Yingluck indicted for negligence in Thai rice-buying scheme

[BANGKOK] Thailand's anti-graft agency indicted former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra for negligence yesterday - a ruling that came a day after a court threw her out of office and that could kill off any hopes she has of staging an electoral comeback.

Thousands of her loyalists were converging on the capital as the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) announced its decision to press ahead with charges related to a financially ruinous state rice-buying scheme.

The blows delivered on successive days by the commission and Thailand's Constitutional Court are the latest twists in a struggle for power between Thailand's royalist establishment and Ms Yingluck's brother, ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. "The committee has investigated and there is enough evidence to make a case . . . We will now forward it to the Senate," NACC president Panthep Klanarong- ran told reporters.

If found guilty by the Senate, Ms Yingluck could be banned from politics for five years. Several other members of the family and about 150 of Mr Thaksin's other political allies have been banned for five-year terms since 2007.

Ms Yingluck's removal from office by the Constitutional Court on Wednesday for abuse of power followed months of sometimes deadly protests in Bangkok aimed at toppling her government and ending the influence of her elder brother, Mr Thaksin.

A billionaire former telecommunications tycoon who has won the unswerving loyalty of legions of Thailand's rural and urban poor, Mr Thaksin lives in exile to avoid a 2008 jail sentence for abuse of power, but he looms large over Thai politics.

The Constitutional Court, which removed two previous pro-Thaksin prime ministers in 2008, ruled that Ms Yingluck and nine of her Cabinet ministers had abused power in 2011 over the transfer of a security agency chief.

However, the court left the Shinawatras' ruling party in charge of a caretaker administration intent on organising a July 20 general election, which Ms Yingluck's party will likely win.

The rice subsidy scheme that is the focus of the anti- corruption commission case was a flagship policy of Ms Yingluck's administration, aimed at helping her rural supporters, under which the state paid farmers way above market prices for their crops.

But the government could not sell much of the rice it quickly stockpiled and was unable to pay many farmers. "The scheme incurred huge losses and had weaknesses and risks at every level from the registration of farmers to the sale of the rice," Commissioner Vicha Mahakun told reporters.

Activists from both the pro- and anti-government sides are planning big rallies in Bangkok in the coming days, raising fears of clashes.

One undercurrent of the crisis is deep anxiety over the issue of royal succession. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest- reigning monarch, is 86 years old and spent the years from 2009 to 2013 in hospital.

Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn does not command the same devotion as his father.

Pro-government "red shirt" supporters of the Shinawatras accuse the royalist establishment of "conspiring to overthrow elected governments" at a time when the traditional order in Thailand is waning.

"I would like to send a message . . . from the red shirt people of the land to the elite that the person . . . we are fighting is Prem Tinsulanonda," red shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan said in a blunt televised statement yesterday.

Mr Prem is a retired general and former prime minister and head of the king's Privy Council, an appointed body that advises the monarch. Thaksin loyalists have accused Mr Prem of masterminding the 2006 coup that overthrew Mr Thaksin. He has denied that.

Phuttiphong Khamhaengphon, a red shirt leader in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen, said as many as 100,000 people would head to Bangkok by bus and pick-up truck from the region, to join a rally tomorrow.

Supporters of the Shinawatras in their hometown of Chiang Mai in the north also said that 100,000 people were heading to Bangkok for the rally. - Reuters