Abhisit gambles on leadership

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has pledged to step down as the Democrat leader if his party wins significantly less than the 165 seats it captured in the last election in 2007.

In an interview with Reuters yesterday, Mr Abhisit said it was still possible that his Democrat Party could win as many as 200 of the available 500 seats but that if it won less than what it achieved in the last election in 2007, he would step down as party leader.

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Mr Abhisit said Thailand's election was a tight race but his party could still win despite opinion polls showing it falling behind, and he predicted a new wave of political instability if the opposition formed the next government.
He acknowledged his party was slipping behind in the race against the opposition Pheu Thai Party led by Yingluck Shinawatra, the 43-year-old sister of self-exiled former prime minister Thaksin.
"It is still a very tight race. We have fallen behind slightly," he said.
The sudden rise to prominence of Thaksin's telegenic sister as leader of Pheu Thai has electrified the opposition's campaign, not only in the rural Northeast - long the backbone of support for Thaksin - but also in Bangkok.
"Yingluck is new on the scene. You always get a bit of a bounce ... and the media always responds to a new face," Mr Abhisit said.
"She needs to learn about government because she has no experience and that can be quite tough. There is always that question of whether she can be her own person," he said.
Meanwhile, the Democrat Party has come up with a new election campaign called "Ten Reasons to Vote for the Democrats".
This campaign was basically a combination of different policies of the party and its arch-rival, Pheu Thai.
Democrat deputy spokesman Boonyod Sukthinthai yesterday said if the Democrats returned as the government again, the party's income insurance scheme for the farmers would continue, but if Pheu Thai was in charge, the scheme would be replaced with the farm crop mortgage programme, he said.
Those who want the minimum wage to increase by 25% in two years rather than wait for a promise to raise the daily minimum wage to 300 baht should also vote for the Democrats, said Mr Boonyod.
And if the Democrat Party became the government again, it would carry on the 15-year free education programme, but if Pheu Thai was the government, students have only been promised free notebook or tablet computers, he said.
More importantly, Mr Boonyod said, if his party won with a sufficient number of votes to form a government, it would proceed with reconciliation efforts but would not attempt to whitewash any particular person under the guise of reconciliation.