Opposition Thai Sang Thai sec-gen quits over 3 party MPs pro-govt votes
Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the opposition Thai Sang Thai Party, stepped down to take responsibility for the three wayward party MPs who voted in support of the government’s budget bill.
Party director Narong Rungtanawong said Takorn will retain his MP seat and party membership.
The secretary-general submitted his resignation to Thai Sang Thai leader Sudarat Keyuraphan shortly after noon on Saturday. His letter mentioned the incident in which three party MPs went against the opposition line and voted for the budget bill on Friday, Narong said.
The move came a few hours after Sudarat offered a public apology for what happened. In a Facebook post on Saturday morning, she said that voting against the opposition stance violated the party’s regulations. She added that its ethics committee will investigate the matter shortly.
After three days of debate, the House of Representatives on Friday night voted 311-177, with four abstentions, to pass the budget bill.
Thai Sang Thai has six MPs – five from constituencies and one from the party-list system.
In his resignation, Takorn said that as party secretary-general, he had called a meeting with the MPs and instructed them to vote in line with the opposition’s resolution, Narong said.
“However, it turned out that three Thai Sang Thai MPs voted in support of the budget bill, which was against the opposition parties’ resolution. Therefore, I would like to take responsibility by resigning as Thai Sang Thai secretary-general from this moment onwards,” Takorn’s resignation stated.
Takorn is the only Thai Sang Thai party-list MP, taking up the seat after Sudarat resigned in July, less than two months after the May 14 general election. He was the first National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) secretary-general, serving for two terms between 2012 and 2020.
