Chaos threat as Thai party officials guilty of fraud

TWO senior officials with Thailand’s Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party were found guilty of election fraud yesterday in a ruling that could doom the political powerhouse founded by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thailand’s nine-member Constitutional Tribunal still has to rule on whether to dissolve the party and ban its executives from politics for five years.

The tribunal had earlier cleared TRT’s rival, the Democrat Party, of charges stemming from April 2006 polls which were annulled as fraud claims piled up.