By Thai Newsroom Reporters
BHUMJAITHAI LEADER Anutin Charnvirakul today (June 18) categorically denied a persistent Pheu Thai demand for an immediate return of the interior portfolio to the core of the current coalition though such an ultimate dismissal would likely prompt an ouster of the second largest coalition partner from the Pheu Thai-led government.
Anutin, who concurrently acts as deputy prime minister-cum-interior minister, remarked that the Bhumjaithai would not have to wait until tomorrow (June 19) earlier set as the deadline by the Pheu Thai to respond accordingly to the take-it-or-leave-it offer for his ultra-conservative camp to leave the interior portfolio and accept the public health portfolio plus a ministerial seat attached to the Prime Minister’s Office instead.
Prommin Lertsuridej, secretary-general to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, has formally made the unilateral offer to Anutin over the planned exchange of cabinet portfolios between the Pheu Thai and Bhumjaithai.
The Pheu Thai, surreptitiously influenced by the woman prime minister’s father/de facto party boss Thaksin Shinawatra, has earlier threatened to no longer keep the Bhumjaithai quietly steered by de facto party boss Newin Chidchob as part of the coalition government with a new cabinet lineup anticipated shortly and to see to it that no ministerial seats will be available anymore for the Bhumjaithai if they eventually turned down the offered exchange of portfolios between the core of the coalition and the second largest coalition partner.
The titular Bhumjaithai leader who used to run the public health portfolio in a previous government said his party would under no circumstances accept such a unilateral offer from Thaksin’s camp and would unreluctantly depart from the coalition government and become part of the opposition bloc.
In the likely event of the Bhumjaithai with an army of 68 MPs under command being kept out of the Pheu Thai-led coalition, the number of coalition MPs will immediately drop from 324 to 256, thus becoming a meagre majority in the House of Representatives. However, a number of renegade MPs from the opposition bloc such as the likes of the Palang Pracharath, Thai Sang Thai and others could practically make up to some extent for the partial loss of coalition lawmakers.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, left, and Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, right. Photo: Thai Rath
Front Page: Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, left. Photo: Thai Rath
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