Word: parliament
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...also happens to be Thaksin's former brother-in-law. Since August, the PAD has besieged Somchai's offices, forcing him to set up a makeshift administration headquarters in the VIP lounge of Bangkok's old airfield. On Nov. 24, the PAD upped the ante, shutting down Thailand's parliament and later overwhelming the old air terminal. Somchai's spokespeople have assured the public that policy-making is going on from a "secret location...
...will put things back together again. Opposition leaders promise to bring a so-called "new politics" to Thailand. But what that means isn't clear, apart from trying to circumvent the problem of rampant vote-buying by replacing the one-person-one-vote system with a largely appointed parliament. Doing so would ensure that the electorate's pesky habit of returning pro-Thaksin elements to office would cease. But Thailand's reputation as a stable, democratic oasis in Asia would take a body blow...
...vote had originally been slated for Monday, but was rescheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday, and then pushed back to 3 p.m. Just before 4.30 p.m. the shrill bell calling lawmakers into the assembly chamber shrieked across the stained thin carpeting of the halls of the Parliament building. But senior members of the Sunni Tawafuk bloc refused to enter the session, leaving the Speaker with little choice but to reschedule the vote for Thursday. "We want our demands met, and they have not been," said Omar Abdel-Sattar al-Karboole, a member of Tawafuk, as the bell rang. (See photos...
...which is currently authorized by the U.N. Security Council. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc, meanwhile, does not reject the pact in principle, but wants to squeeze more concessions out of Maliki - Tawafuk has demanded a referendum on the security agreement be held next year once it has been adopted by parliament, and more immediately, it seeks amnesty for the (mostly Sunni) detainees in U.S. custody. Under the terms of SOFA, the detainees would be transferred to Baghdad's control at the end of the year, after the U.N mandate covering the U.S mission here expires...
...Maliki and his allies have the numbers to push SOFA through the parliament, but without overwhelming Sunni approval, the agreement would be tainted by its lack of national consensus. And so, the frenetic horse-trading over the security agreement has become a game of brinkmanship. On Wednesday, the prime minister personally lobbied recalcitrant parliamentarians at the nearby Rasheed Hotel, in exchanges that degenerated into fiery rows, according to a Maliki aide who was present...