The Constitution Tri-bunal yesterday found the Thai Rak Thai Party guilty while acquitting the Democrat Party of electoral fraud, in a marathon, |11-hour reading of the verdicts.

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The Thai Rak Thai Party was found guilty of electoral fraud and ordered disbanded while its 111 executives, including ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, have been banned from the electoral process for five years.

Caretaker Thai Rak Thai leader Chaturon Chaisang last night vowed to fight on after the Constitution Tribunal's verdicts disbanding his party.

Speaking emotionally at the party headquarters, Chaturon said the verdict had proved that whoever controlled state power could make anything right.

"Although the power is achieved through the barrel of a gun, it's still the right thing."

The Constitution Tribunal verdict read: "The Thai Rak Thai Party acted to advance the personal fortune of its leader and tampered with the electoral process in order to grab and cling to power - this not a genuine party with any ideology".

The landmark decision on the fate of the Thai Rak Thai took five hours to read out and surprisingly relied on the testimony of Thaksin's successor Chaturon Chaisang to nail the once powerful party.

"Chaturon testified that Thaksin had never rebutted fraud charges and that he just told any individual executives involved to clear their names," the verdict said, taking |the testimony as admitting Thaksin had implicitly condoned the fraud.

The nine-member tribunal struck down a dozen defence arguments raising legal technicalities to sway the judges to drop the charges.

Then the judicial decision moved to rule on factual evidence to convict Thai Rak Thai and two small parties, Pattana Chat Thai and Thai Ground.

A key charge leading to the Thai Rak Thai's conviction was the bankrolling of two small parties to run in the April 2 vote last year. The party was also found guilty of helping Pattana Chat Thai rig its membership records.

After outlining evidence and testimonies, the tribunal ruled that two Thai Rak Thai executives, Thamarak Isarangura and Pongsak Ruktapongpisal, were linked to the bankrolling of the two small parties.

The ruling further stated that evidence showed the two small parties had been paid to file electoral candidates and that the membership records were fixed to enable candidates to overcome the 90-day rule to qualify for running.

In linking the party to the wrongdoings of Thamarak and Pongsak, the tribunal said circumstantial evidence was the key to determine whether the party had condoned the fraud as no party would explicitly instruct its officials to commit an illegal act.

Thamarak and Pongsak both were ranking executives and senior Cabinet members who should have realised the political dilemma facing their party, the ruling said.

"Events leading to the snap election last year showed that the Thai Rak Thai faced a difficulty in successfully holding the elections and clinging to power," it said.

The party had to overcome an electoral rule for a single candidate running unopposed to garner more than 20 per cent of votes in order to secure victory. But it was clear that some 37 constituencies, particularly 35 in the South, would not support the party.

This was the main reason why Thamarak and Pongsak were keen to bankroll small parties to help their party overcome the 20 per cent rule, the verdict said.

There was no reason to suspect that Thamarak and Pongsak would have made personal gains from the bankrolling scam and evidence indicated the party would benefit if they succeeded in the electoral fraud, it said.

In sentencing the Thai Rak Thai Party, the tribunal ruled out a defence argument that political chaos and violence would erupt if the party was dissolved because of the possible angry reaction from 14 million party members.

"The wrongdoing was committed to help Thai Rak Thai cling to power and last year's elections, which triggered the wrongdoing, happened because the party leader faced the public backlash from selling off his family fortune without paying tax," the ruling said.

The judges said in their decision that should the party dissolution trigger turmoil, the party executives must be held accountable for exploiting the public trust to advance personal gains.

Before his fiery comment at the party headquarters, Chaturon had said earlier at the courthouse that the ruling was "highly unexpected", and expressed his worry over "setbacks" towards the development of democracy.

He had also called on more than 14 million party supporters to respect the verdicts, and not protest or resist them. "Exercise your tolerance and wisdom and be calm," he said in a brief interview outside the courthouse.

However, in an emotional outburst at the party headquarters later, he said the public could not accept the verdicts. "This is not acceptable. The country is now ruled by a dictatorship," he said. He continued his verbal attacks before his speech was abruptly cut off.

Meanwhile, deposed premier and former Thai Rak Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra said from London that the rule of the law must be obeyed, while responding to the ruling against the party.

"We have to respect the rules of the game. That is, the rule of the law. If the rules of the law are observed, we have to respect it," he told BBC.

Thaksin said he would "definitely" come back to Thailand because "it's my home country. I love my country. I love my people."

Chaturon yesterday said he was confident that he could offer good ways to "go forward together" with party supporters, who he said, still had faith in him and shared the Thai Rak Thai ideology.

An official party statement will be released at 11am today.

At party headquarters, party supporters and former MPs cried and consoled each other, before applauding each other and reading a poem grieving the verdicts.

The Nation