Parliament elects Srettha prime minister
PUBLISHED : 22 Aug 2023 at 17:45
The joint sitting of the House and the Senate on Tuesday evening elected the Pheu Thai Party’s Srettha Thavisin the 30th prime minister of Thailand with 482 votes for and 165 votes against him and 81 abstentions.
There are 500 elected House representatives and currently 249 appointed senators. Mr Srettha needed a simple majority of 375 votes. In the parliament, 728 were present, meeting the needed quorum.
The parliamentary session for the prime ministerial vote started late Tuesday morning. About 11am, Pheu Thai leader Cholnan Srikaew nominated Mr Srettha, a property tycoon, as the sole prime ministerial candidate and the debate involving elected representatives and appointed senators on Mr Srettha’s qualifications for the job followed.
Many parliamentarians said Mr Srettha should have attended the session to introduce himself and his policies and clarify allegations made against him, because he was nominated for a very important position in national administration.
Some parliamentarians voiced concerns about accusations of tax avoidance in land purchases by property developer Sansiri Plc when Mr Srettha was still chief executive of the company.
Senator Wiwat Saengsuriyachat said he had little knowledge about Mr Srettha and the Pheu Thai Party had not distributed a written profile of their candidate to parliamentarians before the prime ministerial nomination.
“I have only seen news reports about him and there were many accusations against him,” Mr Wiwat said.
Suratin Pijarn, leader of the New Democracy Party, said he did not know details about Mr Srettha and was aware only that the prime ministerial candidate “built houses for sale”.
“Will we have to vote for a prime minister as if we are buying a product online?” he said.
He also asked how the Pheu Thai Party would fund its 560-billion-baht digital wallet policy. He doubted he country could afford it, given its present financial status.
Senator Gen Lertrat Ratanawanit said he recognised Mr Srettha’s performance in running Sansiri Plc but Mr Srettha should clarify the allegations against him.
At 2.50pm Pheu Thai leader Cholnan said his party was aware of the allegations against Mr Srettha, but its legal team had already investigated them and found no evidence proving that Mr Srettha had violated any law.
“The allegations have not been proved. So, Mr Srettha is considered as being innocent and honest,” Dr Cholnan said.
Parliament President Wan Muhamad Noor Matha ended the debate on Mr Srettha’s qualifications at 3.11pm and started the voting by calling the names of individual elected MPs and senators.
The voting results were announced about 5.40pm.
Srettha an unlikely PM
Property tycoon will need all his management skills to steer the country and an unwieldy coalition
Srettha Thavisin will need all the skills honed in a successful business career as he prepares to take the helm of an unwieldy alliance of populists and pro-military parties as the 30th prime minister of Thailand.
Until just a few months ago, Mr Srettha was best known as the CEO of Sansiri Plc, one of the country’s biggest property developers. That all changed when he joined the Pheu Thai Party as chief adviser to the so-called Pheu Thai Family and was named one of the party’s three prime ministerial candidates.
Born on Feb 15, 1963 in Bangkok and nicknamed “Nid”, he is the only son of Capt Amnuay Thawisin and Chodchoi Jutrakul. He is related to five Chinese-Thai business families: Yip in Tsoi, Chakkapak, Jutrakul, Lamsam and Buranasiri.
Mr Srettha attended Prasarnmit Demonstration School before leaving Thailand for high school in the United States. He went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s degree in Business Administration and Finance from Claremont Graduate School in California.
He started his career in 1986 as an assistant product manager at the Thailand arm of Procter & Gamble. In 1990, along with some cousins, he founded a company that went on to become Sansiri, eventually growing it into one of the country’s largest property developers.
SET-listed Sansiri last year posted revenue of 34.9 billion baht and net profit of 4.2 billion. Shares in te company rose more than 8% on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on Tuesday, their best one-day performance in nearly seven months.
Mr Srettha, 61, and his wife Dr Pakpilai Thavisin, a specialist in anti-ageing medicine, have two sons, Napat and Warat, and one daughter, Chananda.
