It took about 20 minutes of vote counting to unceremoniously impeach former PM Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday by 190 votes to 18, and she became the first-ever politician to be impeached and banned from politics for five years, by the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA).
Yingluck also faces a criminal case in relation to the rice-pledging scheme, and could be hit with a jail term of up to 10 years if found guilty. The vote tally in the NLA looked ominous from the start with scores on the "yes" vote quickly and starkly outstripping no-impeachment votes.
Fifteen minutes into the counting and it was about 100 votes for impeachment versus less than 10 for no-impeachment in the 220-member chamber.
With heavy police and military security in front of Parliament and no red-shirt demonstrators to air support for Yingluck, the seismic noise of anger over the legitimacy and conflict of interest in the motion, and the jubilation of anti-Yingluck People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) demonstrators who took to the streets last year before the coup, could only be felt on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and the few respective pro- versus anti-Yingluck media outlets.
In Parliament, only one member - former police chief Pol General Patcharawat Wongsuwan - was absent, citing an unspecified illness.
Another NLA member, Sathit Sawinthorn, a former Forestry Department chief, who has been receiving hospital treatment, was escorted to Parliament and allowed to vote first before being taken back to hospital.
three ballot boxes were set up with designated colours to vote whether to impeach Yingluck, whose box colour was yellow, and the other two for former Parliament president Somsak Kiatsuranont and his deputy Nikom Wairatpanich.
Somsak and Nikom both survived the impeachment motions filed against them for alleged abuse of power for attempting to amend the 2007 charter and alter the make-up of the Senate. There were 100 votes to impeach versus 115 to not-impeach in Somsak's case and 95 votes to impeach versus 120 to not impeach in Nikom's case.
The ballot box for Somsak was white, while Nikom's was pink.