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BANGKOK - THAILAND'S Supreme Court will rule on Friday if the People Power Party backing ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and favourite to head a coalition government should be disbanded for violating election laws.
The three-member panel hearing a case brought by a member of the Democrat Party, which trailed the PPP after a Dec 23 general election produced no clear winner, ordered him and the PPP to submit written statements on Thursday.
The court would then announce its verdict on Friday afternoon, judge Chalee Thapwimon said. Analysts fear the case could deepen a political crisis that began two years ago, but which the election was meant to end.
'The court sees this as an issue of interpretation of provisions in the laws and there is no need for witness testimonies,' Mr Chalee said.
The Democrat candidate accused the PPP of being a front for Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, which was dissolved after a September 2006 coup for electoral fraud.
Thaksin and 110 other leading members were barred from politics for five years but were being re-elected by proxy, a violation of electoral laws, he argued.
The PPP is negotiating with smaller parties to form a coalition after emerging from the election as the biggest party, a huge slap in the face for the generals and royalist establishment which tried to erase Thaksin from politics. -- REUTERS
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