Opposition party suing government for Covid-19 failure
The Move Forward Party has announced that it is suing the government for its alleged mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic now ravaging Thailand. They plan on launching a class-action lawsuit in the coming week to demand compensation for the government’s failure to sufficiently address Covid-19 as the third wave causes record infections and deaths every day.
The MFP is a progressive party in opposition of PM Prayut Chan-o-cha and the ruling Palang Pracharath Party and their deputy leader has been gathering together a coalition of opponents who wish to sue the government over Covid-19. They had collected about 100 people to join in the class-action lawsuit and plan to file in Thailand’s Civil Court on Tuesday and have pledged to cover all legal expenses.
They say the government has bumbled many facets of the Covid-19 responses leading to needless death, suffering, and financial pain to the people of Thailand. They point to the failure to procure and distribute ample vaccine supplies to effectively inoculate the population and poor allocation of the medical and public health resources Thailand does have.
MFP is suing for compensation for people economically impacted like companies that were shut down without aid or assistance, claiming that the Covid-19 pandemic’s negative effects were made far worse by government mismanagement.
Thailand was once viewed as a shining example for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic with immediate lockdowns and strong compliance with safety and health procedures like social distancing, mask-wearing, and contract tracing keeping the infections in Thailand nearly non-existent throughout the first and second waves in 2020.
But in April the far more contagious Delta variant began spreading across the nation and many believe that the government had become complacent basking in their earlier success. They feel the overconfident government failed both to plan ahead by procuring vaccines early and to act quickly to curb the Covid-19 outbreaks with the same decisive actions that helped mitigate infections last year.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
