Thai anti-graft body to probe Yingluck

Thai caretaker premier Yingluck Shinawatra, who has clung on to her post despite three-month-old street protests, now faces a probe by the nation's anti-graft body.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) said yesterday it would investigate Ms Yingluck, who heads the National Rice Committee, for wrongdoing in a controversial government rice purchase scheme.

On the same day, it decided to probe former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom - who oversaw the two-year-old scheme - as well as several other people.

The probe is another blow to the dominant Puea Thai party, already battered by another NACC probe that could see most of its candidates for the Feb 2 election relieved of duties in the coming months.

The rice purchase scheme was a key Puea Thai election pledge in the 2011 election.

Under the programme, the government bought rice from farmers at about 50 per cent above world prices, leading to a boost in production but a plunge in exports as Thai rice became too expensive. It has also filled state warehouses with tonnes of rice it could not sell.

Supporters say this agricultural subsidy helps boost the income of farmers. But critics like former central bank governor and finance minister Pridiyathorn Devakula estimated it has cost the state at least 425 billion baht (S$16billion) over two years.

The International Monetary Fund last year called for the scheme to be scrapped.

While some quarters expect a graft conviction to spell the end of Ms Yingluck's political runway, Kyoto University political scientist Pavin Chachavalpongpun thinks pro-government "red shirt" supporters would not take an ouster lying down. "They might be silent at the moment, but it doesn't mean they are going to be passive."

Anti-government blockades of key intersections in Bangkok continued yesterday as protesters kept up the pressure on Ms Yingluck to quit. On Thursday, they also rallied at the public health ministry and state revenue offices to force civil servants to stop work and join their campaign.

The protesters, led by former opposition legislator Suthep Thaugsuban, want the caretaker government to step down and make way for an unelected "people's council" to enact reforms before polls are called.

They are supported by the country's royalist elite and urban middle-class. The Puea Thai, which draws its support from the country's rural masses, is widely expected to win again in the Feb 2 polls.

The main opposition Democrat Party, which has not won an election since 1992, is boycotting the polls, and Democrat leader Abhhisit Vejjajiva has taken part in the rallies.

On Wednesday, a multi-party meeting organised by the government resolved to press ahead with the election, despite a request by the election commission to postpone the polls.

There is a growing movement to support the Feb 2 election. On Thursday night, a crowd in Bangkok lit candles in a call for peace and to demand their right to vote - just down the road from a major protest site.

tanhy@sph.com.sg

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