PM defends new Cabinet line-up ahead of likely third reshuffle
Play
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has insisted that her new Cabinet line-up, in which there were a total of 16 portfolio changes, is appropriate for reviving the country's economy following last year's massive floods.
In the new line-up, Kittirat Na Ranong is named as finance minister as well as deputy premier, replacing Thirachai Phuvanart Nala-nuban, who lost his Cabinet post after only four months in office.
Kittirat, former president of Shinawatra University, now has a clear mandate to implement the Pheu Thai Party’s policies, especially the transfer of Bt1.14-trillion in public debt legacy to the Bank of Thailand.
Besides the debt transfer, Kittirat is now responsible for issuing Bt350 billion in government bonds to finance urgent and long-term flood prevention projects, to prevent a repeat of last year’s disastrous floods, which badly damaged factories in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani provinces, as well as the overall economy.
Kittirat will also have to work with the Bank of Thailand on the provision of another Bt300 billion in soft loans to businesses and industries damaged by the floods.
All these policies are being implemented via the issuing of emergency decrees, which will be effective after they are announced in the Royal Gazette.
Premier Yingluck also defended the qualifications of some new Cabinet members, saying that Nutthawut Sai-Krue, for example, is well qualified to be a deputy agriculture minister due to his understanding of farmers’ issues.
Nutthawut was a key leader of the red-shirt movement, which helped the Pheu Thai Party win the July 3 election last year.
Regarding Nalinee Taweesin, the new PM’s Office minister, who is on a US blacklist due to her alleged business dealings with Zimbabwe, Yingluck said the blacklist will not affect the new minister’s work and the appointment is legal under Thai law.
Yingluck also plans to meet leaders of the armed forces to explain the appointment of ACM Sukumphol Suwannatat as the new defence minister. Sukumphol, formerly the transport minister in the first Yingluck Cabinet, is a close ally of fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinwatra.
Sukhumphol is tasked with amending the Defence Ministry Act to increase the defence minister’s powers in the annual military appointments.
Like her first Cabinet of only four months’ duration, the second Yingluck Cabinet is not expected to last long, either, largely because in May this year a group of 111 veteran politicians, including heavyweights who worked with Thaksin when he was in office, will be free to take up political posts after serving bans.
Thaksin, who lives in exile in Dubai and plays a key role behind the Cabinet line-ups, is expected to push for another Cabinet reshuffle in June this year following the end of the ban on the 111 politicians who were former executive members of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai and related parties.
Thai Rak Thai and related parties were disbanded by the Constitution Court in 2007 due to election fraud, and their executive members were banned from politics for five years.
In other words, both the Yingluck 1 and Yingluck 2 Cabinets are Thaksin’s short-term political maneouvres to reward both MP and non-MP supporters who helped his sister and the Pheu Thai Party win the last election.
Once the 111 politicians – who are much more experienced than the current Cabinet members – are free to participate in politics, at least a few of them will join the third Yingluck Cabinet.
