Word: samaklis
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...just what the thousands of protesters camped out at Thailand's leadership compound have been demanding since they besieged Government House three weeks ago. On September 17, Thailand's parliament elected Somchai Wongsawat as the country's new Prime Minister, replacing embattled political veteran Samak Sundaravej, who only served in the top post for just over six months...
...crowds still camped outside Samak's former offices are not impressed. The demonstrators, who call themselves the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), had been calling for Samak's ouster ever since he took office, labeling him nothing more than a puppet of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who himself had been deposed by a bloodless military coup in 2006. A billionaire tycoon who now lives in self-imposed exile in Britain, Thaksin has been charged with corruption in several different cases. (On the same day Somchai was voted in, the Supreme Court issued a third arrest warrant against Thaksin...
Indeed, Thailand's latest political crisis, which has driven away foreign tourists and caused the country's stock market to swoon, is looking ever more intractable. Samak was kicked out of power in an unlikely fashion. Last week, the Constitutional Court determined that he had contravened the national charter by accepting compensation for a second job while serving as Prime Minister. The job? Hosting a few episodes of a T.V. cooking show. The payment? $2,300. Although the court ordered Samak to step down, there was nothing stopping his People Power Party (PPP) from re-nominating him as Prime Minister...
...sister, who also served as a parliamentarian, makes him unacceptable to the PAD, which accuses Thaksin of having bought many of the rural voters who swept him into office with a record mandate. "[Somchai] is Thaksin's brother-in-law and will be even more his proxy than Samak ever was," Chamlong Srimuang, one of the PAD's leaders, told reporters, vowing to keep up the Government House siege until a Prime Minister who's not from the PPP is named...
...Bangkok Recipe for An Ouster After withstanding months of protests and calls for his resignation, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was ultimately forced from office Sept. 9 on a technicality. According to a court ruling, Samak's gig as an occasional host of a TV cooking show violated a conflict-of-interest article in the Thai constitution that prohibits the Prime Minister from having a job outside of official duties. Yet just as soon as Samak was removed, his party declared its intention to renominate him, a move likely to perpetuate Thailand's political unrest. Samak's detractors allege...