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Bangkok: Thailand may lift an emergency decree amid government plans to hold a referendum on how to end the country's political standoff, in which demonstrators have occupied the prime minister's office for 10 days demanding that he quit.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said on Friday the decree was ineffective and he was speaking with "related" agencies about ending the order, which covers the capital. "There is no need for the state of emergency because no one has complied with it," Samak told reporters. "I will consider revoking it."
Samak declared the state of emergency on September 2 after deadly clashes between anti-government and rival protest groups in Bangkok.
Thailand's Cabinet agreed to hold a national vote on how to end the impasse after Samak repeatedly said he will not yield to the People's Alliance for Democracy's demands for him to quit. No date has been set for the vote, which may take months to organise.
"We wouldn't support the referendum," Sirichoke Sopha, a Democrat lawmaker and spokesman for the shadow cabinet, said on Friday. "It would take too much time."
Samak, whose People Power Party won last year's election with the support of poor, rural voters, says the same group of protesters seeking his ouster helped trigger a 2006 coup against former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, his party's patron.
More than 10,000 protesters from the People's Alliance of mostly middle-class residents of Bangkok have joined the occupation at Government House and surrounding streets. Somsak Kosaisuk, a protest leader, said on September 3 that a referendum would be "a waste of taxpayer money."
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