BANGKOK: The National Legislative Assembly (NLA) today (January 23) impeached former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, voting by a large majority to remove her retroactively from office.
The 220-member NLA voted to impeach Ms Yingluck by 190 votes to 18, with eight abstentions and three invalid ballots.
Ms Yingluck is therefore barred from active politics for five years.
However, they spared former Senate speaker Nikom Wairatpanij and former House speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont.
Mr Nikom survived impeachment by 120-95 votes against him, with four abstentions, and Mr Somsak by 115-100 votes against him, also with four abstentions.
An impeachment motion requires the support of three-fifths of NLA members, or 132 votes.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) had petitioned the NLA to remove Ms Yingluck, younger sister of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The NACC accused her of dereliction of duty for failing to stop corruption and losses in her government’s rice-pledging scheme, implemented from 2011 to 2014. When she was premier she chaired the National Rice Policy Committee.
The Finance Ministry earlier concluded that her rice-pledging scheme had caused losses the the state of more than B500 billion and the NACC defined her rice scheme as an example of policy-based and complicated corruption which plagued various stages of the scheme’s implementation.
The anti-graft agency had moved to impeach Mr Nikom for cutting short parliamentary debate on constitutional amendments to change the make-up of the Senate in 2013.
Mr Somsak had been accused of tolerating the inappropriate change of the constitutional amendment bill in the same year, to allow senators to continue with their new term without a break. (contnued below)
NLA president Pornphet Wichitcholchai said after the vote that Mr Nikom and Mr Somsak were not impeached because the NACC had accused them of violating the 2007 constitution and there were doubts whether that remained a violation because the constitution had been revoked.
In the case of Ms Yingluck, Mr Pornphet said that the NACC had charged her with intentionally violating the State Administration Act by tolerating corruption in the rice scheme.
He said NLA that members were convinced by the evidence the NACC had presented, and insisted that all members had freedom in their vote, that there was no hidden agenda, and no influence had been brought to bear.