Thai opposition leader becomes prime minister

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BANGKOK, Dec 15 (AP): An opposition leader was chosen as Thailand's prime minister Monday in an effort to end months of political turmoil, but the move unleashed new protests by supporters of the previous government who hurled rocks at lawmakers.
Abhisit Vejjajiva - at 44, one of the world's youngest heads of government - gathered 235 votes against 198 by former national police chief Pracha Promnok, a loyalist of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The vote in the lower house of Parliament followed six months of instability caused by anti-government and anti-Thaksin demonstrations that culminated last month with a weeklong takeover of Bangkok's two airports.
The selection of a new prime minister was expected to calm the country's politics, at least temporarily. However, several hundred Thaksin supporters tried to block the gates of Parliament in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the outcome. Riot police later cleared a path for lawmakers to leave the compound.
The demonstrators hurled rocks at vehicles and abuse at lawmakers inside but most dispersed peacefully, saying that they would gather again later Monday in the capital's old historic section.
Following the vote, Abhisit - an Oxford-educated politician from an upper class family - thanked fellow lawmakers and the public but said he would not talk about politics until he was officially endorsed as prime minister by the constitutional monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. This is expected within several days.
Despite Monday's protest outside Parliament, analysts foresee relative stability in coming months following political chaos and the airport siege that ended after a court ruling on Dec. 2 dissolved the ruling People's Power Party and two coalition partners.
It also banned former Premier Somchai Wongsawat, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law, from politics for five years.
The remnants of the PPP regrouped as the Phuea Thai Party, which were also seeking a majority in Monday's session.
But Sukhum Nuansakul, a political scientist at Bangkok's Ramkhamhaeng University, said the hopes of many for a respite from political instability was likely to be short-lived.
The anti-Thaksin protest movement has sought to purge politics of the influence of the former leader - who was ousted by a 2006 coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power - and has threatened new but unspecified activities if Parliament elects a leader with links to him.
Abhisit and his party enjoy strong support from the middle class and many in the business sector. But he will also face economic woes resulting from both the global slowdown and a domestic climate of uncertainty. The seven-day airport shutdown battered the country's essential tourism industry and stranded more than 300,000 travelers. Some economists are predicting Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy will slip into recession next year.
Panithan Wattanayagorn, a political analyst from Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said that Abhisit may be in for "among Thailand's roughest premiership."