1m cards to tell PM to quit
Midnight University will launch a campaign on Saturday to get one million people to send postcards to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra asking him to step down, its rector said yesterday, as 50 lecturers at Mahidol University issued a joint statement call.
Prince of Songkhla University has already started a signature campaign calling for Thaksin to step down and Thammasat University’s student union is collecting signatures to launch impeachment proceedings. At noon today, Rangsit University’s student association will hold a forum calling on Thaksin to stop evading questions from the public. Speakers will include Supinya Klangnarong from the Campaign for Popular Media Reform, Wuthipong Priabjariywat of the Millennium Institute and representatives from other civic groups. Midnight University rector Somkiat Tangnamo said academics from his university and Chiang Mai University, where he also works, had decided to launch the postcard campaign. The postcards might not carry any legal weight, but they would have symbolic power, he said. The signatures will be a more honest reflection of public opinion than the 19 million votes Thaksin so frequently uses to defend his legitimacy because the postcards will express individual opinions unfettered by corruption, Somkiat said. Middle-class voters who have been silent on the dispute are the target audience for the campaign. “Initially, Midnight University didn’t gather signatures because we didn’t have enough information about Shin Corp share sales to pronounce the prime minister guilty,” Somkiat said. “However, we have since gathered a large amount of information [and] this has led to the postcard campaign.” The postcard campaign is meant to complement the other campaigns to oust Thaksin, Somkiat said. Boonruang Manasurakarn, president of Prince of Songkhla University’s lecturers’ council, said some lecturers have already signed a petition demanding that Thaksin resign. On Monday the council will meet with members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy to discuss its next move, Boonruang said. The university’s students will also sign a petition and it will be brought to the rally on February 26, he said. Besides amendments to the Constitution and the roles of independent organisations, both lecturers and students at the university want to address government policies and their effects on the economy and society as a whole, Boonruang said. The government has effectively “deserted” people in the South, he said. Midnight University is an open university set up by academics who teach for free.
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