Thammanat named secretary-general of Thai Economic Party

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

“REBELLIOUS” MP Thammanat Prompao was today (Mar.18) named secretary-general of the Thai Economic Party.

In today’s general caucus of Thai Economic Party, Wit Thephasadin na Ayudhya was voted top leader and Thammanat was voted secretary-general of the brand-new party whose executive board consists of 18 members, most of whom are currently lawmakers who have been earlier ousted from Palang Pracharath Party.

Thammanat’s spouse, Thanaporn Srivirat, was named treasurer of the party.

Wit, a retired army general, had earlier headed a strategic campaign team of Palang Pracharath Party whereas Thammanat assumed the post of secretary-general of the largest coalition partner.

Both Wit and Thammanat have been largely viewed as personally close to Palang Pracharath Party leader/Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan.

Earlier this year, Thammanat and 20 other Palang Pracharath MPs were ousted from Prawit’s camp due to critical partisan conflict. Of that total, 18 ex-Palang Pracharath MPs including Thammanat have enrolled with Thai Economic Party while three others have joined coalition partner Bhumjaithai Party.

Thammanat reconfirmed that he will not look to lunch or dine with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha who hosted a dinner for MPs of splinter parties yesterday. 

Apart from more than a dozen “renegade” opposition MPs, the splinter lawmakers will likely become a decisive factor to Prayut’s survival in a censure/no-confidence motion expected in late May or early June.

Last September, Thammanat was kicked out of the Prayut cabinet as deputy agriculture & cooperatives minister shortly following a censure/no-confidence motion in which the former was alleged of having quietly orchestrated an aborted plot to have certain coalition MPs abstain from voting in support of the latter.

CAPTION:

Thai Economic Party members at today’s general caucus. Photos: Matichon

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