Thai army chief calls political foe to seek end to crisis

Reuters, Bangkok :Thailand’s army chief summoned leaders of rival political groups and parties, Election Commission members and senators to a meeting on Wednesday, a day after he declared martial law, to discuss a way out of the country’s political turmoil.Although the military denied Tuesday’s surprise intervention amounted to a coup, General Prayuth Chan-ocha appears to be setting the agenda by forcing groups and organizations with a central role in the crisis to meet. “General Prayuth has called a meeting at the Army Club with all sides to talk about ways out of the country’s crisis,” deputy army spokesman Winthai Suvaree told Reuters, adding it would start at 1:30 p.m. (2.30 a.m. EDT). The Election Commission was meeting separately during the morning to consider the caretaker government’s proposal of an August 3 election.Anti-government protesters disrupted an election in February that was later annulled. They have said they will do the same for any re-run held before electoral changes designed to reduce the influence of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.Twenty-eight people have been killed and 700 injured since this latest chapter in a near-decade-long power struggle between Thaksin and the royalist establishment flared up late last year.The turmoil has brought the country to the brink of recession and raised fears of civil war. General Prayuth said he had imposed martial law to restore order, and the caretaker government says it is still running the country.”Certainly, it’s not an outright military coup by definition because the caretaker government is still in office, but on the ground it looks like the military is in charge,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Chulalongkorn University.