Shinawatra connection
While he was never known to be overtly political, Mr Srettha has long been a confidant of both Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, both former prime ministers and key Pheu Thai figures.
However, Mr Srettha was outspoken in his condemnation of the anti-government movement led by Suthep Thaugsuban and the People’s Democratic Reform Committee against the Yingluck government.
After the 2014 military coup by Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, he was among dozens of prominent figures ordered to report in person for “attitude adjustment”.
In November last year, he announced in a tweeted message that he had become a member of Pheu Thai. In March this year he was named the chief adviser to the Pheu Thai family unit and subsequently resigned from Sansiri.
Mr Srettha transferred his shares in a total of 13 companies to a number of other parties including his daughter. The transferred shares in Sansiri alone were worth 1.2 billion baht. He then dedicated his time to campaigning for the May 14 general election when Pheu Thai won 141 seats, 10 fewer than the Move Forward Party.
When Move Forward proved unable to steer its leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, across the finish line to the prime ministership, Pheu Thai was asked to form a government. That culminated on Tuesday — exactly 100 days after 39 million people voted in an election that cost taxpayers 6 billion baht — with Mr Stettha’s election as prime minister.
A devoted fan of the English football club Liverpool who peppers his social media accounts with pictures of dogs, Mr Srettha literally looms over his party colleagues, at a height of 192cm.
Straight talker
A party colleague and two business associates described Mr Srettha as a straight talker who won’t be afraid to speak his mind.
“He hasn’t really adapted to become a politician,” one of the business associates said. “So many politicians don’t feel comfortable around him, they’re afraid they can’t control or influence him.”
While he might be unencumbered by old political obligations, at the same time he lacks a political support base both within the party and the broader public.
This has led to questions about to what extent Mr Srettha can be his own man, especially with the looming figure of Thaksin now back on the scene.
“Srettha is a political outsider,” said Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the faculty of political science at Ubon Ratchathani University.
“His business connections and experience may help his management style and boost economic policies but there is a question whether he is totally independent of Thaksin.”
Thaksin sellout resets Thailandâs topsy-turvy politics
BANGKOK – Topsy-turvy Thailand finally has a new government, a largely pre-ordained configuration built in the name of national reconciliation that nominally unites old foes while perilously pushing a potent new progressive force to the opposition sidelines.
To announce the historic reset, coup-toppled and criminally convicted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra dramatically returned to the kingdom today (August 22) after 15 years in self-exile nominally to begin serving a decade in prison on three separate criminal corruption convictions.
The tenacious ex-telecom tycoon, now 74 and reportedly with health issues, is widely expected to receive lenient treatment, including a potential royal pardon that if granted could serve as the capstone of a wider unspoken deal with the future protection of the monarchy at its core.
In that direction, parliament elected Peua Thai’s Srettha Thavisin as the 11-party coalition’s prime minister, a vote that saw enough of the military-appointed, 249-member Senate choose the ex-property tycoon despite rising allegations of corrupt land deals involving his Sansiri company and tax evasion that could hobble his premiership from the start.
Srettha’s rise ends months of political jockeying after the May 9 election, which the upstart, anti-military and monarchy-challenging Move Forward Party won but failed to form a government over its insistence on amending the royal insult law, known as 112, and its prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat’s reputedly illegal media shareholdings.
The second-placing Peua Thai later abandoned Move Forward and invited the military-aligned Palang Pracharat and United Thai Nation, and conservative-leaning Bhumjaithai, to get the numbers and conservative support needed to win over the Senate, which blocked Pita’s bid but whose power to vote for the premier expires next May.
While Peua Thai has portrayed the accommodation of its past military nemesis as necessary for “stability”, there was widespread speculation well before the May 9 poll – which the party had predicted it would win in a “landslide” – that Thaksin and royalist generals had a behind-the-scenes “reconciliation” deal in the works.
