By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS Thaksin Shinawatra today (Aug. 20) categorically denied newly-named Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra will concurrently assume the post of defence minister in an imminent cabinet lineup.
Thaksin said Paetongtarn, his youngest daughter who concurrently acts as Pheu Thai leader, would almost certainly prefer to not take the defence portfolio to otherwise follow in the footsteps of her aunt/former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra who did so over the last decade.
Thaksin dampened speculation that his daughter would probably take the defence minister’s seat which, he said, ultimately belongs to the Pheu Thai, core of the current coalition.
Paetongtarn’s dutiful tasks of running the country as a 38-year-old prime minister will be quite fatiguing, the de facto Pheu Thai boss commented.
Thaksin said there could probably be a deputy defence minister who may come from another coalition partner but stopped short of saying which one.
Thaksin declined to comment whether Pheu Thai-attached acting defence minister Sutin Khlungsang might probably be reshuffled out of the new Pheu Thai-led cabinet or be replaced by his acting secretary-general Nattapol Nakpanich who is largely known as a protege of de facto Ruam Thai Sang Chart boss/former coup leader-turned-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Neither did the de facto Pheu Thai boss predict how soon Yingluck could return home from self-exile abroad now that her niece Paetongtarn has risen to power.
Thaksin had earlier said his sister would come back sooner or later so that, he said, she could join next April’s Songkran festival in their northern home province of Chiang Mai.
Despite her performing as defence minister concurrently, the former woman prime minister was ironically ousted in the 2014 coup orchestrated by the then-army chief Prayut.
Thaksin shrugged off criticism that any hush-hush design which he may foster to bring his fugitive sister back home might virtually trigger a “time bomb” to put an end to his daughter’s premiership.
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Top and Front Page: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra and his daughter/Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Both photos: Thai Rath
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