Sudarat or Pongsapat to run in city poll?
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Pheu Thai MPs and Bangkok councillors are preparing to gather signatures in support of Sudarat Keyuraphan as the party's candidate for Bangkok Governor instead of deputy police chief Pongsapat Pongcharoen.
Deputy spokesman Jirayu Huangsap said MPs and councillors would submit an open letter to PM Yingluck Shinawatra and party leader Charupong Ruangsuwan.
A source, who asked not to be named, said the group would also petition to party’s de facto leader Thaksin Shinawatra.
Many sources from the party confirmed Pongsapat, secretary general of the Narcotics Control Board, agreed to run in the poll.
Another source said a meeting of Bangkok MPs, Bangkok councillors and district councillors on Friday, which party secretary-general Phumtham Vechayachai attended, heated up when an MP let slip that Pongsapat would represent the party for the Bangkok governor’s poll. The MP asked colleagues to promote Pongsapat once it was officially announced he would run for the party.
A group of MPs and councillors then said they preferred Sudarat, a former minister, MP and Thai Rak Thai Party executive, the source said. While she was banned from politics for five years after the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai Party, Sudarat remains Pheu Thai’s faction leader in the capital.
