Yingluck courts foreign media

FORMER PRIME minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday welcomed foreign media and a select group of Thai reporters to her house.

She also showed off her organic vegetable garden and then mixed a salad dressing for the guests. 

This is her second attempt at reaching out to the media after keeping a low profile for quite some time. 

Recently Yingluck has stepped up her campaign by giving interviews to foreign news agencies, including the Wall Street Journal and Singapore’s The Straits Times.

“People in power thought I would be an obstacle or a source of conflict, so I kept quiet,” Yingluck told the Wall Street Journal in an interview on Wednesday. She also referred to rumours that she may try to flee the country saying, “I’ve never once thought about running away, even after the coup. But I’ve stayed quiet for long enough, and I need some space to give my side.”

Talking to the Straits Times, Yingluck implied that she may court more publicity. “I tried to keep a low profile for almost two years. We let the government run the country,” she said. “But sometimes we need to speak out because we worry about misunderstandings of the public.”

A source said that Yingluck yielded to repeated requests from the foreign media outlets – Wall Street Journal, CNN and Straits Times – to have interviews with her. “They complained that Yingluck only cared about the Thai media,” the source said.

Yingluck chose the three media outlets because their questions submitted to her staff mostly focused on her life after the coup and her legal case involving the rice-pledging scheme, according to the source. Other media outlets, who were not chosen, had submitted questions that seemed to pit her against the junta, the source added.However, yesterday’s move may anger the junta that toppled her administration in May 2014, as on the previous occasion when she welcomed Thai media on January 8.

At that time, junta chief and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had cynically and angrily asked a female reporter on the Government House beat who had attended Yingluck’s interview: “Is it good? I know what you did.” Prayut did not mention Yingluck’s the reporter’s names when making the remarks. He also told the reporter that he was aware Yingluck had given Buddha images to reporters who attended the first get-together. A day later, the same female reporter protested to a government-run complaint centre that she had seen a group of soldiers near her house. Prayut reacted to the complaint by saying that maybe soldiers liked that reporter. 

Yingluck is facing a charge of negligence in the controversial rice-pledging scheme during her tenure as the premier that cost the country Bt250 billion in damages. She said her Pheu Thai Party still has a lot of supporters.

Yesterday morning, she chaired a signing ceremony of a technical and research agreement between her family’s Shinawatra University and a research institute in Italy at the university’s compound in Pathum Thani province. She refused to answer reporters’ queries about the charge she faces, saying she will answer in court at the second hearing of her trial next Wednesday.

In a related development, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan yesterday said he was not surprised by Yingluck’s interview with foreign media. “We know about it. Nothing special,” he said. General Prawit also said that he did not think Yingluck’s latest move would affect Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s trip to the United States, where Asean leaders are to meet with US President Barack Obama for the US-Asean Summit.

Democrat Party politician Warong Dechgitvigrom yesterday said it seemed that certain Pheu Thai Party figures were trying to misinterpret the results of a government fact-finding committee for their own benefit.

The panel probing the civil liability in connection with the Pheu Thai-led government’s rice-pledging scheme had concluded that rice farmers benefited from the difference in prices. But the panel later said Yingluck should be held responsible for an estimated Bt250 billion in damage caused to the state coffers. Warong said yesterday that Pheu Thai politicians should not attempt to play up a small issue for the party’s benefit.