Thai baht slumps as protesters seek to block election

Tuesday, 24 December 2013 00:11 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: The Thai baht plumbed its lowest in almost four years on Monday as a political crisis grew more intractable, with anti-government protesters trying to block candidates registering for a February election that is looking increasingly uncertain. Police estimated more than 200,000 protesters rallied across the capital on Sunday to demand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra resign. She has called a snap election for February 2 to defuse tension but the opposition Democrat Party will boycott the poll and demonstrators are determined to scuttle it.

The stalemate is all too familiar after eight years of deadlock broadly between supporters and opponents of Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a tycoon whose populist political machine has won every election since 2001 with millions of votes from the rural poor in the north and northeast. Opposed to Thaksin is a Bangkok-based establishment of top generals and old-money families threatened by his rapid rise and angered by his ability to influence politics from self-imposed exile in Dubai. They have backed protests against Thaksin’s governments since 2005 and the party they favour, the Democrats, has not won an election in 21 years. Yingluck refuses to quit and said the Democrats’ election boycott would complicate the political reforms all sides want. “Every parliament member needs to take part in the election to protect this democratic system,” she said on Sunday. “If they don’t participate ... how can anything concrete be made under this legislature?” The seemingly irresolvable conflict has hit the currency in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy after the weekend rallies that left the outcome no clearer. The baht touched a low of 32.71 to the dollar, its weakest level since March 2010, according to Thomson Reuters data. The protesters are led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former Democrat heavyweight whose campaign is less about policy than ridding politics of the billionaire Shinawatra family. Watched by police and soldiers, several thousand protesters sat in front of the gates of a sports stadium to try to block the registration process, which lasts until the end of the week.