Palang Prachachart Thai (ACT) party founder Suthep Thuagsuban has warned against under-estimating fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s tactic of branching out the Pheu Thai into several new parties to contest the election.
“I have sent out a warning before that Thaksin Shinawatra is employing the tactic to splitting a 1,000-baht banknote into several 100-baht banknotes. This cannot be under-estimated because several 100-baht banknotes when putting together may achieve the target of more than 300 MPs,” said Suthep after attending a ceremony to open the new head office of the party on Friday morning.
He cited Thanatorn Jungroongruangkit’s Future Forward party which is targeting young voters, former Pheu Thai MP Wan Muhamad Noor Matha’s party focusing in the Deep South and Ms Yaowapa Wongsawat’s Thai Raksa Chart party as off-shoots of the Pheu Thai party.
He said after the election all these affiliated parties would merge or join forces with the Pheu Thai party to achieve the 300-seat target eligible to form the government.
As far as the ACT party is concerned, Suthep said the party needs not have to adopt such tactic but would stick to its straightforward strategy to make the people feel that politics is not a complicated affairs.
Commenting on the government’s political timeline outlined by Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, the former leader of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee said he felt the timing between the election and the anticipated formation of the new government which was about four months was too long.
He said it took the Democrat party about two months to form a government after the party won the election several years ago.
However, he admitted that today’s politics was more complicated with so many smaller parties and vote counting and seat sharing calculation to determine which parties would get how many seats would be time consuming.
Referring to his 14-day meet-the-people approach to woo new memberships for the party, Suthep said he was welcomed by the people although there were some unpredictable events which, he added, would not discourage him.