The negotiated settlement was reportedly discussed in a meeting between Thaksin and palace Deputy Lord Chamberlain and ex-army commander General Apirat Kongsompong on Malaysia’s Langkawi island – a secret confab in early May widely reported in the local press and confirmed to Asia Times by several Bangkok-based diplomats.
Those same diplomats and other local observers point to at least three pre-election meetings between Pojaman Na Pombejra, Thaksin’s ex-wife and behind-the-scenes Peua Thai powerbroker, and top palace officials at which the “unity” government deal was reportedly discussed.
Both Thaksin’s Peua Thai (141 seats) and the military’s Palang Pracharat (40) and United Thai Nation (36) join political forces from positions of relative weakness after Move Forward’s (151) shock election win, which saw it take 35 of 36 seats in often conservative-leaning Bangkok and cut into Peua Thai’s geographical strongholds.
Move Forward voted against Srettha on the grounds his assembled coalition would inevitably perpetuate military interests, a no doubt fair critique. A widely circulated but unconfirmed list of Cabinet portfolios showed PPRP receiving the coveted defense and interior ministries while UTN gets energy, in line no doubt with the party’s Gulf Energy billionaire CEO sponsor’s interests.
Peua Thai claimed, perhaps disingenuously, upon the coalition’s announcement that all parties support its agendas and campaign vows, including a populist digital wallet scheme that will gift each Thai 10,000 baht, a near doubling of the daily minimum wage to 600 baht by 2027, and fast, democratic amendment of the military’s 2018 constitution.
The US$16 billion digital wallet policy, true to Thaksin’s populist tradition and anathema to conservatives who have long railed against Peau Thai’s give-away spending schemes that pander to the poor, would require legal amendment of current deficit spending limits to fully implement.
Some thus already anticipate intense intra-coalition infighting over policies, resources and ideology, raising early doubts about the Srettha government’s ability to tackle key economic issues bearing down on the kingdom, ranging from precariously high household debt, lingering financial distress from the pandemic and flagging competitiveness amid accelerating demographic decline.
But the bigger, more consequential question is whether Peua Thai will do the conservative establishment’s bidding against Move Forward, which a recent local opinion poll showed would sweep if new elections were held now. A separate poll over the weekend showed the Peua Thai-military tie-up is already widely unpopular.
Analysts and diplomats believe Move Forward faces possible dissolution in early 2024 on pending accusations its hard drive to amend or even abolish 112 was tantamount to trying to topple the monarchy and thus seditious under Thai law.
There are already murmurs of new political rules in the offing that would effectively bar the rump of a banned Move Forward from quickly reconfiguring under a new party banner, as it did after the dissolution of its predecessor Future Forward in 2020.
The irony of Peua Thai’s overt or tacit support for such moves would be rich after various incarnations of Thaksin’s original Thai Rak Thai electoral juggernaut were dissolved by conservative-backed agencies and courts for various suspect reasons since the original 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin and drove him into self-exile.
The other irony, of course, is that Thaksin was widely and frequently accused by conservatives of being a threat to the crown – a charge he consistently denied despite the known anti-monarchy elements in his inner and outer circles. He and his Peau Thai are now well-positioned to serve as protectors, rather than disruptors, of the monarchy.
It was lost on few observers that Thaksin’s first act upon arriving at Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport today (August 22) was to prostrate himself before a massive yellow-bordered portrait of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida, with at least two royal pins prominent on his suit jacket’s lapel.
One social media post noted they were the exact same pins recently worn by Vajiralongkorn’s estranged second son Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse, who likewise recently returned to Thailand after 23 years abroad amid feverish speculation he may be rehabilitated to play a key monarchical role or even be groomed as a potential heir to the throne.
But he also wore a red tie, a nod to his Red Shirt supporters who gathered at the airport hoping to steal a glimpse of the aged populist before being carted off to court then prison. It’s still unclear how much popular and political support Thaksin and Peua Thai will lose with the embrace of the generals his supporters have long loathed.
