By Thai Newsroom Reporters
CHIEF OPPOSITION WHIP Pakornwut Udompipatsakul today (Aug.19) called on the court-suspended prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to step down now, regardless of an approaching verdict of the Constitutional Court on an impeachment lawsuit filed against her.
The MP of the People’s, the largest opposition party, said the embattled prime minister, daughter of de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, could not do enough to bolster the instability of the Pheu Thai-led coalition with their meagre majority at parliament no matter if she may survive the impeachment case seeking her ouster at an order of the court or not.
Even if the woman prime minister survived it, the Pheu Thai-led government’s instability would not be alleviated, thus rendering it unlikely to put forward legislations at parliament whilst barely running the country in such politically precarious fashion, Pakornwut said.
The House’s weekly meetings were adjourned after only a few hours due to lack of a quorum, given the scarcity of coalition MPs attending in the House chamber whilst members of cabinet who concurrently hold the MP status scrambled to get in to help make an adequate quorum and vote in support of government legislations.
Such legislative circumstances would almost certainly not be of any good for the running of the country by the current Pheu Thai-led government, thus warranting the making of a new one beginning with the resignation of the woman prime minister, according to the chief opposition whip.
In the meantime, Paetongtarn is scheduled for the upcoming Thursday to testify before the Constitutional Court pertaining to the impeachment-invoking allegations that she had perpetrated an act of treason in severe breach of the ethical code and in lack of evident honesty during last June’s leaked cellphone talk between Cambodian leader Hun Sen and herself in regard to Thai-Cambodian border conflict which has culminated in five-day clashes between the neighbouring countries’ forces, resulting in many fatalities and injuries in mountainous terrains along the disputed border.
The prime minister who has been ordered by court since last month to stop performing as head of government pending the court ruling had evidently expressed overly-submissive, questionable attitudes whilst handling the unresolved border issue, thus prompting a group of senators to lodge the ouster-seeking impeachment lawsuit against her.
Paetongtarn categorically dismissed those allegations, saying she had coped with the situation in pure honesty without causing damage or raising malicious intent toward the country whilst, she said, she herself had definitely benefitted nothing from it though she had called Hun Sen “uncle”, given previous, personal relationships between two ruling families including hers.
Neither was the prime minister expected by the Pheu Thai rank and file to step down in the wake of the impeachment case as otherwise speculated and encouraged by her critics.
“If the prime minister decides to fight it, she has to attend it regardless of the consequences. But if she didn’t make it that day (the upcoming Thursday), the court verdict might probably feature 9:0 votes against her,” the Thammasat law lecturer said, referring to the total of the Constitutional Court’s judges.
Nevertheless, Thaksin has remained considerably confident that Paetongtarn will eventually survive, albeit in such narrow fashion as 5:4 votes in her favour, partisan sources said.
Given a smorgasbord of private resources and bargaining chips, the mega-billionaire power player has quietly conducted a last-ditch lobbyism to save his daughter from the legal battle whilst defending himself from a couple of separate lawsuits.
One is the lese majeste case scheduled to be ruled by the Criminal Court on the upcoming Friday pertaining to the allegations that he had mentioned the monarchy for alleged involvement in the 2006 coup which ousted him from elected premiership.
The other case for which the Supreme Court is scheduled to hand out a ruling on Sep.9 has been processed on grounds of a scandalous fakeout which he had allegedly staged for a six-month period at Police Hospital to avoid being literally put behind bars at Bangkok Remand prison where he would have otherwise served a curtailed, one-year jail sentence due to a few counts of misconduct perpetrated during his previous premiership over the last couple of decades.
Just before returning home from self-exile abroad in 2023, Thaksin had allegedly struck a secret deal with elements of the powers-that-be to the extent that he not only return home without going to jail but surreptitiously manipulate the double-crossing setup of the Pheu Thai-led government and naming of Srettha Thavisin, personally associated with his sister/fugitive, former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, for head of government following a general election in that year.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: Suspend prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Photos: Thai Rath
First insert: People’s MP Pakornwut Udompipatsakul. Photo: Thai Rath
Second insert: Academic Prinya Thaewanarumitkul. Photo: Thai Rath
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