Thailand's Caretaker PM to abide by court's ruling

BANGKOK, March 13 (TNA) - Caretaker Prime Minister and Defence Minister Yingluck Shinawatra says she is ready to abide by the Constitution Court's ruling on rejecting her administration's 2-trillion-baht borrowing bill aimed to fund new mega-infrastructure development projects, mostly in the transport sector, but claiming opponents should not use laws to launch political attacks against her or her Cabinet to divide the Thai society. Yingluck expressed her stance on Thursday while inspecting drought in Khon Kaen Province in the Thai Northeast, in response to the Democrat Party and the anti-government People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC)'s plan to seek 20,000 signatures to impeach her and her Cabinet, one day after Bangkok's Constitution Court ruled unanimously that the borrowing bill violates the Constitution. Yingluck explained that her government intended to push for national development and she would study the Constitution Court's ruling in details before deciding what her government would do to comply with it. Yingluck noted that she has assigned Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana and Caretaker Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office and Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Varathep Rattanakorn to study legal aspects concerning the matter. Yingluck called for opponents not to use laws or any organization to launch political attacks and divide the society, but to, instead, use them to create peace and harmony in the nation through jointly seeking a balance where all Thais co-exist, face each other in non-hostility reactions and work together for national progress and development as compatriots, while developing acceptable mechanisms for social accoutability and integrity parallelly. The caretaker prime minister insisted that her government did not want to see repeated political violence or any coup as it happened over the past 7-8 years. The caretaker prime minister also emotionally urged all parties to adhere to Thainess-morality with mercy and forgiveness to hand-in-hand drive ahead the nation, pointing out if persecution against her Shinawatra Family continued, it could also happen to other families in the future. Besides, the caretaker prime minister asked opponents not to obstruct processes to pay for pledged rice of farmers, but to trust an ongoing investigation into the government's rice-pledging scheme and facilitate the payment to help rice growers. Meanwhile, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) resolved at its Thursday afternoon's meeting to allow the caretaker prime minister to postpone her defense for 15 days, from March 14, 2014, in its investigation into her negligence of duties concerning the troubled rice-pledging scheme, while pro-government demonstrators were rallying in front of the NACC office to demand fair treatment for the embattled caretaker prime minister. (TNA)