Thai PM faces no-assurance vote amid renewed protests
17 February, 2021
Thai Primary Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha confronted a torrent of vitriol from opposition MPs on Tuesday (Feb 16) more than his handling of a pandemic-bruised economy, amid a renewed drive from a protest activity contacting for his resignation and royal reforms.
The verbal assault came in the beginning of a four-evening no-confidence debate, with lawmakers set to vote on Saturday on the administration's fate.
While Prayut - who found power in a 2014 coup - is likely to survive the vote, the debate could tripped internal struggles within his party.
"His government can only be considered a parasite authorities which destroys the country's near future and people's dreams," Sompong Amornvivat, leader of the opposition Pheu Thai get together, told parliament, during a debate televised nationwide.
Protesters experience returned to the roads in latest weeks, renewing demands the past general's resignation and reforms to the kingdom's unassailable monarchy.
Echoing a lot of protest leaders, opposition lawmakers got aim for Prayut's climb to power from coup innovator to prime minister, following an election governed below a military-scripted constitution.
The no-confidence debate employs the government announced that the Thai economy's worst full-year performance in a lot more than two decades, registering a 6.1 % contraction in 2020.
The kingdom was mainly spared the worst of COVID-19, but pandemic-spurred partial lockdowns have hit its export- and tourism-reliant economy hard.
It was struggling even before the pandemic, with rising costs of living and household debts laying bare the yawning divide between your haves and have-nots of Thai society.
"You will be lucky that COVID can be your excuse, and every region is facing the same circumstance," said another Pheu Thai MP, Suthin Klangsaeng.
A good resurgence of the youth-led protest movement previously week followed the detention of several prominent leaders on royal defamation fees - a laws that protesters possess demanded be abolished.
More leaders are expected to article themselves to courtroom for lese majeste fees on Wednesday.
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