By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER PAETONGTARN Shinawatra today (March 25) categorically dismissed allegations that her father/de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra had returned home from self-exile abroad under “the deal with the Devil.”
Responding to the allegations launched by People’s MP Rangsiman Rome a few hours earlier during today’s censure debate in the House of Representatives, the woman prime minister contended that no such thing as “the deal with the Devil” had been made to land her father the safe homecoming after 17 years in self-exile overseas.
“That was 100% untrue. My father had had an unwavering intention to return home where he would spend the rest of his life,” Paetongtarn told the House during its second day of censure debate against her.
According to the prime minister, Thaksin would have returned home even if the Move Forward, practically a previous name of the People’s following a dissolution by court of the reformist camp, might have succeeded in setting up a government with the Pheu Thai as coalition partner.
The de facto Pheu Thai boss had been accused of making “the deal with the Devil” which had allegedly facilitated his homecoming during the ending period of a nine-year-old regime of former coup leader-turned-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Paetongtarn categorically denied she had abused her power as head of government to press any government officials to compromise the law or take legal loopholes to unduly do favours for her “critically ill” father who had been literally spared a one-year jail term at Bangkok Remand prison and instead given a six-month-long stay at Police Hospital.
Paetongtarn said she had had immense sympathy for her father who has remained one of Thailand’s most misery-stricken victims of a coup which had ousted him as elected prime minister and sent him into self-exile abroad.
CAPTION:
Top: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and People’s MP Rangsiman Rome.
Front Page: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra next to Deputy Prime Minister/Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai. Both photos: Amarin TV
Also read: Paetongtarn accused of involvement in Thaksin’s cover-up
PM returns home after attending censure debate for almost 15 hours
Paetongtarn grilled for lacking credentials, covering up Prayut’s mess
Somchai gives Prawit high marks, slams PM
Thaksin helps PM gear for censure debate starting tomorrow
Thailand car production drops 13.6% y/y in February on weaker sales, exports
Over a 1,000-year-old pagoda unearthed in Phayao
