The government is running out of good people to work with.
The hostile takeover of the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) by General Prawit Wongsuwan is beginning to backfire.
Replacing an economic tsar like the former Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak was an uphill struggle to begin with but finding a capable person who is willing to work with Prawit has proven to be next to impossible.
But impossible seemed to have been achieved when the news broke that a well-qualified and well-respected person such as Predee Daochai has accepted Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha’s invitation to be the finance minister.
The only people who did not seem to like the appointment was the people inside the ruling party who grumbled about appointing someone from within the party.
It seems the PPRP does not care if the boat sinks as long as they have all the lifeboats.
It was a tough 26 days for Predee as many expected since he was not able to even pick his own deputy minister.
He was stuck with Santi Promphat, a former party-list MP for the Phue Thai Party until the junta’s money lured him (and many others!) to join the very people that carried out a coup against his former party members.
There is no honor among thieves, they say.
The rift was foreseen since the start and it did not take long – less than a month – for the conflict to emerge into the public sphere.
That it would so spectacularly backfire was a surprise but the end result was predicted by many.
The final straw was the appointment of the new director-general of the Excise Department.
Predee wanted someone who could do the job to take the position but Prawit wanted to install someone else.
At the same time, the people in the country continue to suffer from the economic downturn brought about by the previous economic team – who all decided to jump ship even though they were the ones to steer it into the storm in the first place.
Prawit wanted to surround the entire government with a bunch of ‘yes men and followers’ in order to reap as much reward as possible before this regime comes to an end.
It is obvious that the man with 25 watches knows no bounds or limits in accumulating his power.
Now, any new stimulus measures that were coming is derailed, at a time when the economy needed it the most.
The only thing that can save the economy right now is government spending but the coup-makers and politicians are still fighting to put their hands on the coffer.
If you ask me, it was obvious why Predee left. He did not want to get himself and his reputation mixed in any further with these bunch of thieves and thugs led by Prayut and his goons.
And now, we lost a capable person and we are back to the same discussion of who is going to be the leader of this new economic team.
The game of hot potato continues.
