Thailand’s Constitutional Court said it will rule in an abuse of power case against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Wednesday, with a guilty verdict likely to force her from office and possibly bring her supporters on to the streets.
That could lead to confrontation with anti-government groups who have been protesting in the capital, Bangkok, for six months in a bid to topple Yingluck and who disrupted a general election in February that she had been expected to win.
The crisis broadly pits Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment against the mainly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by the military in 2006 and now lives in exile to avoid a jail term handed down in 2008 for abuse of power.
