What happens in parliament is exciting, but General Prayut Chan-o-cha still has the votes.
What happens behind the parliament is riveting, because it\u2019s allegedly a bid to remove the votes from the general.
Of course, MP Thamanat Prompow denied everything, saying bootlickers slobbering over the boss\u2019s feet are spreading a false rumor.
The rumor:
The MP is accused of passing out \u201cbananas\u201d to coalition partners in exchange for the no-confidence vote against the general. He\u2019s allegedly striking deals with Pheu Thai Party. The goal is to place himself in the second most powerful government job, Interior Minister.
However, MP Thamanat yesterday said he has no such plan:
\u201cAs the son of farmers, a rural boy, poor, today I serve the nation and the people. This is the highest point in my life.\u201d
The psychology behind the rumor:
Everyone excepts for hardcore bootlickers knows the general can\u2019t cut it anymore. The country is falling apart and the 250 senators\u2019 power to elect the prime minister will end after the next election.
Those looking for a long political career will go down with the sinking ship that is the Prayut Regime once election rules return to normal. Normal means: no 250 senators, just regular vote-buying.
So what do you do?
You were born into a poor family and achieve the \u201cThai Dream\u201d of becoming the boss of a patronage network. You are a hard man from the street who made it in the flour business and done prison time. You know how to work and how to get things done.
Then there\u2019s this pampered, clueless general monopolizing ministerial portfolios at the expense of your patronage network.
Solution? Get rid of the general. Make a deal to throw the support of your entire network to the replacement prime minister. The price? Interior Ministry portfolio.
If the plan works, then like much else in Thai politics, a rumor becomes reality. If the plan doesn\u2019t work, then a rumor is just a rumor.
And of course, all this is just a rumor.
Really, it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What happens in parliament is exciting, but General Prayut Chan-o-cha still has the votes. What happens behind the parliament is riveting, because it\u2019s allegedly a bid to remove the votes from the general. Of course, MP Thamanat Prompow denied everything, saying bootlickers slobbering over the boss\u2019s feet are spreading a false rumor. The rumor: The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,36,12,34,14,13],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thisurpt","tag-250-senators","tag-prayut-chan-o-cha-2","tag-thailand","tag-thamanat-prompow","tag-thisrupt","tag-whatshappeninginthailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}