By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER Pipat Ratchakitprakarn today (Dec.2) shrugged off a reported surge in personal hype of Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva among southern constituents, particularly those adversely affected by critical flooding.
The deputy prime minister-cum-transport minister, assigned to direct electoral campaigns of the Bhumjaithai, core of the current coalition government, in all southern provinces, said he would definitely remain undaunted by Abhisit’s increased personal popularity among the southern constituents in regard to the Bhumjaithai-led government’s contentious handling of ruinous flooding in Hat Yai and elsewhere in the southern region.
Pipat said the southern people largely seemed to have had some kind of sentimental attachment to the Democrats since the last decades.
The Bhumjaithai-attached deputy prime minister-cum-transport minister was apparently responding to the latest NIDA poll which says 25% of a total 2,000 southern respondents preferred the Democrat leader over Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul for head of government following a general election speculated as soon as in the upcoming February.
Only 15% of the respondents picked Anutin, who concurrently acts as interior minister and Bhumjaithai leader, for prime minister after the nationwide election.
The NIDA poll, conducted days before Hat Yai’s flooding rose to a devastating level with a large number of fatalities, saw 32% of the southern respondents yet undecided as to who they would prefer for head of a post-election government, however.
The Bhumjaithai under de facto party boss Newin Chidchob had earlier aimed at winning half a total 60 MP seats for all southern constituencies whilst the Klatham, currently a coalition partner under de facto party boss/Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Agriculture & Cooperatives Minister Thammanat Prompao, had reportedly planned to get no less than 20 southern MP seats in the upcoming general election.
Former Democrat MP Theptai Saenapong predicted that the Democrats under Abhisit’s renewed leadership might probably win several MP seats in party-listed mode mostly with electoral votes from southern constituents, compared to only three in the 2023 election.
But the former prime minister/current Democrat leader Abhisit would hardly secure MP seats in constituency-based mode for his Old School conservative camp where Democrat contestants would likely be outvoted by those of the ultra-conservative Bhumjaithai and Klatham throughout the southern region, Theptai forecast.
Now that the Hat Yai fiasco allegedly caused by the prime minister’s mismanagement and inefficiency is evidently rendering a drastic decline in his personal and partisan hypes in the eye of the southern constituents, the Bhumjaithai’s nationwide race in party-listed mode would undoubtedly not be better off than in the previous election which saw Newin’s camp get only three MP seats in that category, according to the MP-turned-commentator.
Yet, he said, the Bhumjaithai contestants running in constituency-based mode would almost certainly need to have more “resources” to find their way to parliament after they have considerably lost their hype-raising grounds mostly due to the government’s flooding shambles.
Nevertheless, most of the 22 Democrat MPs elected in constituency-based mode in the previous election are more or less anticipated to defect either to the Bhumjaithai or Klatham and seek re-election under the tickets of their new camps, leaving the Democrats, currently part of the opposition bloc, with a likely increase in the number of MP seats in party-listed mode.
Anutin has earlier remarked that he would not seriously view Abhisit as his archrival vying for prime minister in the upcoming election and that the Bhumjaithai would likely win more MP seats for the southern constituencies, compared to a dozen won in the previous one.
In the 2023 election, both the Democrats and Bhumjaithai won only three out of a total 100 MP seats in party-listed mode with the former camp featuring former Democrat leaders Chuan Leekpai, who is also a former prime minister, Jurin Laksanavisit and Banyat Bantattan and the latter camp slating Anutin, former transport minister/Newin’s brother Saksayam Chidchob and Deputy Interior Minister Songsak Thongsri.
That compared to a total 400 MP seats in constituency-based mode where Newin’s camp won 68 and Abhisit’s camp 22 in the previous election whilst the Klatham, a relatively new camp of Thammanat-led renegade MPs, had not been formally set up to contest at that time.
CAPTIONS:
Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, above, and with former party leader Chuan Leekpai, Front Page. Above photo – Thai Rath, Front Page photo – Amarin TV
Insert – Deputy Prime Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn. Photo – Thai Rath
Also read:
Abhisit most favourite to southerners as next PM: NIDA Poll
Prawit opts to vie for PM again in upcoming election
‘Big Joke’ challenges flood death toll as ministry insists not as high as 1,000
PM2.5 pollution soars in several provinces impacting health
