BANGKOK, Thailand - Anti-government demonstrators in Thailand declared victory Tuesday and said they will end their occupation of the country's two main airports after a court decision forced the country's prime minister from office.
While an estimated 300,000 travellers stranded by last week's airport takeovers breathed a bit easier, the question of who will hold power in a democratic Thailand remained unanswered.
The protesters -- who seek to eliminate the one-person, one-vote system -- left open the possibility of more unrest saying they will return to the streets if political change does not occur. At least six people have been killed and scores injured in clashes in recent months.
Dozens of Canadians have been stranded in the capital Bangkok for the past week, including a number who have run out of medications and others whose travel insurance has run out.
Some of them accepted a deal worked out by the Canadian Embassy to fly out of a Bangkok-area naval base to Hong Kong aboard a commercial airliner at their own expense.
Meanwhile, two Canadians died in a crash trying to leave the country.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said the men died Monday.
According to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, police said the men were in a van that overturned on the way to Phuket international airport. Three Canadians and a British tourist were also injured in the crash.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has said that "upwards of 1,000 Canadians" have been affected by the shutdown of Bangkok's airports.
It was unclear how much damage the weeklong airport blockade inflicted on the country's economy, which relies heavily on tourism.
But none of that seemed to matter Tuesday as members of the People's Alliance for Democracy, which led the protest, revelled at the fall of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.
"We will party all night long before leaving tomorrow," said Saisuri Pantupradij, 45, who was camped out at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi international airport. "It's sad to say goodbye, but our job here is done. So we must go home."
She and four other women, all wearing yellow feather boas, were dancing and singing karaoke to a Thai folk song in the main hall of the airport terminal.
Around them, thousands celebrated, waving Thailand's red white and blue flag, and cheering their country, their king and themselves.
Still, the protest alliance, which crippled the country's administration by occupying the offices of the prime minister three months ago and saw the courts sack two prime ministers it campaigned against, vowed to resume its militant actions if future developments displeased them.
The group is seeking to purge the country of the influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whom they accuse of massive corruption and seeking to undermine the country's revered constitutional monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He was ousted by a September 2006 military coup.
On Tuesday, the country's Constitutional Court found Somchai's People's Power Party, the Machima Thipatai party and the Chart Thai party guilty of committing fraud in the December 2007 elections that brought the coalition to power.
"Dishonest political parties undermine Thailand's democratic system," said Constitutional Court President Chat Chalavorn.
The ruling sent Somchai, Thaksin's brother-in-law, and 59 executives of the three parties into political exile and barred them from politics for five years. Of the 59, 24 are legislators who will have to abandon their parliamentary seats.
"It is not a problem. I was not working for myself. Now I will be a full-time citizen," Somchai told reporters following the ruling.
The current coalition will remain in power. But Deputy Prime Minister Chaowarat Chandeerakul will become the caretaker prime minister, said Suparak Nakboonnam, a government spokeswoman. She said Parliament will have to pick a new prime minister within 30 days.
Somchai had become increasingly isolated in recent weeks. Neither the army, a key player in Thai politics, nor King Bhumibol offered firm backing. Palace circles have not hidden their enmity toward Thaksin and his allies, rattling a decades old consensus of absolute respect for the monarchy.
But legislators of the three dissolved parties who escaped the ban can join other parties, try to cobble together a new coalition and then choose a new prime minister. If their fragile unity fails, new elections are the likeliest outcome, with the chance that Thaksin's allies would again triumph, setting off a whole new cycle of protests.
The alliance, often referred to by its acronym PAD, claims Thailand's rural majority -- who gave landslide election victories to the Thaksin camp -- is too poorly educated to responsibly choose their representatives and says they are susceptible to vote buying.
It wants the country to abandon the system of one-man, one-vote, and instead have a mixed system in which most representatives are chosen by profession and social group. They have not explained exactly how such a system would work or what would make it less susceptible to manipulation.
"We've finished our job for now," top protest leader Sondhi Limthongkul told reporters. "But if Thaksin's puppets return, we will come back."
The alliance's rivals, government supporters who adore Thaksin for the generous social welfare policies his government implemented for the poor and rural majority when he was in power in 2001-2006, were angry, though uncertain what to do.
"People aren't going to just sit and watch another elected government toppled. The court's decision was wrong and we should question that," said Pracha Niemjaroen, an electronics technician discussing politics with his friends at an open-air restaurant in the northern city of Chiang Mai.
Some of Somchai's political allies were less diffident. Chaturon Chaisaeng, a former Thaksin cabinet member, noted that the protest alliance had previously called for a non-elected government, and suggested that if they pressed for that, there could be civil war.
"Why do we still condone the PAD, who are waging terrorist attacks against government buildings and the democratic system?" he said. "Do all Thai people have to bow to the PAD's orders and demands?"
Vudhibhandhu Vichairatana, the chairman of the Airports of Thailand, said Suvarnabhumi international airport will resume operations Friday. He called the plan a birthday gift for King Bhumibol, who turns 81 on Dec. 5. The airport reopened to cargo flights Tuesday.
With files from The Canadian Press
