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BANGKOK: Thailand’s oldest political party voted Saturday to reinstate as its leader a conservative ex-premier who led the country during a bloody military crackdown on “Red Shirts” protesters.
Abhisit Vejjajiva, who led Thailand from 2008 to 2011 during the global financial crisis, gained early popularity for his eloquent debating style.
But his leadership of the Democrat Party was marred by the military crackdown on “Red Shirts” protesters in 2010 that killed more than 90 people and left over 2,000 wounded.
Abhisit was branded by rivals as “the PM with blood on his hands” and his political career faltered in the following years amid internal party divisions, leading him to resign as its leader and then withdraw his membership in 2023.
On Saturday, party members voted with 96 percent support to reinstate him as leader in a vote broadcast on local media.
“I thank everyone for trusting my ability once again,” the 61-year-old – wearing the party’s blue color – told members after the vote.
“My heart never left here.”
Thailand is currently governed by a minority government, with Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul pledging to dissolve parliament and hold a new election within four months.
Analysts say Abhisit’s comeback could position the Democrat Party as a key player in the next polls where he will likely be its leading candidate.
“People already have long-standing connections with him and the Democrat Party,” Ekkarin Tuansiri, a political scientist at Prince of Songkla University, told public broadcaster ThaiPBS, adding “but it won’t be easy.”
Founded in 1946, the Democrat Party was once a political powerhouse and a long-time rival to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s Red Shirts movement, but it has struggled in recent years with declining support and internal discord.
Born in England and educated at Oxford, Abhisit – a dual Thai-British national – has often been accused by rivals of being out of touch with Thais and evading the kingdom’s compulsory military service for men.

MANILA: Thousands of residents of a Philippine island left their homes along the Pacific coast Saturday as weather experts warned of coastal flooding ahead of the approach of Tropical Storm Fengshen, rescue officials said.
The eye of the storm was forecast to brush past Catanduanes, an impoverished island of 270,000 people, later in the day with gusts of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) an hour.
Fengshen will bring heavy rainfall, along with a “minimal to moderate risk” of coastal flooding from 1-2 meter (3-2 foot) waves being pushed ashore by the disturbance, the government weather service said.
More than 9,000 residents of Catanduanes moved to safer ground, the provincial disaster office said, in a well-rehearsed routine on the island that is often the first major landmass hit by cyclones that form in the western Pacific Ocean.
The Catanduanes provincial government ordered local officials to “activate their respective evacuation plans” for residents of “high-risk areas” including the coast, low-lying communities and landslide-prone slopes, rescue official Gerry Rubio said.
The neighboring provinces of Sorsogon and Albay also called for preemptive evacuations, but official figures were not immediately available.
The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, routinely striking disaster-prone areas where millions of people live in poverty.
Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful as the planet warms due to human-driven climate change.
Fengshen comes as the country reeled from a series of major earthquakes that killed at least 87 people over the past three weeks.