DHAKA: Thailand's legislators have voted to impeach former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and ban her from politics for five years.

The move relates to her involvement in a controversial rice subsidy scheme.

Earlier on Friday, the attorney general also announced that Ms Yingluck would face a criminal charge over her role in the scheme.

A court removed Ms Yingluck as PM in May 2014, days before the military ousted her government in a coup.

On Friday, 190 out of 219 lawmakers present in the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) voted to impeach her. Eighteen voted against impeachment while the others abstained. One lawmaker was absent for the vote.

The votes were written on a whiteboard as they were tallied, and broadcast on national television.

The impeachment sends a strong signal that there will be no compromise and her family will be removed from politics, BBC reported.

Yingluck and her brother, tycoon and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, remain hugely popular among Thailand's rural poor, but are hated by an urban and middle-class elite who accuse them of corruption and abuse of power.

Their party is the most popular in Thailand and has - under various different names - won every election since 2001.

BDST: 1412 HRS, JAN 23, 2015