BANGKOK, Thailand — Facing chaotic street protests demanding his resignation, Thailand’s embattled prime minister turned to lawmakers Sunday to find a way out of the crisis but ended up having to fend off his critics’ calls to step down or call new elections.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej went before a special joint session of Parliament to find a solution to the deepening crisis, even as thousands of right-wing protesters laid siege to his office compound for a sixth night and threatened to shut down more airports and roads in the country.
The debate ended early today after about 11 hours with scores of lawmakers either lambasting Samak or defending him. More than 1,000 government supporters staged a spirited but peaceful counter-rally in front of Parliament.
Samak received key backing Saturday from his ruling six- party coalition, which said it would not back calls for dissolving Parliament to call new elections. The group leading the protesters, the People’s Alliance for Democracy, has expressed little interest in the lawmakers’ debate.
The group began its occupation of the Government House compound Tuesday and has blocked streets in the capital. It has had allies in state unions disrupt rail and air services around the country through strikes and blockades.
The protest organizers accuse Samak’s government of corruption and being a proxy for ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a 2006 bloodless military coup sparked by the alliance’s protests. The alliance and its sympathizers — monarchists, the military and the urban elite — complain that Western- style democracy of one person, one vote gives too much weight to Thailand’s rural majority, whom they consider susceptible to vote-buying that breeds corruption.
They want to roll back Thailand’s democratic gains to make Parliament a body in which most lawmakers are appointed and only 30 percent elected.
