Thailand Political Unrest Curtails Auto Expo Sales

New-vehicle sales plunge at the Thailand International Motor Expo as weeks of sometimes-violent street demonstrations prompt the government to close Parliament and call a general election for early next year.

Show organizers Inter Media Consultants say attendance was down during the first week of the event and orders totaled just 19,262 units, down 50% from 38,637 taken a year earlier.

Inter Media Chairman Kwanchai Paphatphong tells The Nation newspaper orders also were down because last year’s result was boosted by the government's first-car-buyer tax-rebate scheme.

Before the government’s step-down, Kwanchai predicted that when the show ends Tuesday orders will total 43,000 units, well below the forecasted 50,000. “We expect the number of visitors coming to our fair…to reach about 1.35 million, or 15% lower than last year as a result of the political difficulty,” he says.

The government is proposing new national elections for Feb. 2 after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said she was dissolving the House of Representatives following weeks of mass anti-government rallies.

Earlier, the opposition Democrat Party announced the resignations of all 153 of its members of Parliament.

The Election Commission is awaiting the royal approval of the House dissolution before setting the election date.

Yingluck says she will remain as head of the caretaker government until the election.

“The situation seems likely to escalate to violence, so the government has decided to return power to the people and let them decide through elections,” she says in a nationwide broadcast.

But the protesters are demanding she step aside in favor of an unelected “people's council” that would decide on major reforms and the form of the new government ahead of elections.

Political analysts are quoted in national media as saying the Yingluck’s Pheu Thai Party will win any election easily.

The estimated 200,000 demonstrators on the streets are led by former Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who the Bangkok Post quotes as saying the rallies would not end until the “Thaksin influence” is removed from the country, not if the House dissolved or the premier resigned.

Yingluck is the sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was removed from office by a coup in 2006 and now is in self-exile. Opponents claim he still influences the government through his sister.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand tells its members they will receive notices on Thailand security and travel warnings by email, Facebook and Twitter postings when they become available.