By Thai Newsroom Reporters
SELF-EXILED former premier Thaksin Shinawatra reconfirmed yesterday (July 19) he will certainly return home after Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had just dared the Pheu Thai Party to bring him back.
In response to Prayut’s sarcasm made during the first day of a four-day censure/no-confidence motion yesterday, Thaksin reassured his terminal intent to return home from Dubai where he has been residing since the last several years but declined to tell how.
Under a pseudonym of Tony Woodsome, the former premier quickly reacted to the current one’s sarcastic remark via a Care Clubhouse live podcast, saying Prayut has probably thought of him first and foremost.
“Probably I was the first person whom he was thinking of whenever he spoke to reporters or made a response at parliament. My apologies to Ajarn Nong for her being thought of less often than I was,” Thaksin said of Prayut, referring to the latter’s spouse, Naraporn Chan-o-cha, by nickname.
Prayut who has earlier repeatedly called on Thaksin to return home so that he could serve his 12-year jail term due to convicted misconduct charges was yesterday accused by Pheu Thai party leader/opposition leader Chonlanan Srikaew of being incompetent, error-laden, power-abusing, unethical, duty-negligent and having a narcissistic personality disorder.
However, Prayut dared the rank and file of Pheu Thai Party who has usually admired Thaksin for supposedly being more competent and well-versed to run the country than him to take steps to bring back the former premier.
Meanwhile, Thaksin took Prayut to task for allegedly masterminding coalition MPs and senators into taking a last-minute twist to alter the electoral process by voting for the mixed-member-proportional system, also known as the divided-by-500 formula, instead of the mixed-member-majority system, also known as the divided-by-100 formula, which they had earlier endorsed.
The former premier compared the senators, all of whom had been handpicked by a coup junta, to robots being specifically programmed to vote on anything.
Thaksin was deposed from premiership in the 2006 coup whereas his sister/former premier Yingluck Shinawatra was ousted in the 2014 coup, orchestrated by the then-army chief Prayut.
The self-exiled premier, invariably viewed as de facto leader of Pheu Thai Party, has earlier encouraged the largest opposition camp to manage to score a “landslide” victory in the next general election and set up a government of their own so that he could delightedly return home to tend to his grandchildren and offer himself as sort of a mentor upon request.
Thaksin’s youngest daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra will likely be named a Pheu Thai candidate for head of a post-election government.
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Top and Front Page: Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, left, and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, right. Both photos: Matichon
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