By Thai Newsroom Reporters
THE INTERIOR MINISTER’S seat would be awarded to Thammanat Prompao in a new cabinet lineup if he could talk a dozen renegade MPs into practically aligning themselves with the Pheu Thai, core of the current coalition government, a partisan source said today (May 15).
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s father/de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra would likely reshuffle the cabinet of ministers to endow the portfolio of interior minister to the prominent Klatham MP if he could manage to have some Bhumjaithai and People’s MPs, among other elected lawmakers, turn coat in support of the Pheu Thai-led government without being formally expelled from their current camps.
Thammanat’s headhunting of renegade lawmakers, metaphorically, indiscriminately dubbed “cobras” in Thai political jargon, would undoubtedly crank up the bargaining power of the 26-MP Klatham and warrant the coveted the interior minister’s seat for Thammanat who has quietly fostered personal ties to the prime minister’s father.
Speculation has been rife and rampant that Thaksin would kick out the 69-MP Bhumjaithai under de facto boss Newin Chidchob and replace the second largest coalition partner with most of the 20-MP Palang Pracharath and six-MP Thai Sang Thai, plus a number of renegade Bhumjaithai and People’s MPs in the new cabinet lineup which could probably occur as soon as after legislation on the 2026 budget has passed an initial approval in the House of Representatives.
Though the total of coalition lawmakers, led by 142 Pheu Thai MPs, would be reduced due to the speculated ouster of Newin’s camp, the de facto Pheu Thai boss would manage to maintain a meagre majority in the House, the partisan source said.
Thaksin would ultimately prefer to tell his youngest daughter-turned-“puppet” prime minister to reshuffle the cabinet rather than to dissolve the House and subsequently call a general election or to resign and be replaced otherwise he would almost immediately lose his grip on government and face doom over his multiple legal battles in court.
The mega-billionaire, power player had been accused of illegally manipulating to use legal loopholes to feign “critical illnesses” to keep himself from being literally put behind bars for a single day at Bangkok Remand prison where he had been destined by an earlier court verdict to otherwise serve a curtailed, one-year jail sentence and instead being granted undue privileges in a premium ward of Police Hospital for a six-month period until he was released on parole early last year.
In addition, Thaksin has been accused by public prosecutors of perpetrating lese majeste by verbally mentioning the monarchy with alleged involvement in the 2006 coup to oust him from elected premiership during an interview with a news agency in South Korea in 2015.
CAPTIONS:
Top and Front Page: Klatham MP Thammanat Prompao. Photos: Thai Rath
Insert: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra. Photo: Thai Rath
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