Thai vote fraud ruling due, govt parties may fold

By Chalathip Thirasoonthrakul

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's Constitutional Court said on Friday it would wrap up a vote fraud case next week that could see the disbanding of the People Power Party and two other members of the coalition government.

Leaders of the three parties expect a guilty verdict after closing statements in the case are made on December 2, dealing another blow to the six-party coalition already battling a six-month street campaign to unseat it.

The judges did not give a date for their final ruling, but the People Power, Matchimathipatai and Chart Thai parties expect it could come within days of the closing statements.

"The court has studied the investigation and felt there is enough evidence to rule, without hearing witness testimonies for more evidence," a member of the nine-judge panel said in court.

The PPP is prepared for the worst and lining up a new "shell" party to admit all its lawmakers, who could try to cobble together another coalition government if the PPP is forced to disband.

PPP lawmakers urged their supporters to rally in Bangkok on Sunday to protest against the impending ruling.

"While the government is trying very hard to resolve the blockade of two airports by anti-government protesters, the court is rushing to disband us," PPP legislator Jatuporn Prompan told Reuters.

Thailand's three-year-old political crisis has deepened dramatically since anti-government protesters blockaded Bangkok's two main airports this week, forcing flight cancellations and stranding thousands of tourists.

The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), an unelected coalition of businessmen, activists and academics, is seeking to unseat the PPP-led government it accuses of being a pawn of former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted in a 2006 coup and living in exile.

In September the Election Commission found the PPP guilty of buying votes during last December's election and referred the case to prosecutors.

The trial has gone unusually quickly by Thai standards. The court only agreed to hear the cases forwarded by the prosecutors last month.

If the court orders that the parties be dissolved, their leaders will be barred from politics and those that are cabinet ministers will have to step down.

Under the constitution drawn up by the army after the 2006 coup, an entire party can be disbanded and all of its executives barred from politics if just one member of the party's leadership is found guilty of vote fraud.

(Additional reporting and writing by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Darren Schuettler)