And it wasn’t long ago, on September 19, 2020, the 14th anniversary of the 2006 coup, when Red Shirts lent their numbers to student demonstrators then agitating for monarchical reforms from Bangkok’s Sanam Luang – where one rally cry to return the nearby Grand Palace to the “people” elicited a Red Shirt roar of approval.
But the orange-shirted protest movement that can be expected to form, rage and agitate against any move to dissolve the popular Move Forward will likely be more genuine and possibly more potent than any the Red Shirts mustered, which despite their pretensions to democracy always suffered from the taint of Thaksin’s self-interest.
Pheu Thai’s Srettha Thavisin to become Thai PM after winning parliament vote
BANGKOK: Real estate mogul Srettha Thavisin won the backing of Thailand’s parliament on Tuesday (Aug 22) to become prime minister, paving the way to a new coalition government and an end to weeks of uncertainty and political stalemate. Srettha, who was thrust into the spotlight just a few months agoContinue Reading
Srettha Thavisin to become Thai PM after securing endorsement of parliament
BANGKOK: The Pheu Thai Party’s Srettha Thavisin will become Thailand’s prime minister after winning the backing of lawmakers on Tuesday (Aug 22) in a joint vote of the bicameral parliament. Srettha, a real estate mogul thrust into politics just a few months before a May general election, passed the thresholdContinue Reading
Thaksin has own room on prison medical ward
Corrections officials discuss treatment plan for 74-year-old with heart and lung problems
Thaksin Shinawatra is in a private room on the medical ward of Bangkok Remand Prison and being monitored around the clock because four underlying health conditions including heart and lung problems, the head of the Department of Corrections said on Tuesday.
Aryut Sinthoppan briefed journalists on the department’s plans for the 74-year-old inmate after the former prime minister was brought to the prison following his sentencing to eight years in jail by the Supreme Court earlier in the day — Thaksin’s first back in Thailand in 15 years.
Mr Aryut said the prison would provide proper security for Thaksin and ensure appropriate living conditions, food, drinking water and visits.
Since Thaksin is likely to be visited by family members, close associates and people from various organisations, he will be provided with an appropriate space to meet with them.
Moreover, since Thaksin is an elderly person, his health will be closely monitored to ensure proper medical care.
Doctors from the Department of Corrections Hospital have examined Thaksin and found him to have four underlying diseases, said Sithi Sutheewong, deputy director-general of the department.
In accordance with procedure for elderly prisoners with illnesses, Thaksin initially has been put in a separate room on Zone 7, the medical centre of the Bangkok Remand Prison, where he will be monitored around the clock.
It has been widely speculated that the former premier wants his stay behind bars to be as short as possible. He is eligible to apply for a royal pardon from his first day in jail, Mr Sitthi said. The petition may be prepared by Thaksin himself or his relatives.
When a petition is submitted, it will be considered by a committee of the Department of Corrections. The committee will then send it to the Justice Ministry and the prime minister before being forwarded to His Majesty the King for consideration.
Mr Sitthi said there are two types of royal pardons — for people in general and for individuals. Thaksin is in the second category. The entire process may be completed in one to two months, depending on the documents attached and royal discretion.
Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, the government’s legal expert, said earlier that if a pardon is not granted, the applicant has to wait two years before seeking one again.
Wattanachai Mingbancherdsuk, director of the Department of Corrections Hospital, said Thaksin’s medical records indicate he suffers from four underlying conditions — heart disease, a lung ailment, high blood pressure and spondylosis, or degeneration of the bones and discs in the spine.
In light of those conditions, Thaksin is considered in a vulnerable group, requiring close surveillance, he said.
Nastee Thongplad, chief of the Bangkok Remand Prison, said all inmates, including Thaksin, are required to keep their hair short and wear a white shirt.
The room where Thaksin is staying has electric fans but no air-conditioner, with an adjoining room for doctors, he added.
Other high-profile prisoners currently serving time in Bangkok Remand Prison include Boonsong Teriyapirom, a former commerce minister in the Yingluck Shinawatra government. He was sentenced to 48 years after being found guilty of corruption in the government rice-pledging scheme. Following royal pardons and reductions of jail terms on various occasions, his term has been shortened and he is due to be released on April 21, 2028.
