Thai authorities dealt a double blow to ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her powerful family on Friday, banning her from politics for five years and proceeding with criminal charges for negligence that could put her in jail.
The moves could stoke tension in the politically divided country still living under martial law after the military seized power in May, toppling the remnants of Yingluck's government after months of street protests.
The ban and the legal case are the latest chapter in 10 years of turbulent politics that have pitted Yingluck and her brother Thaksin, himself a former prime minister, against the royalist-military establishment which sees the Shinawatras as a threat and reviles their populist policies.
Yingluck will face criminal charges in the Supreme Court and if found guilty faces up to 10 years in jail, the Attorney General's Office said on Friday.
The charge against the country's first female premier, who was removed from office for abuse of power in May days before the coup, concern her role in a scheme that paid farmers above market prices for rice and cost Thailand billions of dollars.
The capital's streets were quiet on Friday, as residents adhered to the military junta's ban on public gatherings.
Security was tightened around the parliament building where the military-stacked legislature voted Yingluck guilty in a separate impeachment case for failing to exercise sufficient oversight of the rice subsidy scheme.
The retroactive impeachment at the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) carries with it a five-year ban from politics.
A decision to ban Yingluck from politics required three-fifths of the vote from NLA members, who were hand-picked by the junta of coup leader and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.
Around 100 of the 220 members are former or serving military officers.
Prayuth said he hadn't ordered the NLA to vote against Yingluck, who remains popular among the rural poor that handed her a landslide electoral victory in 2011 and benefited from the rice scheme.
The vote against Yingluck was expected by her supporters. Around 150 members of their political movement have been banned from politics in the last decade, including four who had served as prime ministers.
Shinawatra supporters say the courts and NLA are biased and aligned with an establishment intent on blocking her powerful family from politics.
Yingluck disputed the charges in an appearance at the NLA on Thursday and said the scheme boosted the economy. She did not appear at the NLA on Friday.
