By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DEPUTY PRIME Minister-cum-Transport Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn today (Oct.7) rested assured of an upcoming phenomenon in which a number of Democrat MPs representing southern constituencies will depart for the Bhumjaithai to seek re-election under the tickets of the core of the current coalition government despite the likelihood of Abhisit Vejjajiva coming back as Democrat leader.
Pipat, the Bhumjaithai-attached member of cabinet in charge of electoral campaigns for all 60 southern constituencies, said he personally believed those Democrat MPs who may have planned to skip over to the Bhumjaithai under de facto party boss Newin Chidchob will not change their minds after Abhisit has returned to lead the country’s oldest party.
Abhisit, a former prime minister largely anticipated to be named Democrat leader again in a party caucus scheduled for Oct.18, is more or less believed to attract a number of former Democrat MPs including those who had been named cabinet members in previous governments to jump onto his bandwagon and run in the next race to parliament under their former camp’s banners.
Abhisit is more or less expected to bolster the exponentially-ebbing popularity of the divided Democrat in the southern and other regions of the country following last month’s resignation of Chalermchai Sri-on as party leader who had been largely blamed for the drastic decline of the Democrat hype since he made a surprise about-face from an anti-coup junta attitude to a pro-coup junta stand and joined previous governments under former army chief-turned-coup leader-turned-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Nevertheless, Pipat apparently remains confident of the likely departure of several of the 17 Democrat MPs currently representing southern constituencies including those in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, Pattalung and Songkhla, among others, to Newin’s camp, core of the current coalition government, with intent to seek re-election under the Bhumjaithai tickets.
In addition, most of 13 southern lawmakers currently attached to the Ruam Thai Sang Chart are expected to leave the disintegrating, military-installed party for the ultra-conservative Bhumjaithai and run in the general election under the latter’s banners.
The Bhumjaithai which currently have a dozen MPs of their own representing southern constituencies are more or less anticipated to sweep most of the total 60 MP seats for southern constituencies in the next race to parliament, tentatively scheduled for the upcoming March.
Potential rivals to Newin’s camp with those southern constituencies up for grabs are the Klatham under de facto party boss Thammanat Prompao, the Prachachart which won most constituencies of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat in the 2023 election, the reformist People’s which won all three constituencies of Phuket in the last election and the Old-School conservative Democrat.
A few southern Democrat MPs known as proteges of acting Democrat secretary-general Dej-it Khaotong would probably defect to Thammanat’s camp.
Those elected lawmakers would be undoubtedly concerned over the probability that they would be defeated in the next election if they continued to stay with their current camps, however.
CAPTIONS:
Deputy Prime Minister/Transport Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn. Top photo – PPTVHD 36, Front Page photo – Thai Rath
Insert: Former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Photo – Naewna
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