Also serving time is Tarit Pengdit, former director-general of the Department of Special Investigation. He was sentenced to two years in jail by the Supreme Court for unfairly pursuing murder charges against former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his then-deputy Suthep Thaugsuban for ordering the crackdown on red-shirt protesters during the violent rallies in Bangkok in 2010.
Capitaland Retail Management fined S$24,000 after cleaner dies falling through Tampines Mall false ceiling
SINGAPORE: Capitaland Retail Management was fined S$24,000 (US$17,716) for breaching workplace safety and health regulations on Tuesday (Aug 22) after a cleaner died in 2020 when he fell through a false ceiling in Tampines Mall.
The 26-year-old foreign worker had been performing cleaning works in the wee hours of Jan 25, 2020 along with his team when he fell through the false ceiling of the fifth floor and landed on the third floor.
He was taken to hospital but died of multiple injuries that same morning.
A representative for Capitaland Retail Management said the company was pleading guilty to one charge under the Workplace Safety and Health (General Provisions) Regulations pertaining to lighting, and another under the Workplace Safety and Health (Work at Heights) Regulations 2013 pertaining to inadequate guardrails.
The court heard that Capitaland Retail Management, which runs Tampines Mall, had hired Cleaning Express to perform cleaning works on aluminium louvres at the fifth level of the mall.
The cleaning was to be carried out in a room on the fifth floor that had a catwalk and a concrete walkway.
A team of workers arrived at about 11pm on Jan 24, 2020 and they had a toolbox meeting before starting work.
After having supper, the team resumed their work, with the deceased sweeping a concrete walkway that was in the room on the fifth floor with a broom and dustpan.
At about 1.10am on Jan 25, 2020, the cleaning team heard a breaking sound. One of the cleaners turned around and saw a hole, but did not see the deceased.
The Manpower Ministry prosecutor said investigations showed that there was an opening in the guardrail along the concrete walkway through which a person could fall.
Although there were lightbulbs in the room, the lighting was below the recommended level and visibility was poor, she added.
She sought a fine of between S$12,000 and S$15,000 for each of the two charges.
MITIGATION
Defence lawyer Paul Sandosham stressed that this case involved the contravention of Workplace Safety and Health regulations, and not the Act itself.
He said there was “no suggestion on any causal links between my client’s offences and the fatality”, adding that “these are regulatory offences”.
He explained that the aluminium louvres of the mall were cleaned once a year. The room that enabled access to them was locked and accessible only by trained personnel.
Mr Sandosham said that all work was to be done on the catwalk, and no work was to be done on the concrete walkway. He said the deceased was last seen in an area that was out of bounds.
“He shouldn’t have been there at all. No one is supposed to go there,” he said, citing a previous report by TODAY that quoted the cleaning company as saying they were investigating why the deceased was working in an area that he was briefed not to enter.
On the lighting, he said the workers were supposed to be provided lights on top of the fluorescent lights in the room, and ambient light from the mall would also come through.
Mr Sandosham said the cleaning team was required only to clean the louvres, and not the concrete walkway.
District Judge Ronald Gwee said some of the arguments were akin to blaming the victim for the position he was in.
Mr Sandosham then said that his client accepted “that there has been a fatality”, but wanted the court to understand the nuances of the situation.
This was not a situation where his client “did nothing”, he said, adding that there were risk assessments and a briefing done.
In response, the prosecutor said that workers should not be working in “drastically poor lighting”.
In sentencing, the judge noted that if the charges had been under the Workplace and Safety Health Act itself, they would have carried “much heavier penalties”.
“But it was clear that in not providing the sufficiently safe rails … this work area had been rendered potentially unsafe,” he said.
Looking at photos of the area before and after remedial action was carried out, the judge said it was clear that the before picture showed “a potentially unsafe and possibly dangerous place for anyone to work in”.
