Thai Cabinet line-up forwarded for royal endorsement

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has yesterday forwarded to King’s Principal Private Secretary Office the list of members of her new cabinet, for royal endorsement, Ampon Kittiampon, chief of Cabinet Secretariat said.

When speaking to reporters, Prime Minister Ms Yingluck Shinawatra said on Tuesday that she will not take charge of economic affairs, but will let a deputy prime minister do the job.

Ms Yingluck said she would instead oversee the overall performance of economic ministers and push for speedy action to solve problems which require immediate attention.

Furthermore, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra Tuesday dismissed earlier reports that her foreign minister would be a former ambassador.

She said the position would be held by an insider of Pheu Thai party. She declined to reveal the name but said the minister certainly has experiences and capabilities of international relations. "Please wait for a couple of days and I will tell you about the cabinet line-up," she told reporters

She expressed confident that the cabinet once announced, would be acceptable to the people.

In the meantime, The Pheu Thai Party spokesman denied the appointment of cabinet members had been influenced by some banned politicians of the dissolved Thai Rak Thai and People Power parties.

He insisted that party's executives had been the only people who discussed the cabinet portfolios and that the final say rested with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and Pheu Thai leader Yongyuth Wichaidit.

Earlier, the court banned 111 executive members of Thai Rak Thai Party when it disbanded the party in 2007 after finding senior members guilty of election fraud.

They included former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is in self exile abroad.

Thaksin Shinawatra and former Thai Rak Thai executives are currently banned from politics for five years, but he is believed to have played a major role in assigning cabinet portfolios.

Another group of banned politicians are the 109 former executives of the People Power Party, the first re-incarnation of Thai Rak Thai.

Also, the People Power, Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya parties were dissolved in 2008 after being found guilty of election fraud.

- Asian Tribune -