FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Bogus supporters trouble pro-Prawit campaign

Bogus supporters trouble pro-Prawit campaign

A new campaign has been started on the Change.org website in support of the embattled Deputy Premier and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, calling for him to stay in office amid the scandal connected to his possession of luxury wristwatches.

However, some social media users have complained that their names had been put forward as supporters of the campaign without their consent.
A woman named Sarinee Achavanuntakul said in a Facebook message that her email address had been used without her knowledge to support the campaign. She added that she had later withdrawn her name as a supporter.
As of 1pm on Monday, the campaign was supported by at least 366 people. An observer who asked to remain anonymous said the original number of supporters had been more than 10,000 but many were found to be spam addresses so the number had been revised downwards.
The sponsor of the campaign, which is titled “Supporting General Prawit to remain in office for national security and the live broadcast of the 2018 World Cup”, was not known on Monday.
Prawit has a plan to pool funds from the private sector and the Sports Authority of Thailand to buy the World Cup broadcast rights so that all the matches will be broadcast live on free TV.
The campaign’s page on Change.org said it had been initiated by 250 people three days ago.
Prawit has been hit by a scandal in which he claims that more than 20 luxury watches he has worn over the recent years all belonged to a deceased wealthy friend.
In a separate Change.org campaign initiated by children-rights activist Ticha Na Nakorn, more than 61,000 people have called on Prawit to resign based on comments that he made last month that he would step down if “people do not want him”.
Other surveys have found that most respondents wanted Prawit to step down.

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