Thai opposition loses bid to annul election

Thailand's Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected petitions by both the ruling and main opposition parties accusing each other of attempting to overthrow the country's system of government during recent elections.

The court said in a statement that it had declined to consider the petition by a Democrat Party lawyer to nullify the Feb. 2 vote because there was no validity to the claims by either Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's ruling Pheu Thai Party or the opposition Democrat Party.

If the case against the government had been accepted, the government could have been forced out of office.

Yingluck called the election in an attempt to assuage opposition demonstrators who have staged more than three months of mass street protests seeking her resignation.

The decision not to accept the cases only slightly shrinks the battlefield on which the two sides are fighting for power.

Anti-government protesters barged into the headquarters of the Forestry Department on Wednesday in what they said was an effort to keep employees from working. Disrupting state offices, by siege or occupation, is a hallmark of the People's Democratic Reform Committee protest group, which has been active for three months.

The demonstrators are demanding that Yingluck resign to make way for an unelected interim government to institute anti-corruption reforms.

They charge that Yingluck is just a tool for her billionaire brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 military coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power. Thaksin lives in self-imposed exile to escape a two-year jail sentence imposed in 2008 for a conflict-of-interest conviction.

Since the coup, Thaksin's supporters and opponents have battled for power, sometimes violently in the streets. But his opponents have also used the courts to their advantage, relying on the legal system to depose two pro-Thaksin prime ministers in 2008.

The Democrats boycotted the vote, saying it would not end the political crisis that stretches back to the 2006 coup.

The demonstrators want an unelected "People's Council" in place to enact reforms tackling corruption and alleged vote buying before new polls are held.

Demonstrators prevented 10,000 polling stations from opening in this month's vote, affecting several million people, mainly in opposition strongholds in Bangkok and the south.

The opposition's legal challenge was based on the failure to hold the entire election on the same day.

Pro-Thaksin parties have won every election for more than a decade, most recently in 2011 under Yingluck, helped by strong support in the northern half of the kingdom.

The Election Commission has said the results of this month's elections will not be announced until polls have been held in all constituencies.

Yingluck will remain in a caretaker role with limited power over policy until there is a quorum of 95 percent of the 500 seats in the lower house of parliament to enable the appointment of a new government.

The Election Commission on Tuesday set a date of April 27 for election reruns in constituencies where voting was disrupted by protesters.

But there is still no decision on what to do about 28 constituencies that have no candidates because demonstrators blocked the registration process.

Wire services