Thailand’s junta-appointed legislature voted to impeach Yingluck Shinawatra, the democratically elected former Prime Minister ousted in last year’s coup d’etat.  The move bans her from politics for five years.

Earlier, junta prosecutors charged Yingluck for her role in overseeing a government rice subsidy program that lost money, and which what was then the conservative opposition claimed was a method of funneling money to her power base.  Yingluck’s supporters see the moves as part of an effort to deal a final blow to her political party after the military seized power in a coup last May. 

“The rice subsidy scheme was run by groups of people.  It was a resolution of the Cabinet.. why am I singled out?” Yingluck asked of the appointed Parliament.  “To bring the case against me alone, therefore, shows a hidden agenda under an unjust practice, and is a political agenda.”

The junta is the outgrowth of the Bangkok urban and middle-class elites and royalists who took part in anti-democracy protests last calling for the democratically elected government to be replaced by an appointed council of “good people”.  They have long despised the political movement led by Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother Thakshin whose power base is in the north of the country – the places that used to provide Bangkok with its servants.  The Shinawatra parties have won every free election since 2001.

The junta is likely to delay elections until after 2015.