Thailand’s House voted down the Opposition’s censure motion against Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra during its brief session on Wednesday morning.
House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha started the session at 10 a.m. when 487 House representatives were present.
The House voted against the no-confidence motion by 319 to 162 with seven abstentions. Wan announced the vote result and closed the session right away.
The censure motion was debated on Monday and Tuesday. The Opposition accused the prime minister of lacking the knowledge, maturity and political will needed for the job.
Opposition MPs said her government had not solved key issues including high electricity charges and low farm prices and proceeded with its handout policy despite warnings it would not effectively stimulate the economy.
The Opposition cited incidents it argued showed the prime minister gave either irrelevant or wrong answers to reporters and interviewers. One example was during the prime minister’s presence at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Bangkok last November.
The Opposition recalled Paetongtarn’s comment that a strong baht would benefit Thai exports, and said the prime minister seemed to avoid questions on key economic issues.
Opposition MPs also claimed her coalition government was unlawfully influenced by her father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The Opposition even asked if the prime minister had lied about her father’s health after he was declared seriously ill and stayed in a private ward at the Police General Hospital instead of serving a sentence in prison.
The opposition raised suspicions about the ownership of land incorporated in the family’s Alpine golf resort and her acceptance of shares worth billions of baht from relatives, purchased with promissory notes and without paying gift tax.
Paetongtarn was also grilled about her policy to develop entertainment complexes with legalized casinos.
The Opposition warned the prime minister that this policy would lead the nation into a crisis and have a serious impact on the people.
This article first appeared in the Bangkok Post.
