Tripartite whips agree on 29-hour debate for new govt’s policy

The tripartite whips agreed on Monday to allocate 29 hours over Thursday and Friday for the debate on the new government’s policy.

The timeframe was agreed upon during a meeting of coalition chief whips, as well as the opposition and Senate whips, which was mediated by Parliament President Wan Muhamad Noor Matha.

Present at the meeting was chief opposition whip Pakornwut Udompipatskul, who is People Party’s list MP, chief coalition whip Wisut Chainarun, who is Pheu Thai party-list MP, and Senator Wuthichart Kalayanamitr, chief Senate whip.

After the meeting, Wan Noor informed the press that all sides had agreed to allocate 29 hours to the policy debate, of which six hours will be given to the prime minister, 13 to the opposition, four and a half hours each to coalition MPs and senators. The remaining one hour will be allocated to the management of the joint House-Senate meeting.

Wan Noor said the meetings on Thursday and Friday start at 9am and run until midnight on both days.

Pakornwut said some micro opposition parties have already asked for a spot in the debate, though Palang Pracharath and Thai Sang Thai parties have not yet coordinated with the People Party for their share of the debate time.

He said that the opposition has agreed to grant more time to the Cabinet and premier for the debate because it wants the government to have enough time to answer the questions that will be raised at the debate.

Pakornwut added that Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s policy statement is not very different from that of her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin. However, he noted that the draft policy statement does not mention some urgent issues and policies that were in Srettha’s statement.

He added that the opposition hopes Paetongtarn and her Cabinet will use the debate time to clear doubts on key policies.