People’s Party deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakul today insisted on maintaining the Opposition’s position of not removing former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s name from its censure debate motion.
This stance openly defies the House Speaker’s order to delete Thaksin’s name. Sirikanya asserted that the motion is perfectly legal.
However, she said the party will meet with House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha this week in an attempt to resolve the conflict.
“My party will not give up its bid to censure Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra during this parliamentary session,” she said.
She also noted that the party will have to wait and see if or how the conflict can be resolved, adding that some people have suggested replacing Thaksin’s name with terms like “You Know Who” or “That Man.”
The no-confidence debate is tentatively set to begin on March 24.
Earlier, Muk Sulaiman, Secretary to the House Speaker, said that the Opposition has until next Monday to resubmit its censure debate motion; otherwise, it will not be debated in Parliament, as the current session ends on April 10.
House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha returned the original motion to Opposition leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut of the People’s Party last week, requesting the removal of any reference to Thaksin.
Wan Muhamad stated that mentioning Thaksin, an outsider, would violate parliamentary meeting regulations, but Natthaphong refused, arguing that outsiders have been named in no-confidence debates in the past.
Wan Muhamad has implied that he will not add the motion to Parliament’s agenda if Thaksin’s name remains.
Muk said yesterday that the department handling Parliament’s meetings has already reviewed the records and found no previous instances where outsiders were directly named.
“In the past, what was mentioned were references to family members or former members, but not their names directly,” Muk said.
The Secretariat of the House of Representatives will notify the Opposition this week that it must remove Thaksin’s name from the motion and resubmit it immediately so that it can be included in Parliament’s agenda.
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