Dogmatix

Thaksin failed to mention that he only appointed Prawit commander-in-chief reluctantly because he put his totally unqualified and incompetent cousin Chaiyasit Shinawatra in the job but Chaiyasit messed things up so badly in the South and other areas that he became an embarrassment to Thaksin and had to be fired.

Justice delayed is justice denied. In this case it is not an attempt to provide justice to the victims but a political swipe at Pravit who was commander-in-chief at the time and took no meaningful action after the event.

The OP doesn't specify what this withholding tax is. Is the withholding tax on interest or some other tax. Without knowing what tax is referred to makes the article meaningless.

A case of the pot calling the kettle black. Prawit did managed to get his brother's former assistant appointed as chairman of the NAAC. So he got what he wanted and avoided prosecution over the watches as a result.

Pita is removing himself from the scene to take up a postgrad fellowship at his alma mater, Harvard. Can't really blame him after a 10 year ban but what a loss from the Thai political scene.

The problem is that gun laws are not properly enforced allowing about 6 million unregistered guns to be circulating around Thailand.

Pythons have nasty bacteria in their teeth. I hope he doesn't have to have his scrotum and its contents amputated after this.

Of course it is not her decision. Perhaps a couple of token youngsters who are children or nieces or nephews of old style politicians will be included but the political factions are all control by the dinosaurs and won't stand for it, if they are excluded.

this is going to be entertaining. She is walking on a knife edge with the ludicrous digital wallet scam. It is PT's "flagship" policy and electoral pledge and millions of Thais have already registered for it, including many who borrowed from loan sharks to buy a smart phone to register. On the other hand whoever approves the project risks either going to jail or being banned from politics or both and Thaksin's enemies will be working overtime on this now his daughter is in their sights. This was a hit that Thaksin was happy for Srettha to take but now it is his last remaining card, Ung Ing, he has got cold feet. Ung Ing is going to have to pull it in its present form and water it down further and divert it to something else to try to avoid legal pitfalls. this will entail further delays and loss of credibility and might not avoid legal problems anyway. Serves Thaksin right for thinking up such an albatross of a flagship policy and makes very clear that all the decent economic and marketing advisors deserted him long ago, if the ones he has left couldn't come up with anything better than the digital wallet.

There are several ministers from the Srettha cabinet with unethical backgrounds. Thammanart was in prison in Australia for drug smuggling and was accused of murder. Chada, the deputy interior minister, has also been accused of murder and has been involved in weapons charges. There are probably many more with unethical backgrounds, if you dig deep enough, including Ung Ing herself. She owns shares in a company that took land from a temple; she was embroiled in an exam fraud scandal in the entrance exam to Chula University and she has proposed reform to Section 112. To be on the safe side she should exclude herself from the cabient.

A certificate of innocence is essential because it is otherwise not clear to most Thais that Thaksin is innocent. He should carry it with him all the time.

I am sure this will run into serious trouble. We haven't even seen the standard backlash from the radical Buddhist groups regarding this sinful pursuit. Someone will whip them up for political purposes soon. They were very forceful about the listing of Thai Beverage (Charoen the whisky tycoon's business) on the SET which would have had zero impact on society and got the listing transferred to Singapore where the stock has languished for years. Casinos are likely to cause a lot of problems and there will be huge corruption and weak law enforcement.

Seems like Thaksin's second pardon is only technical, as it just lets him off his probation two weeks early. It is not like a US presidential pardon that wipes off the criminal record completely. So he is still ineligible for public office thank God. He can be an official advisor to PT though which enables him to speak on politics in public but that is not much different from he has been doing on probation.

And number 2 challenge is Bhumjai Thai.

Money and power. He will demand to keep the Interior ministry and get back the Health ministry and may demand the Transport ministry back too. These are all very lucrative portfolios. Anutin was angry with Srettha for not letting him keep Health and Transport the last time because he (or rather Thaksin) came up with a policy that minister could not get the same ministries again, specifically to thwart Anutin.

So let’s see her cabinet lineup and what’s in her policy statement. if the wallet is binned, there will be a big backlash from people who registered for it and are now concerned about ID theft. Not to mention the poor sods without smart phones who had to borrow from loan sharks to get a smart phone against their handout money to register. Maybe Ung Ing will offer free nights in their Rosewood Hotel or free nose jobs in their Rama 9 hospital in compensation.

The digital wallet may have to be collateral damage because Thaksin can’t take the risk that Ung Ing will get banned due to legal issues to do with the wallet. He was prepared to throw Srettha and Chaikasem under the bus and would probably throw Ung Ing under it too, like he did Yingluck, if that wouldn’t leave him with no PM candidate.

