By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE COURT-SUSPENDED prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra would likely testify before the Constitutional Court next Thursday over an impeachment lawsuit filed against her in the wake of a leaked cellphone chitchat between Cambodian leader Hun Sen and herself, according to Prommin Lertsuridej, secretary-general to the embattled prime minister.
Prommin said today (Aug.15) Paetongtarn, daughter of the de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, would likely attend the court hearing scheduled for Aug.21 to defend herself over allegations that she had perpetrated an act of treason by breaching the ethical code and compromising evident honesty whilst handling Thai-Cambodian border conflict last June, thus supposedly warranting the impeachment of the woman prime minister to the extent that she be ousted at an order of the court.
In addition to the prime minister, who has filed an affidavit on her own behalf to the court earlier this month, National Security Council Secretary-General Chatchai Bangchuad was also summoned on the same day for testimony before the Constitutional Court which is scheduled to deliver a verdict on the historic case on Aug.29.
Given a smorgasbord of private resources and bargaining chips, Thaksin has been quietly conducting last-ditch lobbyism with unnamed elements of the superelite powers-that-be to see to it that his daughter will barely survive the pivotal legal battle in court. The judges of the Constitutional Court are more or less expected to adopt a split decision of 5:4 or 6:3 votes in favour of the prime minister who has been ordered by court since early last month to stop performing as head of government pending the court ruling.
The mega-billionaire power player has reportedly insisted that his daughter-turned-prime minister never step down to preempt the court verdict whilst he himself was propelling his resources-enriched, all-in efforts to save her from the impeachment case.
In 2001, Thaksin, the then prime minister and Thai Rak Thai leader, narrowly survived an impeachment lawsuit on wealth concealment charges with a split 8:7 votes cast in his favour by judges of the same court who handed down the questionable ruling that he had merely made an “inadvertent mistake”, thus immediately exonerating him.
Nevertheless, Thaksin was ousted by the 2006 coup which had driven him into self-exile until 2023 when he returned home without being literally put behind bars to otherwise serve a curtailed, one-year jail sentence due to a few counts of misconduct committed during his previous premiership over the last couple of decades.
The Supreme Court is scheduled for Sep.9 to deliver a verdict on the de facto Pheu Thai boss’s escapade from prison to Police Hospital under thinly-veiled excuses of being a “critically ill” patient only to blatantly flout the judicial system and surreptitiously act as Mr. Fix-It who manipulated a surprise setup of the Pheu Thai-led government via a secret deal which he had allegedly struck with certain elements of the powers-that-be.
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Top and Front Page: Suspended prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and her father/de facto Phue Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra. Photos: Thai Rath
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