By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS Thaksin Shinawatra today (Dec. 24) forecast that the current Pheu Thai-led government under premiership of his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra will likely survive their four-year term until 2027.
The billionaire power player told reporters in Chiang Mai that disputes between coalition partners may spontaneously arise in regard to varied government matters every now and then but they would eventually talk it over.
Thaksin was apparently referring to conflict between the Pheu Thai, core of the current coalition, and the Bhumjaithai, the second largest coalition partner under de facto party boss Newin Chidchob.
A sustained bone of contention between the Pheu Thai and Bhumjaithai purportedly involves official procedures to be conducted nationwide prior to constitution amendment bids at parliament with the former calling for a single-tiered public referendum and the latter insisting for a double-tiered public referendum.
Nevertheless, Newin’s party would not be kicked out of the Pheu Thai-led coalition despite any unsolved conflict with Thaksin’s camp as otherwise anticipated by government critics.
In the wake of a future political crisis, either within the coalition government or without, Thaksin would rather not opt out by telling his daughter-turned-prime minister to dissolve the House of Representatives to call a general election.
Paetongtarn will likely continue to run the country until the end of the four-year term of the legislative and executive branches scheduled for 2027, according to the de facto Pheu Thai boss to whom his daughter-turned-prime minister would be readily obedient and submissive, albeit in behind-the-scenes fashion.
Thaksin has earlier bluntly downplayed possibilities of a future coup to overthrow his daughter’s elected government despite the fact that he himself and his fugitive sister Yingluck Shinawatra had been ousted as elected prime ministers in the 2006 and 2014 coups respectively.
The de facto Pheu Thai boss has invariably shrugged off allegations that he has been surreptitiously domineering and steering the core of the current coalition, daring his critics and others to take legal action against him.
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Top and Front Page: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra. Photos: Thai Rath
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