Thailand to beef up security ahead of key party ruling
Afp, Bangkok
Thailand plans to beef up security in the capital ahead of a crucial ruling on whether the kingdom's two largest political parties should be dissolved, Bangkok police said yesterday. About 500 police will be deployed on Wednesday at the court where judges will announce the fate of Thai Rak Thai (TRT), the party formed by the ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and the Democrat Party, Thailand's oldest party. The parties face a slew of electoral fraud charges related to annulled elections in April last year, and many people are concerned that a verdict banning one or both of the parties could provoke unrest and clashes. Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd, spokesman for the junta which seized power in a coup last September, said police would work with the army and Bangkok security staff to monitor both the capital and the countryside. He said the army would set up checkpoints on roads from the north, a stronghold of Thaksin and his TRT party. "If we find that people are coming to Bangkok, we will check them and stop them from bringing weapons, but we will not stop them from coming to assemble," Sansern said yesterday. Acting national police chief Sereepisut Taemeeyaves told AFP last week that they would scupper any plans to bring elephants to the capital, after rumours that protesters would bring 99 pachyderms from the north. "The law already bans elephants from entering the city, and those who bring them to incite chaos will face prosecution," he said. "Police will not let them in to avert clashes." Anti-junta groups with links to Thaksin have said they plan to rally, but have given no further details. Police and the military, however, have played down talk of any clashes, while the leaders of both the TRT and the Democrat Party have stressed that they would accept the verdict and discourage their supporters from protesting. Thailand's influential monarch has urged the judges to act fairly and warned that dissolving the parties would damage the country's image. "You have responsibilities to make the country not sink. You can advise people because you have knowledge. I ask you to solve the current situation which is not good at all," King Bhumibol Adulyadej said on Thursday. "Whatever the judgement is, it will damage the country," said the 79-year-old king, who is almost universally adored by Thais.
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