Rumour mills fired up shortly after Paetongtarn Shinawatra announced that her father Thaksin will end his self-imposed exile and return to Thailand on August 10.

Today (Wednesday) is Thaksin’s 74th birthday and he is said to be in Hong Kong, where he will host a birthday party. It is believed that some senior politicians will travel to Hong Kong to join the celebration for Thaksin.

It is for sure that, when they meet with Thaksin in Hong Kong, high on the agenda will be how to break the ongoing political impasse, which is seeing the Pheu Thai party, so far, failing to convince parties outside the eight-party alliance to join the coalition.

Pheu Thai has tried hard to build a bloc of at least 375 House votes for its prime ministerial candidate so that it would not have to rely on the senators’ support. The party does not want to repeat Move Forward’s failure to gain enough senators’ votes, which sank Pita Limjaroenrat’s dream of becoming the next prime minister.

Some political observers claim that Move Forward may back down from its campaigns to amend the lèse majesté law. All the parties outside the coalition have refused to get involved, because of this policy.

Now that Pheu Thai leads the negotiations in forming the government and Thaksin is known to be the boss behind all Pheu Thai moves, Move Forward has to talk to the right man if it wants to be in the government, said a political observer.

Move Forward’s core members, like Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and secretary general Chaithawat Tulathon, have separately denied that they either travelled to Hong Kong to meet Thaksin or were informed about the trip.

By Marisa Chimprabha