Pressure off govt as Pracha wins vote

The Yingluck Shinawatra government can look forward to an extended period of freedom from parliamentary scrutiny, after Justice Minister Police General Pracha Promnok easily survived the no-confidence debate in the House yesterday, ahead of today’s closing of the parliamentary session.

The next session that allows for a no-confidence or censure debate will start in August.

The next parliamentary session opens December 21, but it is a legislative session, not a session for general debate. 

There is one ticking time-bomb with the potential to threaten the government in the form of street protests: the attempt to help former premier Thaksin Shinawatra return to the country. However, some politicians and political observers expect a major change in Thai politics when the ban on 111 former executive members of the now-defunct Thai Rak Thai Party ends in late May. 

If Thaksin can hold on a bit longer, he might be able to garner some help from those now-banned politicians. 

Opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva proposed the no-confidence debate and the Senate’s impeachment against Pracha as director of the Flood Relief Operations Centre for his alleged failure to solve flood problems and irregularities in distribution of relief supplies.

Pracha received the support of a majority of MPs after the no-confidence debate on Sunday. He received 273 supporting votes, against 188 no-confidence votes. Besides five MPs who abstained, 15 MPs did not vote as they are Cabinet members.

Pracha said he had already done his best to truthfully clarify any doubts and it was beyond his ability to tell people how to think or react. 

Yingluck said after the vote that the government had done its best to serve the people. The debate should have cleared any public doubts, she said, though she did not have any new orders or advice for authorities working on flood-related problems.

Party-list MP and prominent Chart Thai Pattana Party member Sanan Kajornprasart said before the House vote that MPs of his party would certainly vote for Pracha as the party is a member of the Pheu Thai-led coalition government. 

No government MPs voted against Pracha yesterday. Rak Thailand MP Chaiwat Krairiksh voted for Pracha despite the no-confidence vote of his party leader, Chuvit Kamolvisit, who had said earlier that he would abstain. 

The five abstentions yesterday were by Purachai Piumsombun of Rak Santi Party, General Sonthi Boonyarat-glin and Anumat Susaro from Matubhum Party, Ruangsak Ngamsompak from Bhum Jai Thai and First Deputy House Speaker Charoen Chankomol from the Pheu Thai Party.

Second Deputy House Speaker Visuth Chainaroon, from Pheu Thai, voted in support of Pracha, while House Speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont did not report his presence at the meeting. 

Suriyasai Katasila, coordinator of the Green Group and a key member of the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy, said he was disappointed in the result. 

He had expected that government MPs would protect Pracha, he said, but his group had followed the debate closely and would file more evidence to support a complaint against Pracha it earlier filed with the National Anti-Corruption Commission.