Bangkok (PTI): Thailand on Tuesday plunged into a fresh political turmoil after a court delivered a body blow to embattled Premier Somchai Wongsawat and outlawed the three ruling parties for electoral fraud, promting protesters to lift the week-long blockade of the international airport here.
It was "not a problem. I was not working for myself. Now I will be a full-time citizen," Somcahi told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai after the country's Constitutional Court's verdict that barred him from politics for five years.
Somchai abandoned a cabinet meeting after the court in the capital, Bangkok, ordered the dissolution of country's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud. A government spokesman said that Premier and his entire cabinet would step down.
The court said "dishonest political parties undermine Thailand's democratic system."
Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport, under seige from anti-government activists for a week, has reopened to cargo flights.
"As of this moment the PAD (People's Alliance for Democracy) has allowed flights to take off and land immediately, both passenger and cargo flights," senior alliance member Somkiat Pongpaiboon told reporters here.
The main airport and the domestic airport Don Muang have been taken over by the protesters since a week now and no flights have landed or taken off with more than 300,000 passengers waiting to leave Thailand.
Meanwhile the head of Thai airports said that Suvarnabhumi international airport will remain closed for passenger flights until December 15 due to disruptions caused as a result of protests. As of this morning, cargo flights were allowed to land at the international airport.