The Constitution Tribunal on Wednesday ordered Thai Rak Thai to be dissolved and banned 111 of its executives, including Thaksin, from political activities for five years.
Exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has urged his supporters to accept the Constitution Tribunal's ruling that disbanded his Thai Rak Thai party (TRT) and revoked his and other party executives' voting rights.
"As party leader, I humbly accept the ruling and I want to urge the Council for National Security and government to hold general elections as soon as possible," Thaksin said in a letter read out by his spokesman, Noppadol Pattama, yesterday.
In his letter from London, where he has lived since the coup, Thaksin said he wanted to apologise to Thai Rak Thai's members, executives and supporters for the party coming to this end.
He said he believed the verdict was historic and would be studied and scrutinised for many generations to come.
"Although I announced that I would wash my hands of politics, I would like to urge members to work and implement political activities for the sake of the country and the people," he wrote.
Noppadol said he personally wished to say sorry to all Thai Rak Thai members and congratulate all Democrat Party members on their party escaping dissolution.
"We speculated at the beginning that our party would face this. To disband the TRT was the strong wish of some groups of people," he said.
Noppadol also said the trial would be remembered as historic.
The handling of the trial will be scrutinised for long time, he said.
He added that people would wonder if the judges used the same standards for both parties, and whether the entire party should have to take responsibility for the wrongdoing of certain executives.
Noppadol compared the disbanding of the Thai Rak Thai to capital punishment, and wondered if the wrongdoing justified the punishment, and particularly whether 14 million members of the party should be held responsible for the wrongdoing of individuals.
source:nationmultimedia
