By Thai Newsroom Reporters
IN WHAT WAS SEEN as a dilly-dally, bureaucratic red-tape tradition, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is definitely not going to decide any time soon as to whether to launch a truthful inquiry into de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra’s alleged fake-out at Police Hospital until next February, a senior official of the anti-graft agency said today (Nov. 13).
Though an ad hoc committee has already been set up by the NACC to compile pieces of evidence pertaining to the billionaire power player’s contentious, six-month stay at Police Hospital as an allegedly feigning, “critically-ill” patient, it remains to be seen no sooner than next February as to whether the NACC will finally summon Thaksin and any government officials involved for testimony, according to assistant NACC secretary-general Jakkrit Tanlert.
Despite having repeatedly asked for factual information pertaining to the de facto Pheu Thai boss’s health conditions and medical treatment at Police Hospital, the evidence-collecting panel of the anti-graft agency has yet obtained nothing from the hospital’s executive officials except for some two million baht in bills owing to the patient’s expenses.
Jakkrit was apparently responding to today’s move by the so-called Network of Students and People for Thailand Reform in pursuit of any progress made toward last year’s fake-out allegedly staged by the then-convict at large/father of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra until he was released on parole earlier this year.
Thaksin who had been earlier sentenced in absentia by court to eight years in jail on charges of power abuse perpetrated during his previous premiership which had been curtailed by royal pardon to only one year finally returned home after 17 years of self-exile abroad and allegedly manipulated to keep himself from being literally put behind bars for a single day and instead be granted the arguable privilege of staying at the hospital where he had allegedly faked “critical illnesses” with supposed symptoms being completely shrouded in secrecy under the pretext of the “patient’s privacy.”
In another development, the de facto Pheu Thai boss today arrived to Udorn Thani to help muster popular support for Pheu Thai candidate, namely former MP Saravut Petpanomporn, running for Nakyok Or Bor Jor or head of the provincial administration against People’s contender, namely Khanisorn Khurirang. The provincial race for head of the provincial administration is scheduled for November 24.
Udorn Thani has been earlier viewed as Isaan’s largest Red Shirt stronghold of the pro-Pheu Thai activists where most constituents voted for Thaksin’s men in last year’s general election except for those in the capital district-surrounding constituency and a couple of others where the then-Move Forward and Thai Sang Thai candidates were elected MPs whilst seven other constituencies of the northeastern province were won by Pheu Thai candidates.
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Top and Front Page Red shirt activists welcome de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra at Udon Thani airport after he arrived to muster support for a Pheu Thai candidate in this month’s local election. Photos:Naewna
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