’s rural poor, but are hated by an urban and middle-class elite who accuse them of corruption and abuse of power.<\/p>\n

Their party is the most popular in Thailand and has – under various different names – won every election since 2001.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\"Members<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The 220-member National Legislative Assembly was hand-picked by the military junta<\/div>\n

Rice subsidy<\/span><\/p>\n

The allegations against Ms Yingluck centre around a scheme in which her government bought rice from Thai farmers at a much higher price than on the global market.<\/p>\n

It resulted in the accumulation of huge stockpiles of rice and hit Thailand’s rice exports hard.<\/p>\n

Anti-corruption investigators have accused Ms Yingluck and her party of using the scheme to buy votes from farmers, particularly from their power base in the north, and allowing government associates to profit from it.<\/p>\n

Ms Yingluck has maintained that she was not involved in the scheme’s day-to-day operations, and has defended it as an attempt to support the rural poor. She has also said that she could not be impeached as she has not held a position in the government for months.<\/p>\n

Her supporters say the claims against her are a ruse to remove her from politics.<\/p>\n

Ms Yingluck also faces up to ten years in prison if she is found guilty of negligence of duty, which the attorney general charged her with on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Surasak Threerattrakul, director-general of the Office of the Attorney General, said after considering all the witnesses and evidence from the National Anti-Corruption Committee “we agree that the case substantiates a criminal indictment charge against Yingluck”.<\/p>\n

\"Thai<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Anti-government protesters blockaded major roads and disrupted businesses in early 2014<\/div>\n
\"line\"<\/div>\n

Thailand’s troubles<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • September 2006: Army ousts Thaksin Shinawatra<\/li>\n
  • December 2007: Pro-Thaksin party wins election<\/li>\n
  • August 2008: Mr Thaksin flees Thailand<\/li>\n
  • December 2008: Huge anti-Thaksin protests; court bans ruling party; Democrat’s Abhisit Vejjajiva comes to power<\/li>\n
  • March-May 2010: Huge pro-Thaksin protests; dozens killed in army crackdown<\/li>\n
  • July 2011: Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of Mr Thaksin, elected PM<\/li>\n
  • November 2013: Anti-government protests begin<\/li>\n
  • May 2014: Ms Yingluck removed from office; military launches coup<\/li>\n
  • August 2014: Coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha named PM by legislature hand-picked by military<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    –<\/p>\n

    Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Thailand’s legislators have voted to impeach former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and ban her from politics for five years. The move relates to her involvement in a controversial rice subsidy scheme. Earlier on Friday, the attorney general also announced that Ms Yingluck would face a criminal charge over her role in the scheme. A court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-84865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}