BANGKOK
An MP from Thailand's overthrown government says he expects the anti-corruption commission to fail in its effort to impeach 250 former lawmakers as a junta-appointed assembly failed to impeach 38 former senators Thursday on the same charge.
Puea Thai party's Wicharn Minchainan told The Nation on Friday that the ex-lawmakers stand a good chance of escaping punishment for attempting to amend the constitution in 2013 because the senators were not impeached during a vote by the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA).
The impeachment process against the ex-lawmakers -- including 160 from the Puea Thai party -- was initiated by the commission only hours after the vote.
The lawmakers are accused of having breached the 2007 constitution by trying to amend it so that the partly elected senate becomes a fully elected assembly.
They are accused of having modified the content of the draft amendment during the parliamentary process.
The constitutional court already ruled in 2013 that the attempted amendment was unlawful. A date is yet to be fixed for the vote.
If impeached, they will be banned from politics for five years, which would undermine the chances of Puea Thai -- a party of political allies of ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra, a highly divisive figure who has lived in exile since a 2008 abuse of power conviction -- winning elections scheduled for next year.
The Shinawatra clan -- which has won every election since 2001 -- has been struck by a series of judicial decisions over the last few years.
On May 7, 2013 -- two weeks before the coup against her government -- former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, was unseated for abuse of power in relation to the transfer of a high-ranking civil servant.
Last January, Yingluck -- Thaksin's sister -- was also impeached and banned from politics for five years by the NLA in relation to a rice subsidies scheme.
A criminal case has also been filed against her by the anti-corruption commission with regard to the same scheme.
If convicted, she could be jailed for up to ten years.
Some analysts have said they view the successive decisions as a campaign by the conservative establishment -- made up of the military, bureaucrats, judges, ultra-royalist socialites and sections of the middle class -- to eradicate Thaksin’s allies from politics.
