Global Courant 2023-05-07 14:05:00
NAKHON RATCHASIMA, NONTHABURI and SURAT THANI – The blazing sun began to wane on Saturday as the emcee bellowed into his microphone, “Cheer for our 30th Prime Minister!”
Hundreds of residents gathered in northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima province and clapped and honked as 60-year-old Srettha Thavisin took the stage for the fourth time that day.
The former real estate magnate is not yet prime minister. He is one of three prime ministerial candidates proposed by the Pheu Thai Party, which is expected to win the most seats in Thailand’s May 14 election based on historical precedence and polling. The other two nominees for Pheu Thai are 36-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra and 74-year-old Chaikasem Nitsiri.
With a week to go before Thailand goes to the polls, political parties are scrambling to get their key messages across to Thailand’s 52 million voters.
For Mr Srettha, that means a vision exercise on the party’s pledge to give every citizen aged 16 and over 10,000 baht (S$393) in their digital wallet to spend near their home.
He asked rural residents to think about how their lives could change with such a lump sum compared to the trickle-feeding of social benefits given by the current government to low-income residents.
With 10 people in the family, the amount they receive would total 100,000 baht, he said.
“Think big. What are you going to do with the money?” he said on Saturday, his voice hoarse from weeks of campaigning amid the heat wave, “Think big, have hopes, have dreams.”
The 10,000 baht giveaway, estimated to cost 500 billion baht to implement, is by far the most audacious pledge a party has made in this election. It was welcomed by Pheu Thai supporters still struggling with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, but was labeled as populist by critics.
But Mr Srettha, the US-educated former CEO of listed developer Sansiri, told The Straits Times: “It’s not populist. We take care of people.”
Pheu Thai, which traces its roots to the now-disbanded Thai Rak Thai party led by fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted from government in the 2014 military coup. The generals behind the coup returned to power in the 2019 elections through a new party called Palang Pracharath (PPRP).
For the May 14 election, former army chief and current acting deputy prime minister Prawit Wongsuwan is leading the charge for PPRP. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who led the 2014 coup, is leading the campaign for another new party, the United Thai Nation (UTN).
The current rules mean that the 250-member senate – a hangover from junta rule – will be allowed to determine who becomes prime minister in addition to the elected 500-member lower house after the polls.
Pheu Thai has been dogged by rumors that it could be quietly collaborating with PPRP to secure its tenure. Srettha seemed determined to bury such speculation when asked on Saturday which political factions Pheu Thai was willing to work with.
“We are only working with parties that have the same policy… that are not responsible for the coup,” he told ST.
