THAILAND: The leader of the main Thai opposition party has resigned after the historic second landslide election victory of the Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra left it in disarray and with dim prospects of a swift recovery.
Banyat Bantadtan said he took responsibility for the rout of the Democrats, Thailand's oldest political party, after it lost seats in Sunday's election which gave Thaksin enough to form the country's first single-party government.
Spokesman Ong-Ard Klampaiboon said the party leadership would conduct a post-mortem to figure out how to cut into the popularity of the charismatic Thaksin, whose Thai Rak Thai party is expected to win around 370 of parliament's 500 seats.
But a way back to power, which it last held as head of a coalition from 1998 to 2001, is hard to discern, analysts said.
"One of the main criticisms of the party is that it appears only able to bash the Thai Rak Thai- led government," Veera Prateepchaikul, Bangkok Post columnist and staunch critic of Thaksin, wrote yesterday.
The party was in trouble before the election, weakened by rifts which saw patriarch Sanan Kachonprasart walk out with dozens of other members to form another party, Mahachon.
Last April, it went through an acrimonious leadership battle.
Banyat (62) beat Oxford graduate Abhisit Vejjajiva, more than 20 years younger and more popular among urban and educated voters, in the fight to replace former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai.
Then it chose to fight Thaksin, who rode to power at the head of a coalition government in 2001 on the back of promises of cheap healthcare and debt suspensions for the rural masses, by promising even greater generosity.
It switched to labelling Thaksin an autocrat and appealed to voters to elect at least 201 Democrats, the minimum number of parliamentary votes needed to bring a vote of no confidence against the government. Analysts said that was a mistake.- (Reuters)