Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra survived a voting non-conflict in the country’s parliament, seeking his dismissal in office that she did not fulfill the functions of his office and acted as an indicator of his father, Thaksin Shinawatra.
During a session today, 387 members of the House of Representatives voted against the motion of non-confidence, against 162 in favor and seven abstentions.
In an article on his accounts on social networks shortly after the vote, the Thai chief said that the vote took place “gently” and that “each vote for or against me was the motivation for us to continue working for the people”, according to the translation published by the correspondent of Channel News Asia Saksith Saiyasombut.
The motion of non-confidence was filed by the opposition People’s Party at the end of February. The party initially intended to censor 10 other ministers, but decided to focus its efforts on the Prime Minister. He accused Paetongtarn of the inability to exercise his functions and said that she was governing under the undue influence of his father, a former Prime Minister who was forbidden to hold his functions due to a past conviction for abuse of power.
According to the constitution of Thailand, a block of at least one fifth of the members of the House of Representatives can bring a vote of non-confidence against an individual minister or the cabinet as a whole. This is then followed by a general debate and a vote in which the motion requires a majority vote to pass.
While Paetongtarn survived the vote, she was forced to absorb the heavy rhetorical shots of the legislators of the people of people during the 30 hours of debate this week. As Ken Mathis Lohatepanont noted it in his detailed summary of the debates, the People’s Party particularly targeted the “great compromise” which helped to secure the dramatic return of Thaein to Thailand in 2023, after 15 years of self-imposed exile.
The return of the former Prime Minister was negotiated within the framework of the post-electoral pact which saw the Thai party of Pheu forming a government with conservative parties and supported by soldiers who were once his bitter enemies. The Pact’s goal was to prevent the progressive party of the future, the predecessor forbidden from the People’s Party, to form the government after the party has unexpectedly won a plurality of the vote in the general elections of May 2023.
Yesterday, in a 100 -minute speech, the legislator of the eminent Rangsiman Rome party allegedly alleged that Paetongtarn and other senior officials had conspired to make sure that Thaksin avoids serving at any time in prison, despite an eight -year sentence from his time in power. (The penalty was reduced by a royal forgiveness, then completely finished in February of last year.)
“Thaksin did not spend a single night in prison due to the Prime Minister and his allies to conclude an agreement which has exchanged national interests for personal purposes, thus undergoing law and the judicial process,” he said, the nation said.
Addressing the Parliament on Monday, the leader of the People’s Party, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, said that the Government of Paetongtarn only exists to guarantee the return of Thaksin, who has since assumed a de facto leadership position within the government.
“We have a leader outside the system … Directing government policies without any responsibility,” Natthaphong said in Parliament, according to Reuters. “Thailand is double loss: one person works without responsibility, another who holds the power of the state lacks qualifications.”
Other party leaders also assailed Paetongtarn for an alleged tax evasion and for living on the recent deportation of Uighur asylum seekers in China. Prawit Wongsuwon, Palalang Pracharath party leader supported by the army, who was part of the Pheu Thai coalition before being expelled last year, also delivered a 10 -minute speech that attacked the performance of Paetongtarn as PM.
Questions about the influence of Thaksin on the Thai Pheu party, and therefore the government, have swirled since its return to Thailand, but have become more insistent since Paetongtarn took office last August, after his predecessor Srettha Thavisin was forced to resign. At just 38, Paetongtarn is the youngest Prime Minister of Thailand and had no experience in the government before its selection as a leader. While Paetongtarn experienced a honeymoon period, largely due to the government’s “digital portfolio” stimulation documents, an investigation into public opinion published in December showed that it had slipped behind Natthaphong from the People’s Party as the first Prime Minister.
As with the four stranded requests without confidence that were attempted against Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who led the 2014 military coup and was the Prime Minister until 2023, the motion of non-confidence against Paetongtarn should not pass. While the People’s Party is the largest party in the Chamber, holding 143 of the 500 seats, the coalition led by Pheu Thai, led by Pheu, has a healthy majority of 321 seats.
However, by obliging the Prime Minister to submit to interrogations by legislators, the motion gave the People’s Party a means of raising questions of national concern and submitting the government to in-depth public grill.
As Lohatepanont noted it in his summary of the events of the week, “bringing the troubled circumstances behind the return of Thaksin to the photo was probably an intelligent political piece for the opposition, because the great compromise between Thaksin and the Conservatives was only Pheu Thai nor the conservative base.”