The new cabinet is 80 per cent complete and the
final line up is expected to be forwarded to His Majesty the King for
endorsement on one or two days, Prime Minister-elect Yingluck Shinawatra
said on Monday.
Yingluck Shinawatra
She said there would be four non-MPs in the cabinet.
The ministers in charge of the Tourism and Sports, Agriculture and
Cooperatives, and Culture ministries would definitely be from the Pheu
Thai and other coalition parties.
The ministers in charge of economic ministries would be well-versed
in economic issues and had already begun bringing themselves up to date
with their portfolios, Ms Yingluck said.
Asked about outsiders who had been invited to take the economic
portfolios but had turned them down, Ms Yingluck said it was not
because they were not sure whether they would be capable enough to
implement the government's policies. Some of them held different
opinions from those of the party.
On the push by the party's northeastern MPs for cabinet posts, Ms
Yingluck said the party was not allocating ministerial posts by quota,
but she would try to ensure there were cabinet ministers from all
regions because they were the people who best understood the people's
problems.
She denied a report that Pol Gen Priewpan Damapong might be
appointed to replace Pol Gen Wichean Potephosree as national police
chief.
People who were still capable of performing their duties would not be replaced, she added.
Sumeth Phomanee
ACM Sumeth Phomanee, a Pheu Thai party list MP, said on Monday the
person most likely to take the post of transport minister in the new
cabinet was Air Chief Marshall Sukampol Suwannathat.
ACM Sukampol, like ACM Sumeth, was a classmate of former prime
minister Thaksin Shinwatra at Class 10 of the Armed Forces Academies
Preparatory School.
ACM Sumeth was earlier tipped to take the transport portfolio but
said he was no longer a candidate for the post, which was most likely to
go to his friend ACM Sukampol.
"That's all right. No problem. We are friends. There is no
competition between friends. If 'Oh' (ACM Sukampol's nickname) gets it,
I would congratulate him. As for myself, being a cabinet minister or
not is not important. I can still work for Thaksin and Pheu Thai," he
said.
ACM Sumeth did not rule out his being appointed to the cabinet. He
said Thaksin sent a message to him via a friend that there was probably
another cabinet position for him.
A source said ACM Sukampol resigned as inspector-general of the Defence Ministry last week. He is due to retire this September.
He is a Class 10 graduate and is close to Thaksin and his ex-wife Khunying Potjaman Damapong.
Unlike ACM Sumeth, who served in the air force ground security force,
ACM Sukampol was an F5 jet pilot. Traditionally, a pilot gains higher
recognition in the air force, the source said.
The source said Thaksin wanted ACM Sukampol to closely supervise the
operations of Suvarnabhumi airport, Thai Airways International and the
Airports of Thailand Plc. In the previous government, these agencies
were under the supervision of the Bhumjaithai Party, whose de facto
leader is Newin Chidchob.
ACM Sukampol, a former air force chief-of-staff, was formerly a
strong candidate for the post of air force commander in chief. However,
after the Sept 19, 2006 coup he was transferred to the post
of assistant air force chief and then inspector-general, and is due to
retire at the end of next month.
With ACM Sukampol now a likely candidate for the transport portfolio,
ACM Sumeth can only hope for the post of a deputy minister of a
ministry, probably defence, the source said.
No comments:
Post a Comment