I think it was political pantomime, as everyone in politics knows about her support for 112 reform (and Srettha’s) towards the end of the election campaign when they felt MFP nipping at their heels. Barring Chaikasem was a way to make it clear that Ung Ing is Thaksin’s last bullet and next time it is Anutin’s turn. Anutin has taken control of the senate and has a lot of leverage over Thaksin at the moment. He will drive a hard bargain over portfolios and will probably keep the Interior and take back Health to put an end to Thaksin’s cannabis nonsense. He will have a lot of power and money without the hassle of being a minority party PM. If he had refused to vote for both Chaikasem and Ung Ing, Thaksin might have pressed the suicide switch and got Phumtham, the caretaker PM, to call for general election. Anyway Ung Ing was the PM the coalition leaders reportedly wanted at the outset, believing she would be weaker and more malleable than Srettha. Having said all that, there is nothing to stop other ultra royalists from recirculating Ung Ing’’s clip and pressuring her to resign. Probably Anutin’s next phase will be to shine as a deputy PM to a weak PM, showing his abilities to get goodies for his MPs and prepare to poach Thaksin MPs for the next election.

Here is Ung Ing advocating reform Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the Lese Majeste law last year before the election when MFP appeared to be doing well in the polls with a 112 reform stance. Her ideas are not much different from MFP’s (restrict who can file charges) although she didn’t go into as much detail or put it in writing in the manifesto. Anutin and Pirapan refused vs to vote for Chaikasem on the grounds he had also once proposed reform of 112 when he was PT strategist. This does seem inconsistent of them but perhaps they have not seen this clip yet.

We might be surprised but I wouldn’t give her more than a year. It will probably be quite entertaining at times. She is not very bright like Yingluck but, unlike Yingluck, apparently quite arrogant. Whatever honeymoon period this coalition government may have had under Srettha is long gone.

A real politicical Game of Thrones here. Anutin objected to Chaikasen on the grounds that he once supported the idea of Section 112 reform. But both Ung Ing and Srettha are on video saying they support 112 reform. Close to the 2023 election they realized that MFP was winning at the polls with their pledge to refirm 112 as well as their commitment not to join a coalition with uncle parties. So Srettha and Ung Ing both jumped on the band wagon and said they agreed that 112 reform was necessary and pledged not to join a coalition with. Uncle parties. I suspect we haven’t heard the last of Ung Ing’s support for 112 reform. it is not clear whether this was the result Thaksin really wanted and that Chaikasem was just a smokescreen for Potjaman, who reportedly doesn’t want her daughter to take the heat as PM, or whether Thaksin would have preferred Chaikasem as puppet PM, at least for now. Chaikasem had a serious stroke last April and could probably only work similar hours to Joe Biden with a siesta and afternoon tea break. But Thaksin may have seen Chaikasem as a useful idiot who could take any legal hit for the digital wallet and bring Yingluck home without being accused of nepotism, even if he is too old and infirm to be packed off out of the way on endless road trips like Srettha (and Yingluck before him). Now Thaksin has played his last card in the term of this government and his enemies will work overtime to get Ung Ing out. This will benefit Anutin who raised the objection against Chaikasem and Prawit?will be happy with the downfall of Ung Ing too. Thaksin has to run the risk that Ung Ing will get trapped by the legal issues surrounding the digital wallet and bringing Yingluck home will be harder for a family member to justify. Since Ung Ing lacks basic experience of politics, it will be more obvious that Thaksin is pulling the strings which will enrage his enemies. They already have a sword of Damocles hanging over him with the 112 charge from 2015 which suddenly came out of the woodwork when many, including possibly Thaksin, thought the charge was buried as part of his homecoming arrangements.

Exactly. Srettha was too weak to stand up to Thaksin and refuse to appoint Pichet. Now both Thaksin and Srettha suffer the consequences. Make your own bed and lie in it.

In the UK party leaders tend to voted in by a party members who are usually only a fraction of the party voters. Liz Truss was elected party leader and PM by less than 200,000 Tory Party members.

The Thai commerce ministry is complaining that Chinese-made domestic products are flooding Thai markets at a huge discount compared with Thai-made items. This is complete BS designed to whip up nationalistic political support and to benefit Thai importers. Thailand doesn't manufacture these low end items and is totally dependent on Chinese imports. They want to stop Thais from being able to order them from China directly and force them to buy from a rent collecting Thai chinese middleman with a 30% mark up instead. The result will be inflationary for ordinary Thai consumers.

It's very old fashioned thinking to give Gardasil to girls only. Girls get HPV from boys usually and men get cancer of the penis, throat and anus from HPV. But at least they are trying to vaccinate more people. If anyone wants to get the Gardasil 9 strain vaccine, it is available at the Travel Clinic at Victory Monument for less than private hospitals charge and there is no age limit. https://www.thaitravelclinic.com/cost.html