Thailand plans to hold a national referendum to end a political crisis over street protests against the government, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said on Thursday after rejecting calls to quit. Leaders of the three-month old campaign in Bangkok to oust Samak dismissed the plan, signalling that political uncertainty would continue to beset the Southeast Asian nation.
Samak, desperately seeking a way to end the crisis that has paralysed his government, said in a radio broadcast that he would urge the Senate to pass a pending referendum law quickly. "The campaign will last for a month in which both sides can do whatever electioneering they want," he said, adding that the thousands of activists who have barricaded themselves within his official compound could stay there during this period. But in an another apparent rebuff to Samak's plans, Senate President Prasobsuk Boondej said he did not believe a vote, even a rushed one, would end the crisis. "The current situation needs an immediate solution to defuse it. We can't afford to wait for the referendum law to pass," he told reporters.
The anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), a mainly middle class grouping of royalists and businessmen whose activists took over the prime minister's offices 10 days ago, called the plan a delaying tactic to keep Samak in office. "The referendum will not solve anything," PAD spokesman Parnthep Pourpongpan said. The PAD accuses Samak of being an illegal proxy for former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup and now in exile in London. Thaksin is widely admired by the poor and in the countryside but despised by Bangkok's middle class.
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