Thai PM offers to hold referendum

LankaTruth 05th Sep: 2008. 01.56 PM

Thailand's prime minister has offered to hold a referendum to end the standoff with opponents demanding that he resign. But hundreds of protesters continued to occupy the grounds of Government House in Bangkok on Friday.

The Thai government approved plans for a national referendum on Thursday. An exact date has not been decided, but a referendum can be held 30 days after being approved by the Senate.

"The referendum is to ask public opinion and the prime minister has agreed to it as a possible solution to solve the problem," Somsak Kiatsuranont, the culture minister, said after a special cabinet meeting at the army headquarters in Bangkok.

Somsak said on Thursday that the process for drafting the referendum would start immediately. But critics said the referendum was an attempt by Samak to cling on to power and many analysts said it would not tackle the core of the problem: the divide between the poor, rural masses and the urban middle class.

On live radio on Thursday, Samak said that he would not resign nor dissolve parliament. "I am not resigning, I will not dissolve parliament. I have to protect the democracy of this country," he said.

The referendum, if it proceeds, will be only the second ever in the kingdom. The first was in 2007, passing a new military-backed constitution formed after a coup a few months earlier.