By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS-cum-convict on parole Thaksin Shinawatra dined with Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and other well-known figures in Chiang Mai today (Mar. 15).
Without a soft splint around his neck, Thaksin talked with his de facto proteges over dinner at a house in Mae Rim district of the northern province owned by his brother-in-law/former prime minister Somchai Wongsawat. Hours earlier, the deposed prime minister had been seen wearing the soft splint around his neck.
Joining the dinner talk with the de facto Pheu Thai boss were Agriculture & Cooperatives Minister Thammanat Prompao, Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat, Deputy Interior Minister Kriang Kantinand, Deputy Agriculture & Cooperatives Minister Chaiya Promma, Prime Minister’s Office Minister Puangpet Chunla-iad and Deputy Foreign Minister Chakpong Sangmani and several Pheu Thai MPs.
Thaksin reportedly plans to return to Bangkok tomorrow whilst Srettha and his cabinet members are paying official visits to a few northern provinces with a roving cabinet meeting in Payao on Monday.
Srettha had been quietly pushed to rise to power by Thaksin’s sister/deposed prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra who is more or less speculated to follow in her brother’s footsteps to come back from self-exile abroad sooner or later.
The former woman prime minister had been sentenced to five years in jail for duty negligence charges pertaining to her previous Pheu Thai government’s rice subsidy campaign.
Last August, Thaksin had returned from 17 years in self-exile overseas without being literally put behind bars for a single day for a few counts of court-convicted misconduct and instead had been provided the contentious privileges of staying for mystery-shrouded “illnesses” at a hospital for a six-month period until he was granted parole last month.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page, from left, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, de facto Phue Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra and former prime minister Somchai Wongsawat.
Insert: Thaksin Shinawatra talking to Srettha Thavisin. Photos: Naewna
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