BANGKOK – Thailand’s new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, pledged yesterday to heal the country’s deep political divisions and revive an economy teetering on the brink of recession.
Speaking in Thai and English on national television, the Oxford-educated economist also reached out to foreign tourists and investors who had been scared off by the latest unrest in Thailand’s three-year political crisis.
“It is my every intention to restore the image of Thailand that friends all over the world used to know,” Mr Abhisit (44) said after he was endorsed by the king as Thailand’s 27th prime minister.
He said the Thai people regretted the recent weeklong blockade of Bangkok’s main airports, which left 300,000 travellers stranded and badly damaged a key sector of an economy already reeling from slowing exports due to the global downturn.
Some officials and analysts have said the travel chaos put one million jobs at risk. “We will make sure these are things of the past. They will never happen again,” the prime minister said.
Mr Abhisit, who won a narrow parliamentary vote on Monday after a court forced out his predecessor, said earlier his government would announce an economic stimulus package next month. He gave no details of the plan.
Mr Abhisit’s election on Monday was greeted by protests outside parliament, where supporters of the previous government smashed car windows and blocked gates to the compound.
Analysts doubt the Democrat-led coalition will make much headway in solving the fundamental rifts in Thai society between the Bangkok elite and the countryside, where voters remain loyal to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup and lives in exile. – (Reuters)