“So while the defence is saying they can’t explain why the employee of the cleaning contractor was in that area, that really begs the question of why that area was not shown to be out of bounds, even though work was not meant to be done there by the cleaning contractor,” said Judge Gwee.
“What I have to bear in mind was whether the breach of regulation rendered that area unsafe. One has to consider the degree of danger that inaction in the part of any occupier may result in,” he said.
Thailand’s Red Shirts return to streets to welcome Thaksin home
BANGKOK: Red Shirt demonstrators poured onto Bangkok’s stifling concrete streets Tuesday (Aug 22) to welcome home their hero Thaksin Shinawatra, more than a decade after they brought the capital to a standstill with mass protests in his name.
Hundreds travelled through the night from the northeastern provinces, where the former prime minister still commands deep loyalty, to dance and sing as Thaksin returned to the kingdom for the first time since 2008.
A few were rewarded with a glimpse of the 74-year-old as he emerged briefly at Don Mueang airport before being whisked off to jail for criminal convictions passed in his absence.
Some wore elaborate outfits, older women with immaculately made-up faces crinkling as the heat and their enthusiasm increased, and all were decked out in red – the signature colour of Thaksin’s supporters.
“I just want to see his face,” 57-year-old retiree Panee Lobtong told AFP after taking an overnight bus from northern Chiang Mai.
Behind her, red signs proclaimed “Thaksin Shinawatra, the PM in our hearts” and celebrated his “return to the motherland”.
But Chawang Kaewsiri, 74, who travelled with her, was worried Thaksin could face years in prison.
“Anything could happen,” he said.
North Korea airline flies first international flight since Covid
Getty ImagesNorth Korea’s flagship carrier has flown its first international flight since the pandemic.
Air Koryo’s JS151 left Pyongyang Tuesday morning and landed at Beijing Capital Airport at 09:16 local time (01:16 GMT), data from real-time flight tracking service Flightradar24 showed.
It is unclear who was on board or how many passengers JS151 was carrying.
Travel agency Koryo Tours said the Pyongyang-Beijing route was reopened as a means for North Koreans to get home.
According to Flightradar24, flight JS151 was flown on a Tupolev Tu-204 aircraft, which can carry up to 210 passengers.
It is unclear how many passengers were on board the plane, scheduled to depart for Pyongyang from the Chinese capital at 13:05.
But Kyodo News reported that Air Koryo’s check-in counter at Beijing airport was packed with passengers wearing North Korean flag pins on their chests and pushing trolleys full of baggage.
On Monday, the Chinese foreign ministry said it had approved the resumption of Air Koryo flights to Beijing, more than three and a half years after they were halted due to Covid border closures.
Pyongyang has only recently resumed limited international passenger travel.
Last week, a group of North Korean athletes crossed the border into China, on their way to the Taekwondo world championships in neighbouring Kazakhstan.
Russian and Chinese delegations were also in the North Korean capital in July to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, the first known foreign groups to be invited to the country since 2020.
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Pakistan cable car incident as rescue under way for eight people trapped
Pakistan National Disaster Management AgencyA rescue is under way in Pakistan for eight people – including six children – trapped in a cable car dangling over a valley in the country’s north-west.
The children were making their way to school when one of the cables snapped, leaving the car hanging 274m (900 ft) above ground, officials said.
Pakistan’s acting PM has ordered rescuers to attend the “really alarming” incident in Battagram.
Military helicopters have reached the car but the rescue’s status is unclear.
The eight passengers were trapped for more than four hours before a military rescue helicopter arrived, local media outlet Dawn.com reported. The incident happened at around 07:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Tuesday.
“For God’s sake help us,” Gulfraz, a man stuck in the cable car, told Pakistan television channel Geo News by phone. He confirmed eight people were on board.
“The cable car is stuck in a place where it is almost impossible to help without a helicopter,” Zulfiqar Khan, an official with Pakistan’s 1122 rescue service, told AFP.
A local teacher told Dawn.com that about 150 people take the hazardous journey to school by cable car daily because of a lack of transport infrastructure in the area.