By Thai Newsroom Reporters
IT IS ABOUT TIME de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra completely stopped pulling the strings behind a puppet virtually being his daughter/Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, suggested a noted historian.
Chiang Mai University’s Humanities Faculty’s historian Attachak Satayanuruk said the billionaire power player has not only acted as a puppet master behind the scenes but more often than not put himself in the limelight of the political arena.
The academic made his comments amidst lawsuits recently filed against the de facto Pheu Thai boss and the woman prime minister in pursuit of an immediate end to their shared power at an order of the Constitutional Court.
The billionaire power player has been accused of hosting a hush-hush meeting of leaders and other prominent figures of all six coalition parties at his residence on August 14 hours after former prime minister Srettha Thavisin had been deposed of power by the Constitutional Court.
Attachak advised Thaksin who had allegedly directed and tampered with the tasks of the court-deposed prime minister, albeit in clandestine fashion, consider stopping himself from doing so with his daughter/prime minister once and for all since he was not allowed by law in the first place.
Thaksin has been earlier indicted by court and sentenced to jail, thus permanently obliging himself from engaging in political activities at any levels.
“Many people would no longer believe in a working relationship in the style of ‘like father, like daughter’ running the country together. On his own part, Thaksin had better stop it for good,” the historian said.
Meanwhile, the Chiang Mai academic concluded that Thaksin has never seemed to be able to tell a friend from a foe, thus prompting him to join ranks with his former enemies and set up an authoritarian-cum-populist coalition government.
Attachak said Thaksin has not changed since the last couple of decades and yet agreed to negotiate and strike hush-hush dealings with elements of the powers-that-be who had ousted him from power in the 2006 coup and deposed his sister/fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in the 2014 coup.
In exchange for his safe homecoming after 17 years of self-exile abroad, the double-standard privileges of being “detained” outside of a prison for a curtailed, one-year jail sentence and the power play over the setup of a Pheu Thai-led government, the de facto Pheu Thai boss reconciled with his former foes who have been quietly orchestrating the ultra-conservative, military-installed Ruam Thai Sang Chart and Palang Pracharath, among others, whilst continuously enjoying his whimsical, self-assured attitudes toward the multitude of people throughout the country who, he took for granted, were merely searching for well-being and economic prosperity.
But Attachak contended that many people in all regions of the country no longer focused more on their economic circumstances or hand-to-mouth issues than rules of justice which have been unduly compromised or questionably broken.
Though the Pheu Thai-led government’s implementation of the Thaksin-initiated digital wallet project and other populist campaigns could possibly pan out, most constituents might probably not vote for Thaksin’s party or their contestants in the next general election if the current government failed to solve chronic problems about rules of justice, basic human rights and other political and social issues, according to the academic.
CAPTION:
Top and Front Page: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra and his daughter/Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Photos: MNG Online
Insert: Historian Attachak Satayanuruk. Photo: Matichon
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