Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont rejected a military demand
for emergency powers to halt growing anti-government protests
Thursday and said a general election would be held in December.
"There will be no imposition of the emergency decree for now
because the situation does not warrant it," Surayud told reporters
after meeting the generals who ousted Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra last year.
"I don't want to see confrontations and clashes among people who
are all Thais. So we will try our utmost to keep the situation from
reaching that stage," Surayud said ahead of a planned anti-coup
rally today.
Led by army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who worried the
protests would get out of hand and derail elections now planned for
December 16 or 22, the decree request had unnerved investors and
outraged democracy activists.
The decree, first issued by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
three years ago to contain a separatist insurgency in the Muslim
deep south, would have allowed detention without charge for 30
days, phone taps, intercepting e-mails and press censorship.
Martial law imposed after the September coup was in name only
and rarely enforced on the streets of Bangkok. But political
parties have bristled at a ban on their activities.
Surayud apparently agreed with him, but Sonthi had wanted more
police and soldiers at today's anti-coup rally because of the
danger of things getting out of hand.
But police and Bangkok city officials appeared to find a way out
by restricting access to the protest venue, Sanam Luang square near
the glittering Grand Palace, until April 5.
(China Daily via agencies March 30, 2007)
