By Thai Newsroom Reporters
ACTING PRIME MINISTER Phumtham Wechayachai was today (July 9) suggested to respond to a questionable event in which he has transferred senior officials of the Ministry of Interior shortly after he began to take charge of the agency in concurrent fashion.
House Committee on Administration Chair Korawee Prisnanuntakul insisted that the acting prime minister who is concurrently performing as deputy prime minister-cum-interior minister give an unambiguous explanation to the recent transfers of interior officials at director-general level especially those attached to the Department of Provincial Administration and Department of Local Administration after he had formally assumed the post of interior minister last week.
Without clear-cut explanations, such contentious acts on the part of the acting Pheu Thai prime minister could probably be deemed unjust and politically motivated, according to the House committee chair who is currently a Bhumjaithai MP of Angthong and brother of former deputy House speaker Paradorn Prisnanuntakul who is currently the other MP of the same party and province.
Phumtham is largely known as a right-hand man for the court-suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s father/de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra who had bluntly taken the interior portfolio from the Bhumjaithai, prompting the latter camp under de facto boss Newin Chidchob to withdraw from the Pheu Thai-led coalition and become part of the opposition bloc.
Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul has earlier been in charge of the interior portfolio besides performing as deputy prime minister in concurrent fashion.
Thaksin had allegedly manipulated to not only “take revenge” on Newin by having those senior interior officials reshuffled by Phumtham but prepared his ruling camp to contest the next general election which could possibly be held as soon as around the latter part of this year or early next, given the fact that the Ministry of Interior is legally empowered to take direct control of administrative government personnel ranging from provincial governors and chief district officers to kamnan (tambon headmen) and puyaibaan (village headmen) who are more or less instrumental, albeit in district, hush-hush fashion, during the run-up to a nationwide election for MPs.
Meanwhile, NIDA’s Political & Development Strategies Doctorate Project Director Pichai Ratanadilok na Phuket predicted that the power-playing Thaksin would probably pick Pheu Thai MP Chaikasem Nitisiri for prime minister if his daughter was finally found guilty and deprived of her prime-ministerial status by the Constitutional Court in about a couple of months from now.
Paetongtarn has been accused of perpetrating conduct in severe breach of the ethical code and lack of evident honesty thus deemed considerably detrimental to Thailand’s territorial integrity and prestige during last month’s leaked telephone talk with Cambodian leader Hun Sen pertaining to Thai-Cambodian border tensions.
Nevertheless, Pichai remarked that Thaksin might probably be more or less talked into letting Chaikasem run the country as an “interim” head of government for a few months before he may dissolve the House of Representatives to call a general election.
The elderly, physically fragile Chaikasem was among a trio of Pheu Thai contestants for prime minister in 2023’s election in addition to former prime minister Srettha Thavisin and Thaksin’s daughter.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: Deputy Prime Minister/Interior Minister Phumtham Wechayachai. Top photo Amarin TV, Front Page photo: Naewna
Insert: NIDA Director Pichai Ratanadilok na Phuket. Photo: Thai Rath
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