By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER SRETTHA Thavisin is desperately talking Prime Minister’s Office Minister Pichit Chuenban into calling it quits very shortly to dampen a fresh impeachment bid lodged by senators against the both of them, a partisan source said today (May 20).
The Pheu Thai-attached prime minister who is currently on official tours to France, Italy and Japan from May 15 until May 24 would very likely make an overseas telephone call to the Prime Minister’s Office minister in a last-ditch effort to force him to resign as soon as tomorrow since the Constitutional Court is scheduled for the upcoming Thursday to either accept or drop the senators’ petition recently filed against them, according to the partisan source who only spoke on condition of anonymity.
If the impeachment bid is accepted by court, both Srettha and Pichit will be ordered by court to immediately stop doing their official duties, pending a court ruling pertaining to their alleged violation of the Constitution and Code of Political Ethics.
The senators have charged that Srettha had perpetrated a “severe breach” to the charter and the ethical code by naming Pichit a minister among those in Apr. 30’s cabinet lineup in allegedly illegitimate fashion whilst Pichit himself had committed a payoff-related contempt of the court for which he had been handed a six-month jail sentence in 2008, thus legally barring him from assuming any political positions since.
Whilst speaking in public in defence of himself and the scandalous minister over the senators’ petition, Srettha would be anxious and fearful of the possibility of his being impeached by the Constitutional Court to the extent that he would immediately lose his elected premiership, the partisan source said.
However, it remains to be seen whether Pichit would finally agree to resign very shortly under tacit pressure from the prime minister though he has today categorically dismissed hearsay of his stepping down in the face of the impeachment bid.
Given the possible resignation of Pichit as the portfolioless minister, the number of the petitioners might come short of a minimum of one-tenth of the total senators or less than 25 to otherwise endorse the impeachment bid, thus rendering it null and void prior to the upcoming Thursday’s agenda of the Constitutional Court.
The real estate tycoon-turned-prime minister who had been quietly pushed to power by his deposed predecessor Yingluck Shinawatra had been far from eager and glad to bring Pichit into his cabinet but de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict on parole Thaksin Shinawatra had allegedly manipulated to name his former lawyer one among those ministers in the latest Srettha cabinet lineup.
Many of the 40 senators who had undersigned the impeachment bid were among those who had cast overwhelming yea votes for Srettha as head of government.
Most were invariably viewed as loyal to former army chief-turned-prime minister/de facto Ruam Thai Sang Chart boss/privy councillor Prayut Chan-o-cha. All 250 senators were appointed by the 2014 coup junta under Prayut’s leadership.
CAPTION:
Top and Front Page: Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, left, and Prime Minister’s Office Minister Phichit Chuenban, right. Photo: Thai Rath
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