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Published on December 25, 2007

The allegation has been widespread since the election results came out on Sunday night.

"The PPP has won the most votes and the junta shouldn't go against the voice of the people. Instead, it should accept the legitimacy of the PPP's right to form a government," said Chotisak Onsueng, one of the four coordinators of the network.

"The fact that the PPP won a lot of votes sends a clear message that the coup was not accepted by the people and is illegitimate," he said. He added that some of his friends voted for PPP to punish the military junta even though they are not fans of either Thaksin Shinawatra or PPP leader Samak Sundaravej, and one of them even referred to the act as a "slap on the face of the military junta".

Chotisak, who cast a "no vote" on Sunday, said the people were no longer content to merely vote and leave political affairs in the hands of politicians, adding that events would be closely watched and any interference by the military could lead to major protest.

"Some of these voters did vote [for the PPP] to confirm the legitimacy of the Thaksin [administration] which was ousted through the coup," he said.

He added he didn't believe the military would return to the barracks because Thailand would soon have the Internal Security Act (ISA) that gives it a lot of power to repress citizens' rights and liberty in the name of national security.

"The ISA is their new weapon. They will merely retreat on the surface," he said.

Chotisak, who organised anti-coup activities after the putsch last year, said Campaign for Popular Democracy (CPD) leader and former People's Alliance for Democracy speaker Suriyasai Katasila should be ashamed for having said another coup was possible if Samak formed a government and granted amnesty to the 111 banned Thai Rak Thai executives and whitewashed Thaksin's past.

"This means Suriyasai must be involved to a greater or lesser extent in enabling a coup to take place. His organisation should consider dropping the word 'democracy' from its name."

Chotisak added that apart from the big vote split between the two major parties, the fact that 2.1 million voters had cast a "no vote" on Sunday also meant that people had lost faith in the current choice of parties.

"I wanted to hear the parties talk about land tax or progressive tax on the rich. Just talking about it would have been enough. Yet, I have not heard from any of these [major] parties," he said, explaining why he chose to cast a "no vote" on Sunday.

"Both PPP and the Democrats should review themselves.".

Pravit Rojanaphruk

 The Nation