Thailand opposition to skip debate on no-confidence against Thaksin

The no-confidence debate against Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is now likely to proceed as scheduled on March 24 after the opposition People’s Party (PP) agreed not to mention former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra during the debate.

The decision to stage the debate was made at Thursday’s meeting of the whips of both government and opposition. Also in attendance were Parliament president Wan Muhamad Noor Matha and opposition leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut.

The censure motion will be revised to exclude Thaksin’s name, Mr. Natthaphong said after the meeting, adding that the debate and censure would proceed as planned.

During the debate the opposition would refer to the prime minister indirectly as Thaksin, Mr Natthaphong said.

“I think Thaksin is still a public figure. The media willing to give him that stage, if he wishes to explain himself. He got no need to explain in parliament,” he said.

Mr Natthaphong also said that the opposition begged for 30 hours to grill Ms Paetongtarn in return for refraining from mentioning Thaksin by name in the debate — rejected by government whips.

Government and opposition whips will meet again on Wednesday to decide the timing for the debate, he said.

The sources said the government seeks to restrict the debate to maximum two days and one more day to conduct a confidence vote. The opposition also needs time to reply during the two-day timeframe, said the sources.

Mr Wan had previously warned the opposition not to nominate an outsider if it wants the censure debate to be scheduled.

Mr Wan has told Mr Natthaphong that any mention of Ms Paetongtarn’s father needs to be cut from the motion.

He said a mention of Thaksin — an outsider in the debate — would be a direct attack, in violation of parliamentary meeting regulation No.176.

He also cautioned that a motion that wasn’t amended could leave lawmakers open to defamation suits from outsiders.

The House speaker also said Thaksin could sue him for defamation if he were mentioned in the debate. With that, he ordered the opposition to strike the name of the former prime minister from the motion and that the debate would not go ahead.

However, the opposition has filed an official objection to the request to remove Thakin’s name from the debate, said Arpath Sukhanunth, secretary-general of the House of Representatives.

In that sense, “no one on record ever before named anyone externally,” said Mr. Arpath, but other terms like “family members” or “former members” have been utilized.

Speaking at Government House on Thursday, Ms Paetongtarn said that she had heard that the opposition would refer to her father indirectly as “that man” during the debate.

The no-confidence motion, filed with the parliament president Feb 27, targets the PM and alleges that she has failed to lead the country and has permitted her father, Thaksin, to run the government from behind the scenes.

In response, she said she was prepared to answer all questions in a censure debate and would leave any questions that might relate to ministers to those ministers to answer.

Ms. Paetongtarn said she was confident that the coalition government would prevail against the censure motion because the bloc is strong and united.