Thai opposition seeks to impeach foreign minister
By Nopporn Wong-Anan
BANGKOK, July 10 (Reuters) - Thailand's opposition Democrat Party moved to impeach Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama on Thursday, the latest twist in a political row over a disputed ancient temple on the Thai-Cambodian border.
Their petition said a joint communique backing Phnom Penh's bid to list the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site violated the constitution because it did not have parliamentary approval.
"Minister Noppadon is a well-trained lawyer on the constitution and international laws. He deliberately co-signed that communique to violate the constitution," the petition filed with the speaker of the Senate said.
UNESCO, the U.N. agency for culture and education, voted on Monday to register the temple, which the International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 belonged to Cambodia and has been at the centre of a bitter dispute between the two neighbours.
Groups trying to oust Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who leads the six-party coalition elected in December, have whipped up nationalist fervour to claim the government sold out the country's heritage.
Noppadon, who returned to Bangkok on Thursday after attending the UNESCO meeting in Canada, avoided 150 protesters at the airport waving placards and shouting "Noppadon: The Traitor."
The Oxford law graduate, a former lawyer for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a 2006 coup, scheduled a press conference for later on Thursday amid newspaper reports that he may resign.
Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsap was forced out of the pro-Thaksin government on Wednesday after a court upheld findings by anti-graft investigators that he had violated the 2007 army-designed constitution by not disclosing his wife's assets.
Analysts say the struggle between Thaksin's supporters and his opponents in the military and royalist establishment is taking centre stage in the courts with several more cases coming to a head in July.
The Samak government is also facing a prolonged street campaign that has helped push Thai shares .SETI down more than 16 percent since the protests began on May 25.
The Democrat petition comes two days after the Constitutional Court ruled that the communique approved by the Thai cabinet in June was an agreement between two governments and required the approval of Thailand's parliament.
Under Thailand's constitution, lawmakers can ask the speaker of the Senate to investigate unconstitutional actions by a minister, who can be ousted in a vote by the upper chamber.
Samak has shrugged off doubts about the stability of his government, which is also threatened by the possible disbanding of its main partner, the People Power Party (PPP), after a top party official was convicted of vote buying this week. (Editing by Darren Schuettler and Alex Richardson)
