Thailand: Cabinet ‘image crisis’

• Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is already feeling the heat over his proposed cabinet line-up with questions being asked about the public image of some of the candidates.
• The formal cabinet line-up is still not settled, a source said, adding that some politicians earlier tipped to be made cabinet ministers may let their family members take ministerial posts to act as their proxies.
• One is the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society with PPRP spokesman and former PM’s Office Minister Kobsak Pootrakul earlier expected to take the post. However, reports have emerged of Akkara Prompao now being tipped to for the role.
• Mr Akkara, a former deputy chairman of the Phayao provincial administrative organisation, is a younger brother of Capt Thammanat Prompao, a PPRP MP for Phayao and chief of the PPRP’s strategic committee in the North.
• Capt Thammanat, a former Pheu Thai party list-MP candidate in the 2014 election, is a controversial figure linked to late former army specialist Gen Trairong Intaratat, better known as “Seh Ice”.
• The source said Capt Thammanat was concerned about “a public image problem”, so he decided to let his younger brother take the digital economy and society portfolio instead.

External Link: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/1696864/cabinet-image-crisis