Pheu Thai’s de facto leader Thaksin Shinawatra has blamed the party’s failure to win a landslide in last year’s general election on his daughter Paetongtarn’s maternity leave.
Paetongtarn is the Pheu Thai leader and now the 31st prime minister of Thailand.
He was asked, while on stage at a dinner talk, whether he is confident that the Pheu Thai will win the most seats in the next general election.
He responded that he thinks it is a high possibility. “In the last election, if Pheu Thai’s leader had not taken a maternity leave for ten days during the campaign, we would certainly have won,” he claimed.
At that time, her maternity leave caused the party’s popularity to weaken, the PM’s father said.
“If she had continued campaigning until the polls closed, we would have won, according to our internal polling,” he added.
Paetongtarn gave birth to a baby boy, her second child, on May 1 of last year, just a fortnight before polling day on the 14.
Paetongtarn named her second child as Phruethasin and nicknamed “Thasin” in honour of her father,
The now-defunct Move Forward party won 151 parliamentary seats, while his Pheu Thai won 141.
