Thailand's President of Parliament and House Speaker Yongyuth Tiyapairat announced his resignation at a press conference in Bangkok on Wednesday afternoon.

Yongyuth, a party-list MP and former party leader of the rulingPeople's Power Party (PPP), already suspended his duties as House Speaker and Parliament President last month after Thailand's Supreme Court accepted an appeal by the Election Commission (EC) which accused Yongyuth of involvement in electoral fraud in the December 23 general election.

Yongyuth said before the parliament that his resignation did not mean he committed any wrongdoings as accused, but because he wanted to undergo the investigation until his name is cleared to avoid damaging the image of the legislative body, and he also meant to help ease the social conflicts in Thailand.

Forty-seven-year-old Yongyuth was elected as the new House Speaker and President of Parliament on January 22, after the PPP declared victory in the December 23 election.

The EC ruled on February 26 that Yongyuth was guilty of vote-buying and resolved to submit the case against Yongyuth to the Supreme Court's Election Frauds Department, demanding the Court to invalidate Yongyuth's electoral victory in the December 23 general election as a party-list MP of the PPP and revoke his electoral right on alleged violation of election laws.

If convicted by the Supreme Court, Yongyuth would lose his seat both as MP or House Speaker and face a five-year ban from electoral process, according to the EC.

Yongyuth later on the day announced suspension of duties as the parliament chief and vowed to fight the allegations which he described as a "set-up" by his political rivals. He denied he had bribed any local officials in his home province Chiang Rai to ensure his victory in the December 23 election.

According to the EC's probe, 10 village heads and sub-district chiefs in northern province Chiang Rai, where Yongyuth won a seat in the 480-member House of Representatives as a PPP candidate, had testified that they had each received 20,000 baht (606 U.S. dollars) in cash during the run-up to the December election in exchange for local voters' support for Yongyuth.

Yongyuth's undecided fate, in worse scenario, might threaten the PPP's survival as a political party and the PPP-led coalition government which was just sworn in early February.

(Xinhua News Agency May 1, 2008)