By Thai Newsroom Reporters
A SUSTAINED PHEU THAI-LED government will likely have more MPs under command from seven coalition partners, including the Democrats.
The new government under Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, will be definitely endorsed by elected lawmakers including 141 Pheu Thai MPs, 70 Bhumjaithai MPs, 40 Palang Pracharath MP, 36 Ruam Thai Sang Chart MPs, 21 Democrat MPs, 10 Chart Thai Pattana MPs and 9 Prachachart MPs, altogether making a total of 327 MPs, plus occasional support from several others currently attached to splinter parties and the renegade Thai Sang Thai, according to partisan sources.
Given a total of 493 performing MPs, the Pheu Thai-led government will likely have well over half that total to firmly secure a majority of legislators in the House of Representatives.
In the Paetongtarn I cabinet, the Pheu Thai, core of the coalition government, will definitely have 15 ministerial seats apart from the elected premiership currently held by Thaksin’s 38-year-old daughter whilst the Bhumjaithai, steered by de facto party boss Newin Chidchob, will have eight ministerial seats, followed by the Palang Pracharatha and Ruam Thai Sang Chart with four ministerial seats each, the Democrats with two and the Chart Thai Pattana and Prachachart with one each.
The billionaire power player Thaksin will likely finish setting up his daughter’s cabinet within this week, the partisan sources said.
The Democrats are skipping over from the People’s Party-led opposition bloc to the Pheu Thai-led coalition government, leaving a few senior Democrat MPs, including former party leader/former prime minister Chuan Leekpai, objecting in vain.
Democrat leader Chalermchai Sri-on and Democrat secretary-general Det-it Khaothong will likely be given ministerial seats in an imminent Paetongtarn I cabinet lineup.
Meanwhile, Klatham leader Narumon Pinyosinwat, viewed as personally close to both Palang Pracharath leader Prawit Wongsuwan and Palang Pracharath secretary-general Thammanat Prompao, will be given a cabinet seat, probably in place of Thammanat, currently acting agriculture & cooperatives minister.
Thammanat may not be included in the latest cabinet lineup due to his contentious personal conduct in relation to his having been earlier arrested by Australian authorities on drug-trafficking charges and sentenced by court to months in jail in the foreign country.
Paetongtarn has pledged to see to it that her government not repeat an avoidable blunder earlier made by her predecessor Srettha Thavisin who had been allegedly pressed by her father to name a former lawyer-turned-convict, namely Pichit Chuenban, a minister attached to the Prime Minister’s Office only to see himself deposed by the Constitutional Court on grounds of severely breaching the constitution and code of political ethics.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.
First insert: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra.
Second Insert: Palang Pracharath secretary-general Thammanat Prompao. All photos: Thai Rath
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