By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS-cum-convict on parole Thaksin Shinawatra is being virtually held hostage by the country’s powers that be with a lese majeste lawsuit against him so that he will never do anything unacceptable to them, according to a prominent academic.
Pichai Ratanadilok na Phuket, director of the NIDA’s Political & Strategic Development Programme commented that Thaksin is being virtually held hostage in the lese majeste case the judicial proceedings of which might probably be delayed beyond April so that the powers that be could practically keep the de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict on parole under control.
The powers that be ranging from the ultra-conservative elite class and high-level bureaucrats to elderly members of “independent” agencies will virtually keep Thaksin’s ball in their court intertwined with political shenanigans conjured by the de facto Pheu Thai boss and carried out by the core coalition partner, according to the NIDA academic.
If the de facto Pheu Thai boss’s actions and words veered off course for whatever conceivable reasons, the powers that be would almost certainly see to it that the lese majeste case against him be finally forwarded to court, Pichai commented.
Pichai made his comment in the face of the Office of the Attorney-General’s further delay in putting forward the criminal case which will not be decided upon until April 10 at the earliest after the de facto Pheu Thai boss who has never spent a single day behind bars to otherwise serve a curtailed, one-year jail sentence has been granted parole without an EM ankle bracelet and with freedom to go places throughout the country.
For the time being, the OAG is not making a decision as to whether to proceed with the lese majeste case against Thaksin or simply lift it or even postpone it beyond April 10, pending further police investigation into 2015’s event in which the deposed prime minister had made verbal statements in South Korea allegedly tantamount to lese majeste content.
“Under such circumstances, Thaksin is virtually held hostage by the elite class to the extent that he will be ultimately compelled to do anything under the frameworks and courses of action which they may deem acceptable and that he will be finally spared the lese majeste lawsuit,” Pichai said.
The powers that be and the de facto Pheu Thai boss had buried the hatchets and reconciled with each other in a successful, last-ditch effort to keep the progressive Move Forward from heading a coalition government following last year’s election, according to the NIDA academic.
Remarkably, he said, the powers that be and Thaksin seem to share a common goal that is to keep at bay the Move Forward whom the former invariably views as their enemy No.1 though they may have been vehemently opposed to the latter over the last few decades.
Meanwhile, a speculated return of Thaksin’s sister/deposed prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra from self-exile abroad would not be successful without the surreptitious help from the powers that be as had been the case of her brother.
It remains to be seen how Yingluck could possibly be treated by the authorities, given the fact that she is far under 70 years old, otherwise entitled to leniency in a jail sentence, or if she will not suffer from a “critical illness” as had been the case of her “untouchable” brother, according to the academic.
Following in the footsteps of the de facto Pheu Thai boss, Yingluck will most certainly anticipate being granted royal pardon to curtail her five-year jail sentence for court-convicted misconduct during her previous premiership.
CAPTION:
De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra returning home from Police Hospital early yesterday morning, Feb. 18, 2024. Top photo: AP/ Sakchai Lalit, Front Page photo: AP/ Wason Wanichakorn and published by Matichon
Insert: NIDA’s Director of Political & Strategic Development Programme Pichai Ratanadilok na Phuket. Photo: Thai Rath
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