A court ousts Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, pushing Thailand further towards complete political breakdown

AFTER one thousand days in power Yingluck Shinawatra’s premiership was brought to an abrupt end on May 7th by the country’s Constitutional Court. The nine judges unanimously ruled that she had abused her office and therefore had to step down, together with several of her cabinet ministers. The court succeeded, therefore, where six months of bitter anti-government street protests had failed, in ousting the leader of the Pheu Thai party and the younger sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister who was removed in a military coup in 2006. The court’s decision might have resolved the short-term future of the hapless Ms Yingluck, but it will only widen the already cavernous divisions in Thailand’s politics. Indeed, it is increasingly hard to see a peaceful way out of the present political crisis. The court ruled that Ms Yingluck had not provided sufficient justification for removing the national security chief that she inherited from the previous government when she took over 2011, after a landslide election victory. In replacing Thawil Pliensri with a person who was also a relative, she had thereby abused her power. The case had been rumbling on for some time, the verdict was widely expected, and the government was fully prepared. Within an hour of the court’s decision it announced that the minister of commerce, Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, was to take over as caretaker prime minister and that the remaining cabinet ministers would stay in post until a new cabinet is appointed. Ms Yingluck herself, or course, had been a caretaker prime minister since dissolving parliament last December ahead of a general election in February. And after her victory in that election was annulled by the same court on March 21st, she had merely continued her caretaking.

Indeed, these two latest court verdicts against her will only confirm in her “red shirt” supporters’ minds that the whole judicial system is irredeemably biased against them, and that the judges are not objective but just fellow travellers of the ultra-royalist, “yellow shirt” Bangkok-based establishment that has always tried to undermine democratically-elected red-shirt governments, mainly representing the rural poor of the north and north-east. The Pheu Thai party has already labelled the court verdict of May 7th a judicial “coup”, less violent but just as effective as the military coup that did for Mr Thaksin in 2006. And after Mr Thaksin was ousted, twice, in 2007 and 2008, the courts brought down governments formed of Mr Thaksin’s political party. The courts also banned over 100 party leaders from politics for five years.

The dangerous lesson that many red shirts will take away from all this is that the courts are illegitimate, and that democracy and winning elections gets them nowhere. The more militant had promised that they would take to the streets in mass rallies to protest if Ms Yingluck was ousted by the court, and that may well happen now, leading to violent confrontation with their equally militant yellow-shirt opponents. Thus the cycle of political violence that has plagued Thailand for almost ten years looks set to continue, and may intensify.

For their part, the remaining Pheu Thai cabinet ministers will try to hang tough without Ms Yingluck, pinning their hopes on yet another election, as early as possible. Sean Boonpracong, a government adviser, says that the verdict was “pretty much as expected—Yingluck has to go, but not the Pheu Thai government. It stays in power and the election process is on.” Mr Thaksin’s parties, Pheu Thai or its predecessors, with their mass support in the rural heartlands, always win a majority so it is in their interest to get on with the polls as soon as possible. A date of July 20th had already been chosen by the election commission and Pheu Thai before Ms Yingluck was ousted.

Not so fast, say the opposition. The anti-government street mobs, the self-styled People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) led by a former MP, Suthep Thaugsuban, as well as the biggest opposition party, the Democrats, both want to see some vaguely formulated “reform” before any more elections are held, and they won’t change tack now. Mr Suthep has always demanded that Ms Yingluck should resign, but only to be replaced by a prime minister that is appointed by his own idea of the great and the good, rather than just another Pheu Thai placeman.

Likewise Mr Suthep wants to eradicate all influence of the very rich Shinawatra clan from the body-politic, so the mere stepping-down of Ms Yingluck won’t appease him and his supporters. They certainly won’t accept the legitimacy of the new caretaker prime minster, so in this sense the nature of Ms Yingluck’s departure means that, in their eyes at least, little has changed. They will stay on the streets, risking more dust-ups with angry, freshly embittered red-shirt foot-soldiers. The Democrat Party boycotted the election in February, thus undermining its credibility, and one of its leaders, former finance minister Korn Chatikavanij, says that "To blindly move to an election date [now], only for it to meet the same kind of obstacles, would be disastrous". They too will demand changes before any election, making a poll as early as July 20th very unlikely.

It is evident that both sides of the political divide now have almost no faith left in the mediating institutions and processes of the state. On the one hand the red shirts and Pheu Thai supporters have run out of trust in the courts and the monarchical establishment (the king and his powerful privy council), which they see as engaged in one big conspiracy against them. Mr Suthep and the Democrats, on the other hand, have little faith left in voting and democracy, as it always produces a result against them. The only thing left, it seems to some, is to fight. And the only immediate way out of that is for the two sides to find some agreement on the conditions for the next elections to take place, in which all parties will compete happily and fairly.

That’s a tall order in Thailand’s deeply polarised political environment, but absolutely necessary. There are reports that behind-the-scenes negotiations to reach some kind of accommodation have already begun. It must be the fervent wish of every Thai that those talks succeed. The alternatives are too awful to contemplate.