Democrats staging walk-out at crucial debate
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The Democrats on Thursday staged a walk-out during a crucial debate on two financial decrees to protest an unrelated decision to drop their motion to query the prime minister about her private meeting at Four Seasons Hotel.
As the House-Senate meeting to debate two financial decrees coincided with the House’s question-and-answer session, the Democrats had sought and received the parliamentary approval for posing queries concurrent with the decrees debate.
The Democrats subsequently tabled a motion to pick up on the last week’s quesry session which ended before PM Yingluck Shinawatra could explain how and why she had the private meeting with real estate develpers.
Parliament President Somsak Kiarsuranont said in his capacity as House Speaker, he had already ruled to drop the query last week since it expired on the House floor regardless of whether or not Yingluck rebutted it.
This prompted protests from the Democrats. Opposition chief whip Jurin Laksanavisit said the query was still an active agenda because Democrat MP Rangsima Rodrasamee had just had an opportunity to pose a partial question and not the entire query on the House floor.
Somsak said he stood by his decision to drop the query. In an apparent move to work out a compromise, Pheu Thai MP Cholnan Srikaew said the Democrats should file a new motion to query Yingluck. But Jurin said this was impossible because the Democrats did not agree or concede to Somsak’s decision to cancel the query.
The Democrats then walked out in protest. This tantamounted to an end to the House intervention to resolve the mystery behind the Four Seasons meeting. The incident is being probed by the Office of Ombudsman, the last venue to shed light.
